Sports association

This article deals with sports associations in their GDR-specific meaning. For the general meaning see sports club and list of sports club abbreviations .

Mass exercise of the sports associations Vorwärts and Dynamo 1957 in Leipzig

Handball player with the logo of the Lokomotiv sports association (SV Lok) on the chest

Sports associations (SV) were special sports organizations in the GDR sports system , which were classified according to trade union areas. There were 18 sports associations in the GDR, 16 of them civil. The other two were the sports associations of the military ( Army Sports Association Forward ) and the internal security organs ( Sports Association Dynamo ). Almost all sports associations in the GDR were assigned to one of these sports associations. Most of the sports associations were founded in the early 1950s, but were dissolved again in 1957.

history

After sport had initially been organized locally in the Soviet occupation zone , restructuring took place from the end of the 1940s. The sports communities were assigned to sponsoring companies . This was also noticeable externally in the SG name; the designations for the sports communities (for example SG Dresden-Friedrichstadt ), initially based on the pattern “SG + place name (+ district)”, gave way to the abbreviation “BSG” ( company sports community ). Other common abbreviations were ASG (Army Sports Association) and HSG (University Sports Association). As a rule, another part of the name was inserted between the abbreviation and the place name. Following the Soviet model, this was closely related to the trade union area of ​​the respective sponsoring company.

The reason for this was the resolution passed by the German Sports Committee on April 3, 1950, “On the reorganization of sport at the production level”. It envisaged the formation of central sports associations on the basis of the trade union structure in the GDR , with each SV representing a trade union area. All sports communities were given uniform names according to their superordinate sports association. In the period between 1950 and 1957, the sports communities in the GDR were assigned to a total of 18 sports associations. At first the sports associations Wismut, Motor, Lokomotive and Dynamo came into being. According to an analysis written in November 1950, the sports associations steel, activist and unit were about to be founded, the sports associations rotation, chemistry and tractor were later constituted.

With the establishment of the German Gymnastics and Sports Federation in 1957, the GDR sports system was again fundamentally restructured. Since then, the breakdown by type of sport, which was expressed in newly formed sports associations (e.g. the German Handball Federation ), played a more important role than that according to trade union areas. As a result, 14 of the 18 sports associations went into the DTSB district associations in May 1957. In addition to the sports associations Dynamo and Vorwärts, which were only dissolved at the time of reunification , the sports associations of the two large "state corporations" Wismut and Reichsbahn (locomotive) continued to exist with the status of a DTSB district organization. After the existence of the SV, only the names of many company sports associations and sports clubs that came from them were retained.

List of sports associations

logo	Surname	Union area	Establishment date	Membership in 1954	Examples
	activist	IG Mining	May / June 1950	54,170	BSG activist Zwickau BSG activist Black Pump SC activist Brieske-Senftenberg
	anchor	Shipyards	September 1, 1950	-	BSG Anker Wismar
	construction	Construction and wood industry	15./16. September 1951 in Magdeburg	53,700	SC construction Magdeburg BSG construction Krumhermersdorf BSG construction Boizenburg
	chemistry	IG Chemistry, Glass and Ceramics	August 1950	72,000	Hallescher FC Chemie BSG Chemie Premnitz BSG Chemie Böhlen
	German People's Police	People's Police	June 21, 1950, was merged with SV Dynamo in 1953	-	SG German People's Police Potsdam SG German People's Police Dresden
	dynamo	Internal security organs ( MfS , customs administration , people's police )		55,699	SG Dynamo Dresden BFC Dynamo SC Dynamo Klingenthal
	unit	IG administration, banks and insurance	May / June 1950	100,000	SC unit Dresden BSG unit Greifswald BSG unit Wernigerode
	Up	IG trade	Establishment resolution on October 31, 1950, establishment by the end of March 1951	85,000	SC Empor Rostock BSG Empor Lauter BSG Empor Löbau
	progress	IG textiles, clothing, leather	At the beginning of February 1951 in Neugersdorf	66,000	SC progress Weissenfels BSG progress Bischofswerda BSG progress Cottbus
	locomotive	IG Railway	June 5th 1950	85,700	1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig BSG Lokomotive Magdeburg BSG Lokomotive Stendal
	mechanics	IG Metall - metal industry		-	BSG Mechanics Arnstadt
	medicine	Healthcare Union	At the beginning of December 1951 in Erfurt	28,000	BSG Medicine Markkleeberg BSG Medicine Luckau BSG Medicine Berolina Berlin
	engine	IG Metall - automotive industry, mechanical engineering	May / June 1950	173.770	SC Motor Jena BSG Motor Zwickau BSG Motor Altenburg
	post Office	Post and telecommunications	September 30, 1951 in Halle	22,000	BSG Post Neubrandenburg BSG Post Schwerin BSG Post Jena
	rotation	IG printing and paper	July 1950 in Berlin	31,600	SC Rotation Leipzig BSG Rotation Berlin BSG Rotation Babelsberg
	steel	IG Metallurgy	November 4, 1951 in Leipzig	30,000	BSG Stahl Riesa BSG Stahl Brandenburg BSG Stahl Eisenhüttenstadt
	tractor	IG forestry and agriculture	June 1950	140,000	SC Tractor Schwerin SC Tractor Oberwiesenthal BSG Tractor Teuchern
	turbine	IG Energy		21,700	SC Turbine Erfurt BSG Turbine Hall BSG Turbine Potsdam
	Forward	Military ( Barracked People's Police , National People's Army )			ASK forward Frankfurt ASK forward Oberhof ASG forward Dessau
	bismuth	Uranium mining			BSG Wismut Aue SG Wismut Gera SC Wismut Karl-Marx-Stadt
	science	Universities and colleges	July 15, 1951 in Leipzig	28,730	HSG Science Hall SC Science DHfK Leipzig HSG Science TH Dresden

