“East, East, East Germany!” The (other) reunification of football fan culture and the roots of an east german exceptionalism
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In: Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe, Vol. 32, No. 2, 2024, p. 459-475.
Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - “East, East, East Germany!” The (other) reunification of football fan culture and the roots of an east german exceptionalism
AU - Leistner, Alexander
AU - Mennicke, Alexander
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - This article develops a counterintuitive view of the reunification of Germany. Normally, the unification process was shaped by the East followed the example of the West–but the example of football fan cultures shows the reverse process. In the “other reunification” of German football fan culture, affiliations were negotiated not only between East and West, but also in a transnational context. Regional, generational and gender-specific affiliations were closely interwoven with group- and club-related identifications. The renegotiation of often precarious masculinities in the fan milieu are described as a “subcultural hierarchy struggle” between different football scenes in East and West. In these conflicts the supporters of the sporting declassed eastern clubs often successfully portrayed themselves as “harder” or more “masculine” than the West German fan scenes. In the course of the 2000s, the East German groups studied finally turned their gaze away from the supposedly effeminate West and more strongly towards the violence-oriented ultra scenes in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe.
AB - This article develops a counterintuitive view of the reunification of Germany. Normally, the unification process was shaped by the East followed the example of the West–but the example of football fan cultures shows the reverse process. In the “other reunification” of German football fan culture, affiliations were negotiated not only between East and West, but also in a transnational context. Regional, generational and gender-specific affiliations were closely interwoven with group- and club-related identifications. The renegotiation of often precarious masculinities in the fan milieu are described as a “subcultural hierarchy struggle” between different football scenes in East and West. In these conflicts the supporters of the sporting declassed eastern clubs often successfully portrayed themselves as “harder” or more “masculine” than the West German fan scenes. In the course of the 2000s, the East German groups studied finally turned their gaze away from the supposedly effeminate West and more strongly towards the violence-oriented ultra scenes in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe.
KW - football fan culture
KW - Germany
KW - identity
KW - reunification
KW - violence
KW - Sociology
KW - Cultural studies
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85197689158&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/25739638.2024.2375156
DO - 10.1080/25739638.2024.2375156
M3 - Journal articles
AN - SCOPUS:85197689158
VL - 32
SP - 459
EP - 475
JO - Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe
JF - Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe
SN - 2573-9638
IS - 2
ER -