Wschód contra Zachód. Kontakty piłkarskie w Berlinie jako egzemplifikacja relacji pomiędzy wschodnimi a zachodnimi Niemcami
East versus West. Football contacts in Berlin as an example of relationship between East and West Germany

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the article is an attempt to present football relations between the most important, best and most influential teams in Berlin -Hertha BSC Berlinand 1. FC Union Berlin. The twoteams are diametrically different from each other -they come from the western and eastern part of the city, have different history, social background and philosophy and strategy of the club. The history of both clubs provides a background for showing therelations between the Berlin football fans. The analysis - covering the period since the 1970s, i.e. the period of constructing an organised supporter movement - has shown that the mutual relations between the supporters can be treated as a symbolic instance of the complicated relations between the citizens of East and West (both Berlin and the whole Germany). The situation in Berlin's supporter community reflects the history of the city's growing together and the mutual relations between its eastern and western part and its inhabitants. Football has been treated as a kind of medium through which the convictions of large social groups are most freely expressed, reflecting the sympathy and antipathy of the city's inhabitants. A review of the narrative literature of the subjectwas carried out and the methodology of political sciences was used.

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