The Sports Club Dynamo Berlin was an East German

sports club A sports club or sporting club, sometimes an athletics club or sports society or sports association, is a group of people formed for the purpose of playing sports. Sports clubs range from organisations whose members play together, unpaid, and ...

that existed from 1954 to 1991. It was the largest sports club of

SV Dynamo The Sportvereinigung Dynamo () (''Dynamo Sports Association'') was the sport association of the security agencies (Volkspolizei, Ministry for State Security, fire department and customs) of former East Germany. The association was founded on 27 ...

, the sports association of the security agencies. The club was disbanded after

German reunification German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...

and eventually succeeded by sports club SC Berlin.

Sporting spectrum

The sports club offered the following kinds of sport in the 1980s:

team handball Handball (also known as team handball, European handball or Olympic handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the g ...

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competiti ...

gymnastics Gymnastics is a type of sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, dedication and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, shou ...

cycling Cycling, also, when on a two-wheeled bicycle, called bicycling or biking, is the use of cycles for transport, recreation, exercise or sport. People engaged in cycling are referred to as "cyclists", "bicyclists", or "bikers". Apart from two ...

speed skating Speed skating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors racing, race each other in travelling a certain distance on Ice skate, skates. Types of speed skating are long track speed skating, short track speed skating, and marath ...

racewalking Racewalking, or race walking, is a long-distance discipline within the sport of athletics. Although a foot race, it is different from running in that one foot must appear to be in contact with the ground at all times. Referee, Race judges careful ...

figure skating Figure skating is a sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform on figure skates on ice. It was the first winter sport to be included in the Olympic Games, when contested at the 1908 Olympics in London. The Olympic disciplines are me ...

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

fencing Fencing is a group of three related combat sports. The three disciplines in modern fencing are the foil, the épée, and the sabre (also ''saber''); winning points are made through the weapon's contact with an opponent. A fourth discipline, s ...

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...

, and

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

. The departments in

equestrianism Equestrianism (from Latin , , , 'horseman', 'horse'), commonly known as horse riding (Commonwealth English) or horseback riding (American English), includes the disciplines of riding, Driving (horse), driving, and Equestrian vaulting, vaulting ...

modern pentathlon The modern pentathlon is an Olympic sport consisting of fencing (one-touch épée), freestyle swimming, equestrian show jumping, pistol shooting, and cross country running. The event is inspired by the traditional pentathlon held during the anci ...

and

parachuting Parachuting, including also skydiving, is a method of transiting from a high point in the atmosphere to the surface of Earth with the aid of gravity, involving the control of speed during the descent using a parachute or parachutes. For ...

were separated from the sports club in 1956 and merged into the new sports club SC Dynamo Hoppegarten in

Hoppegarten Hoppegarten is a municipality in the district Märkisch-Oderland, in Brandenburg, Germany. History The current municipality was created in 2003 when the former municipalities of Hönow and Münchehofe were united with Dahlwitz-Hoppegarten. Th ...

. The football department was separated from the sports club in 1966 and reorganized as

football club A football team is a group of players selected to play together in the various team sports known as football. Such teams could be selected to play in a match against an opposing team, to represent a football club, group, state or nation, an all- ...

BFC Dynamo Berliner Fussball Club Dynamo e. V., commonly abbreviated to BFC Dynamo () or BFC (), alternatively sometimes called Dynamo Berlin, is a German football club based in the locality of Alt-Hohenschönhausen of the borough of Lichtenberg of Berli ...

. BFC Dynamo eventually became the record champion of the

DDR-Oberliga The DDR-Oberliga (English: ''East German Premier League'' or ''GDR Premier League'') was the top-level association football league in East Germany. Overview Following World War II, separate sports competitions emerged in the occupied eastern ...

. The

judo is an unarmed gendai budō, modern Japanese martial art, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyclopedia Nipponi ...

department was transferred to SC Dynamo Hoppegarten in 1966.

Dynamo-Sportforum

The Dynamo-Sportforum was a large multi-use sports complex in

East Berlin East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...

that contained an athletic stadium, a gymnasium, a roller-skating hall, an ice rink and a velodrome. The Sportforum is still in operation and is now used by SC Berlin and BFC Dynamo, as well as junior teams of Eisbären Berlin, among several other tenants.

Controversies surrounding the Sports Club

The case of doping

Two former SC Dynamo Berlin club doctors, Dieter Binus, chief of the national women's team from 1976 to 1980, and

Bernd Pansold Bernd Pansold (born 3 April 1942 in Zwickau) is a German doctor and practitioner of sports medicine. From 1968 to 1990 he was the team doctor of East Germany, East German sports club SC Dynamo Berlin, and from 1971 was an unofficial member of the ...

, in charge of the sports medicine center in East Berlin, were committed for trial for allegedly supplying 19 teenagers with illegal substances. Binus was sentenced in August, Pansold in December 1998 after both being found guilty of administering hormones to underage female athletes from 1975 to 1984.

The Stasi and Erich Mielke

The president of SV Dynamo

Erich Mielke Erich Fritz Emil Mielke (; 28 December 1907 – 21 May 2000) was a German communist official who served as head of the East German Ministry for State Security (''Ministerium für Staatsicherheit'' – MfS), better known as the Stasi, from 1957 u ...

was also the head of the

Stasi The Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the (),An abbreviation of . was the Intelligence agency, state security service of the East Germany from 1950 to 1990. The Stasi's function was similar to the KGB, serving as a means of maint ...

from 1957 to 1989. The Stasi was widely regarded as one of the most effective intelligence agencies in the world. The organization had 91,000 staff members and 174,000 unofficial collaborators by 1989.