Hurdler for the Science Sports Association

In addition, other GDR-typical names were found in rare cases. They mostly come from a time when the standardization of sports associations has not yet taken hold. Examples are the BSG Anker Wismar (shipyards as part of mechanical engineering, therefore later SV Motor), the BSG VVB Tabak Dresden (cigarette industry as part of the luxury food industry, therefore later SV Empor) and the BSG Energie Neubrandenburg (energy industry, therefore later SV Turbine). From the 1960s onwards, company sports associations from different sports associations joined forces, which then usually appeared as TSG (for example TSG Neustrelitz , TSG Lübbenau and TSG Elsterwerda ). Occasionally, company sports associations also adopted the name of their sponsoring company (e.g. BSG Sachsenring Zwickau ). Only in a few cases did sports communities not join the BSG system and give themselves independent names (e.g. Sportfreunde Johannisthal , SG Gittersee ).

function

The sports associations were important pillars in the early days of GDR sports. Their task was to organize the promotion of the sports communities within their trade union area and to regulate sports traffic. The latter happened, among other things, by organizing central SV competitions, but also by exerting influence when athletes switched to other sports communities. The sports associations were divided into district organizations.

When competitive sport was separated from popular sport in 1954 , all sport associations except for SV Medicine and SV Post founded a sports club (SC), sometimes several. As a rule, the sports club was located in a city in which a high-performance VEB of the respective trade union area took over the function of the sponsoring company. For example, SC Wismut Karl-Marx-Stadt was located in the city in which the SDAG Wismut was also based ( Chemnitz-Siegmar district ). When the SV sports clubs gave way to the district sports clubs from 1961, most of the sports associations no longer existed. Thus, the previous system with the sports association names in the BSG or SC names was broken, which continued in 1965/66 with the founding of the football clubs (FC).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Carmen Fechner: The early history of the sports association Dynamo - hegemony efforts, dominance behavior and the rivalry relationship with the army sports association “Forward”. Diss., Berlin 2011, p. 58. ( Online version (PDF; 16.7 MB) )
2. ↑ Carmen Fechner: The early history of the sports association Dynamo - hegemony strivings, dominance behavior and the rivalry relationship with the army sports association "Forward". Diss., Berlin 2011, p. 114. ( Online version (PDF; 16.7 MB) )
3. ^ BZ April 19, 1951, p. 4.
4. ^ ND of September 14, 1951, p. 8.
5. ↑ ND of November 12, 1950, p. 8.
6. ^ ND of February 8, 1951, p. 6.
7. ^ NZ of December 5, 1951, p. 2.
8. ↑ ND of September 30, 1950, p. 8.
9. ↑ ND of July 29, 1950, p. 6.
10. ^ ND of November 4, 1950, p. 6.
11. ↑ BZ of June 7, 1950, p. 4.
12. ↑ ND of July 17, 1951, p. 6.

literature

• Carmen Fechner: The early history of the Dynamo sports association - aspirations for hegemony, dominance behavior and the rivalry with the army sports association “Forward”. Diss., Berlin 2011. ( Online version (PDF; 16.7 MB) )
• Presidium of the Dynamo Sports Association (ed.): Dynamo. An almanac. Berlin 1977.