Berliner FC Dynamo
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| Berliner FC Dynamo | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Berliner Fussball Club Dynamo e.V. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Founded | 1954,1966 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Ground | Sportforum Berlin-Höhenschönhausen | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Capacity | 12,000 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| League | Oberliga Nordost-Nord | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2004-05 | Oberliga Nordost-Nord, 6th | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Berliner FC Dynamo (or Dynamo Berlin) is a German football club and is the successor organization to the club that played in East Berlin as Dynamo Berlin from 1954 to 1966. That club had been formed when the team members of Dynamo Dresden, one of the better teams in East Germany at the time, were ordered to leave Dresden for Berlin to establish a competitive side there. The club was re-formed as BFC Dynamo Berlin in 1966 and became infamous under the patronage of Erich Mielke, head of East Germany's Stasi or secret police, for the various means used to manipulate the outcome of the team's games and ensure its dominance.
Playing in the DDR-Oberliga the team won ten consecutive titles from 1979 to 1988 assisted by crooked referees, unfair player transfers from other teams and assorted other unsportmanlike practices. Dynamo was reviled by many of the citizens of Berlin and the cheating was so blatant that it incurred the unofficially expressed displeasure of the country's ruling Politburo.
After German re-unification the side was re-named FC Berlin in an attempt to re-package it and distance it from its unsavory past, but in 1999, they again took up the name BFC Dynamo. Without its powerful partron, the side quickly fell to tier III play and since the 2000-01 season has toiled in IV or V division leagues. The team went bankrupt in 2001-02 but was forced by the DFB (Deutscher Fussball Bund or German Football Association) to play out the balance of its games for the season as "mandatory friendlies", which did not count in league standings, using available third string players. The farce was played out in a series of lopsided defeats.
The team has long had a reputation for attracting unruly fans, including right-wingers and those who remember East Germany with some fondness, and has on occasion been required to play to home only crowds.
In 2004, the DFL (Deutscher Fussball Liga or German Football League, successor to the DFB) introduced a star system to honor the most successful teams in Bundesliga history – one star for three titles, two stars for five, and three stars for ten – allowing qualifying teams to display on their jerseys the stars they have earned. Dynamo Berlin petitioned the league to have their East German titles recognized, but received no reply. They eventually took matters into their own hands and emblazoned their jerseys with three stars. This has caused considerable debate given the tainted nature of their championships, and more generally, that the DFL does not recognize East German championships, only those championships captured since the 1963 formation of the Bundesliga. The issue also affects other former East German teams including Dynamo Dresden (8 titles), Vorwärts Berlin (6), SC Wismut Karl-Marx-Stadt, FC Carl Zeiss Jena, and 1. FC Magdeburg (3 titles each).