End of East Germany

SV Dynamo was dissolved after the

Peaceful Revolution The Peaceful Revolution (german: Friedliche Revolution), as a part of the Revolutions of 1989, was the process of sociopolitical change that led to the opening of East Germany's borders with the West, the end of the ruling of the Socialist Unity ...

. SC Dynamo Berlin was then renamed 1. Polizei-Sportclub Berlin on 21 March 1990. Harold Dimke became the president of PSC Berlin. PSC Berlin included departments in boxing, figure skating, speed skating, fencing, handball, judo, athletics, cycling, rowing, swimming, gymnastics, volleyball and judo. The department in judo was taken over from SC Dynamo Hoppeparten as a branch of PSC Berlin in Hoppegarten. The former ice hockey departement of SC Dynamo Berlin became independent as ice hockey club EHC Dynamo Berlin. Both PSC Berlin and EHC Dynamo Berlin were sponsored by the Ministry of the Interior of East Germany. PSC Berlin was renamed 1. SC Berlin on 23 April 1990. Sports club SC Berlin then emerged as the legal successor to 1. SC Berlin at the turn of the year. Several more departments became independent or joined other clubs. The former men's handball team of SC Dynamo Berlin joined SV Preußen Berlin and formed handball club HC Preußen Berlin. The men's volleyball players joined SCC Berlin and the women's handball players joined CJD Berlin. The focus of SC Berlin in the following years was swimming, figure skating and speed skating. Successful swimmers of the club during this period were

Steffen Zesner Steffen Zesner (born 28 September 1967) is a former freestyle swimmer from Germany, who won a total number of four medals as a relay member at the Summer Olympics. His best result was a silver medal, on the 4×200 metres freestyle, alongside U ...

, Daniela Hunger and Ingolf Rasch.

Budō is a Japanese term describing modern Japanese martial arts. Literally translated it means the "Martial Way", and may be thought of as the "Way of War" or the "Way of Martial Arts". Etymology Budō is a compound of the root ''bu'' ( 武:ぶ), m ...

athletes of SC Berlin founded a new SC Dynamo Hoppegarten in 1996. SC Berlin had 2,800 members as of 2021. The club has twelve departments in various sports and has produced numerous Olympic athletes of Germany. The sports club is still based in the

Sportforum Hohenschönhausen Sportforum Hohenschönhausen is a multi-purpose sports complex in the locality of Alt-Hohenschönhausen of the borough of Lichtenberg in Berlin. The Sportforum was named Dynamo-Sportforum during the East German era. Sportforum Hohenschönhausen co ...

Honours

SC Dynamo Berlin produced numerous well-known athletes, including

Christoph Höhne Christoph Höhne (born 12 February 1941 in Borsdorf, Saxony) is a racewalker who competed in the 50 km walk for East Germany in the 1960s and 1970s. Career Höhne won the gold medal in the 50 km walk at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexi ...

(

Ilona Slupianek Ilona Longo (née Schoknecht, divorced Briesenick and Slupianek; born 24 September 1956) is a German former shot putter who represented East Germany. As Ilona Slupianek, she won the 1980 Olympic title in Moscow and won European titles in 1978 and ...

(

shot put The shot put is a track and field event involving "putting" (throwing) a heavy spherical ball—the ''shot''—as far as possible. The shot put competition for men has been a part of the modern Olympics since their revival in 1896, and women's ...

Karin Janz Karin may refer to: *Karin (given name), a feminine name Fiction * ''Karin'' (manga) or ''Chibi Vampire'', a Japanese media franchise *Karin Hanazono, title character of the manga and anime ''Kamichama Karin'' *Karin Kurosaki, a character in ''Bl ...

(

), Axel Peschel (

cycle racing Cycle, cycles, or cyclic may refer to: Anthropology and social sciences * Cyclic history, a theory of history * Cyclical theory, a theory of American political history associated with Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. * Social cycle, various cycles in soc ...

), Joachim Ziesche and

Dietmar Peters Dietmar Peters (born 8 August 1949) is a German former ice hockey player who competed for SC Empor Rostock (ice hockey), SC Empor Rostock and SC Dynamo Berlin. He played for the East Germany national ice hockey team at the Ice hockey at the 1968 ...

(

Helga Haase Helga Haase ( Obschernitzki; 9 June 1934 – 16 June 1989) was a speed skater in East Germany. She was born in Danzig and died in East Berlin. Career Haase's career began 1952, when she introduced herself at 18 years at the SC Dynamo Berlin ...

(

), and

Barbara Krause Barbara Krause (later Wanja, born 7 July 1959 in East Berlin) is a former freestyle swimmer from East Germany. She was a three-time Olympic gold medalist and eight-time world record holder. At the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, Krause won ...

(

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

References

External links

Official website of SC Berlin
{{Authority control History of sport in East Germany Sports clubs in East Germany Dynamo Berlin Berlin, SC Dynamo Berlin Dynamo Berlin Dynamo Berlin Dynamo Berlin 1954 establishments in East Germany 1991 disestablishments in Germany Football clubs in East Germany

Dynamo file:DynamoElectricMachinesEndViewPartlySection USP284110.png, "Dynamo Electric Machine" (end view, partly section, ) A dynamo is an electrical generator that creates direct current using a commutator (electric), commutator. Dynamos were the f ...

Multi-sport clubs in Germany Berlin, Dynamo SC Athletics in Berlin