512 JUTTA BRAUN
tried to prevent West Berlin from hosting matches of the World Champi-
onships in 1974. Hermann Neuberger, who was the head of the Fédéra-
tion Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) organizing committee
at the time, was only able to push through the city as a match location
with a great deal of eff ort on his part.^62 Since the Eastern Bloc was more
powerful in the European association than it was in FIFA, choosing West
Berlin as a host city for the 1988 championships therefore presented an
incalculable risk. In a board meeting on 27 February 1985 in Aachen, all
the regional associations of the DFB, except for West Berlin, voted in favor
of leaving West Berlin out of the lineup. The very same day, the minister of
sports, Friedrich Zimmermann, composed a letter to Neuberger in which
he voiced the opposition of the federal government, whose position was
that “Berlin had to be included among the host cities when the European
Soccer Championships take place in West Germany in 1988.”^63 Bonn also
decided to begin a diplomatic off ensive: an aide memoire from the federal
cabinet that was sent to the ministers of foreign aff airs in UEFA countries
that were friends of West Germany read, “The government of West Ger-
many would fi nd it very regrettable if the European Soccer Champion-
ships in 1988 were to take place in West Germany without Berlin (West)
as a host city. If this were to be the case, then it would not consider it de-
sirable for the DFB to be awarded the honor of hosting the 1988 European
Soccer Championship.”^64 In response, the DFB charged that the contents
of the aide memoire marked a massive curtailment of the authority and
autonomy of organized sport.^65 On 14 March 1985, West Germany was
offi cially named the host for the European Championships by the UEFA in
Bern, although several international sports representatives mocked what
they considered to be an aff ront by Kohl’s government.
The confl ict in 1985 proved to be the most diffi cult balancing act be-
tween sports and politics since the boycott of the Moscow Olympics.
Whereas the West German sports associations followed—albeit some-
what unwillingly—the priorities set by the federal government in 1980,
the DFB and the DSB objected publicly and heftily against the intervention
by the federal government in 1985. Ultimately, this controversy in 1985
had long-term consequences: in order to “compensate” for being left out
of the European Championships in 1988, West Berlin was promised that it
could be the permanent site of the fi nal match of the DFB Cup, which has
meant that Berlin still plays host to this sporting attraction even today.^66
Commercial TransformationsThe advent of a new Olympic age presented particular problems for the
Communist side of the sports world. The Games in Los Angeles were in