520 JUTTA BRAUN
system of state-run organization and control to a sports system based on
Vereine. This resulted in a blossoming of civil society in which the former
factory sports groups and state-run clubs reformed themselves as associ-
ations, and many entirely new associations were established. At the same
time, a major threat loomed over the heads of these new Vereine because
they lost their fi nancial foundation when their state funds were cut off in
1990 and many of the sponsoring factories and businesses disappeared.
Even the darling of East German sport, namely the competitive sports
organizations, had to switch from being the recipients of massive state
subsidies to associations that were responsible for their own aff airs and
fi nancing, which was not an easy task, to say the least. In some places,
rather strange alliances were formed for a short time. Mercedes, for ex-
ample, stepped in to keep the model athletic complex of the Stasi sports
club Dynamo in Hohenschönhausen running for a few months.^101 On the
other hand, the radical exodus of many top athletes and coaches to the
West turned sports centers all over the place into “ghost facilities.”^102
Some of the East German sports stars now followed the “call of money,”
which they could not have done during GDR times. Several of them were
fi nally able to turn their dreams into reality as in the case of soccer play-
ers who could now play for a Bundesliga club.
Above all, however, many clubs in West Germany saw the chance to
enhance their teams with top athletes from the GDR, such as the manager
of the VfL Hameln who bought out several East German national handball
players. Likewise, wrestlers, canoeists, fencers, and track and fi eld ath-
letes switched in droves to clubs in the old federal states.^103 Politicians, on
the other hand, urged caution. Wolfgang Schäuble, for instance, called on
the Bundesliga clubs to refrain from going on shopping sprees in the East
while waving their money around. Helmut Kohl personally called upon
Bayer AG to rein in Reiner Calmund’s talent scouting among the East
German soccer players, which the pharmaceutical company did reluc-
tantly for only a very short time.^104 The transfer of the boxer Henry Maske
from ASK Vorwärts Frankfurt/Oder to professional boxing represented a
special case. This 1988 Olympic champion and former lieutenant colonel
in the East German army sparked a boom in boxing in unifi ed Germany
with his victories. For many years prior to this point, boxing had not been
very popular in West Germany, but, all of the sudden, it experienced a re-
vival that was reminiscent of the era of Max Schmeling with jam-packed
arenas. This wave of boxing fever was also supported by the new sports
reporting coverage off ered by private TV broadcasters. RTL, for example,
made a major media event out of the matches of this world champion
(1993–1996) as part of a profi table cooperative venture with the music
industry.