SG Dynamo Dresden

Early years (1950–1954)

The city of Dresden played a significant part in German football before and during World War II. Local football team Dresdner SC won the national championships in 1943 and 1944. The occupying Allied authorities dissolved organizations across Germany, including sports clubs like Dresdner SC, after the war as part of the process of denazification. Dresdner SC was reestablished in 1946 as SG Friedrichstadt. However, the eastern part of Germany, including Dresden, was under Soviet control, and the sports club was considered too bourgeois by authorities.

SG Friedrichstadt met ZSG Horst Zwickau at the Heinz-Steyer-Stadion in Dresden on 16 April 1950. The match would practically decide which of the two teams that would win the East German championship in the 1949–50 season. The match was attended by 60,000 spectators at the Heinz-Steyer-Stadion. The SED First Secretary Walter Ulbricht and his entourage were also present. ZSG Horch Zwickau had been founded only one year earlier and embodied the form of organization that the SED and the state leadership wanted to promote for the sports movement they propagated. ZSG Horch Zwickau won the match 1–5 and became East German champions. The match was characterized by a very physical play from ZSG Horch Zwickau and several controversial referee decisions in favor of ZSG Horch Zwickau. The players of SG Friedrichstadt left the pitch without greeting their opponents and thousands of angry Dresden spectators invaded the pitch. East German sports authorities took these events as a pretext to dissolve SG Friedrichstadt and delegate the players to BSG VVB Tabak Dresden.

The city needed a new, ideologically safe representative in the DDR-Oberliga. BSG VVB Tabak Dresden was planned to take over the place of SG Friedrichstadt in the DDR-Oberliga. However, most players from the former team of SG Friedrichstadt, including player-coach Helmut Schön, did not agree with the move to BSG VVB Tabak Dresden and left Dresden to join Hertha BSC or other clubs under the German Football Association (DFB). To save the place in the DDR-Oberliga for Dresden, the place was instead given to SV Deutsche Volkspolizei Dresden.

SV Deutsche Volkspolizei Dresden played in the lower-tier Stadtliga Dresden at the time of the dissolution of SG Fredrichsstadt. SV Deutsche Volkspolizei Dresden was thus able to enter DDR-Oberliga without having to progress through divisions. To keep its place in the DDR-Oberliga, the team of SV Deutsche Volkspolizei Dresden would be reinforced with players from all over the country.

SV Deutsche Volkzpolizei Dresden was originally founded as SG Volkspolizei Dresden in 1948. The head of the Volkspolizei Kurt Fischer ordered the founding of a central sports association for all sports communities of the Volkspolizei around East Germany on 20 June 1950. The new sports association was named SV Deutsche Volkspolizei. SG Volkspolizei Dresden was thus incorporated into the new sports association and renamed SV Deutsche Volkspolizei Dresden. The order from Fischer also contained the passage that the best football players in the sports communities of the Volkspolizei should be concentrated in the now first-tier SV Deutsche Volkspolizei Dresden.

The 40 best players of the various Volkspolizei teams in East Germany were then brought together for a training session in Forst in July 1950. Coaches Fritz Sack and Paul Döring picked out 17 players from 11 different cities who were delegated to Dresden to form the team. SV Deutsche Volkspolizei Potsdam lost its five top performers to Dresden, including Herbert Schoen, Johannes Matzen and Günter Schröter, and was severely weakened. SV Deutsche Volkspolizei Dresden quickly established itself as a force in East German football, finishing in fourth place in its first season of the DDR-Oberliga. The team then won its first title in the 1951–52 FDGB-Pokal.

The new sports association SV Dynamo was founded on 27 March 1953. SV Dynamo was formed from SV Deutsche Volkspolizei and the sports communities of the Ministry of State Security, commonly known as the Stasi. The president of SV Dynamo was Erich Mielke, at the time deputy head of the Stasi. SV Deutsche Volkspolizei was incorporated into SV Dynamo and reformed as Dynamo Dresden on 12 April 1953. The official founding date of Dynamo Dresden has since been 12 April 1953. Shortly after this, the club claimed its first league title.

However, success proved to be the club's undoing. The team Dynamo Dresden was relocated to Berlin in November 1954 to play for the new sports club SC Dynamo Berlin in the DDR-Oberliga. The remainder of Dynamo Dresden was left to regroup in the second-tier DDR-Liga, taking over the place in the DDR-Liga, as well as points and goals, from dissolved SC DHFK Leipzig. Political factors and pressure from Erich Mielke were probably the main reasons behind the relocation of Dynamo Dresden to Berlin. The relocation was meant to provide the capital with a competitive team that could rival Hertha BSC, Blau-Weiß 1890 Berlin and Tennis Borussia Berlin, which were still popular in East Berlin and drew football fans to West Berlin.

Re-emergence (1954–1969)

Dynamo Dresden was left with a team composed of youth and reserve players and had dropped to the fourth tier by 1957, playing in the local Bezirksliga. Dynamo Dresden began to climb the divisions, though, and by 1962 they were back in the DDR-Oberliga, and although this first season ended in relegation, they bounced back immediately. They recovered equally well from another relegation in 1968, and remained in the Oberliga from 1969 until its dissolution in 1991. This relegation came after a fourth-place finish in 1967, which enabled Dynamo's first foray into European football – they entered the 1967–68 Fairs Cup, where they were eliminated by Scottish side Rangers in the first round.