Club Culture
The club is widely recognized as one of Germany's nonconformist "Kult" clubs, based on their very emotional rivalry with Dynamo Berlin in former GDR times. While Dynamo was affiliated with East Germany's Secret Service Stasi, Union Berlin was patronized by Eastern German Trade Union FDGB. This circumstance led them into an unofficial opposition against the socialist system and in Union's Stadion An der Alten Försterei the fans often were singing veiled chants against the political authorities.
In August 2009, Union Berlin severed a sponsorship deal with International Sport Promotion because it was revealed that the company's chairman, Jürgen Czilinsky, was a former Stasi agent.
Read more about this topic: 1. FC Union Berlin
Famous quotes containing the words club and/or culture:
“We have ourselves to answer for.”
—“Jennie June” Croly 1829–1901, U.S. founder of the woman’s club movement, journalist, author, editor. Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly and Mirror of Fashions, pp. 24-5 (January 1870)
“The time will come when the evil forms we have known can no more be organized. Man’s culture can spare nothing, wants all material. He is to convert all impediments into instruments, all enemies into power.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)