East German era BFC Dynamo played only a minor role in football in Berlin until the relocation of
FC Vorwärts Berlin to
Frankfurt an der Oder in 1971. The club initially had modest support, but with its growing successes in the 1970s, the club began to attract young fans, primarily from the central areas around the
Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark, such as
Prenzlauer Berg and
Mitte. Many came from
working class families in Prenzlauer Berg. One of the first big supporter groups of BFC Dynamo was Black Eagle. The fan club was founded in 1972 and was one of the earliest fan clubs in East German football. Fans of BFC Dynamo were the first to sew their embroidered fan club badges on their jackets. This was a novelty among football supporters in East Germany in the 1970s. The supporter scene became a focal point for various subcultures in the late 1970s and beginning of the 1980s. There were
punks, rockers, hippies and a few early
skinheads. Some were
left-leaning and others were right-leaning. Young people were gradually attracted by the provocative image of the club: its successes, its reputation as a Stasi club and the hatred of opposing fans. One fan recalled that the 1980s "were my greatest years, as we always had glorious success in provoking other fans" and another one that "we were really hated by everyone". And at away matches in
Saxony, they could also throw tropical fruits, which were only available in East Berlin, at home fans. The supporter scene of BFC Dynamo was rather full of irony and disgust for Erich Mielke. Some supporters would even cut out the "D" for
SV Dynamo from their club patches. They considered the "BFC" to be free from the Stasi, while they thought the "D" symbolized the exact opposite. BFC Dynamo came to be associated with areas such as Prenzlauer Berg,
Pankow,
Weißensee,
Hohenschönhausen, and certain cafés and restaurants in vicinity of
Alexanderplatz.
The West had a great influence on the supporter scene of BFC Dynamo. The supporter scene of BFC Dynamo in the 1980s included groups such as Black Eagle, Berliner Wölfe, Die Ratten, Black Panther, Iron Fist, Norbert Trieloff, Bobbys, Pirayas, Analen Jungs, Beatles BFC Club, The Little Preussen, Heavy Horses and Madness boys of Preussen. The supporter scene was universally acclaimed as creative and the supporters of BFC Dynamo were considered as one of the funnier crowds. Football supporters in East Berlin shared a sense of superiority over their counterparts in the regional districts. The supporter scene of BFC Dynamo was still young at the time, while clubs such Union Berlin and BSG Chemie Leipzig had large followings. Supporters of BFC Dynamo would respond to the hostile environment and learn to compensate their smaller numbers by being better organized and more aggressive. One fan of BFC Dynamo recalled: "It was really rumbling at away trips, and only then you felt your own strength. When we went with 200 people against 1,000 Unioners and you noticed: If you stick together, you have an incredible amount of violence." The book "Riot Boys!" by Jochen Schramm depicts the supporter scene of BFC Dynamo and contains stories of violent away trips in East Germany in the early 1980s. Jochen "Ellis" Schramm was a member of the hooligan scene of BFC Dynamo in the 1980s. Supporters of BFC Dynamo would eventually gain a reputation for being particularly organized and violent. One fan of BFC Dynamo said: "This feeling of being hated is what makes it so appealing." A saying among the supporters of BFC Dynamo was: "We are few, but we are awesome!" () The development in the supporter scene of BFC Dynamo eventually caught the attention of the authorities. The Stasi conducted a study on the violent structures of the supporter scene at the beginning of the 1980s. It found that 80 per cent of those committing violent acts were 16–25 years old. Most of them were workers or students. One fan of BFC Dynamo said that from his environment in 1978–79, there was hardly anyone who had not gone to prison. A number of supporters of BFC Dynamo were also sentenced under the dreaded Paragraph 50/51 of the East German Penal Code. Paragraph 50/51 meant residence restriction (). A supporter sentenced to residence restriction would be assigned a new place of residence in another part of East Germany and prohibited from returning to Berlin. All football fan clubs in East Germany had to undergo registration. Registered fan clubs, on the other hand, were those that were willing to cooperate with the authorities. The figures for the 1986–87 season were 17 unauthoritzed fan clubs and 15 registered fan clubs. This means that 15 out of 32 fan clubs (47 per cent of all fan clubs) at BFC Dynamo were registered in the 1986–87 season. As a comparison, 61 out of 70 fan clubs (87 per cent of all fan clubs) at Union Berlin were registered in the 1986–87 season. East German state television would always try to hide riots from viewers, but the sound recording from football matches posed the biggest challenge. An additional sound system was eventually integrated into the stadium of BFC Dynamo for radio and television broadcasts. The system was also supposed to drown out shouts and chanting from the violent structures, so that television viewers and radio listeners would not hear anything. More and more supporters of BFC Dynamo started to embrace the skinhead fashion in the early 1980s. One fan of BFC Dyamo said: "How could one provoke more in a socialist system than with right-wing slogans?" For young people, being a
Nazi was sometimes considered the sharpest form of opposition. However, instances of Nazi provocations did not necessarily reflect genuine political convictions. At least some part of the "drift to the right" among East German youth during the 1980s was rooted in a desire to position oneself wherever the state was not. One fan of BFC Dynamo said: "The scene wasn't right-wing, we did describe ourselves as right-wing, but that was more of a pure provocation, none of us really knew anything about politics. But to
raise your arm in front of the cops was a real kick, for some
Vopos's, their whole world collapsed". At the end of the 1980s, an organized hooligan scene with groups, structures and training rooms, that was unique in East Germany, would eventually emerge at BFC Dynamo. The final of the
1987-88 FDGB-Pokal between BFC Dynamo and Carl Zeiss Jena on 4 June 1988 saw some of the most serious violence ever witnessed at an East German football match. Riots broke out in one of the blocks shortly before the end of the match. Supporters destroyed fences and threw seats at match stewards. About 300 supporters of BFC Dynamo attempted to invade the pitch during the victory ceremony. German criminalist Dr. Bernt Wagner, who was a criminal police officer in East Germany, writes about the cup final that "the Stasi head Erich Mielke was greeted with
SA songs and Nazi riots" when he visited the cup final in 1988, and that "his Stasi troop was attacked". BFC Dynamo played
AS Monaco away in the
1989–90 European Cup Winners' Cup On 17 October 1989. Television viewers in East Germany and BFC Dynamo officials alike were astonished to see that there were BFC Dynamo supporters in the stands of the
Stade Louis II, who loudly supported the team, even though East German fans had not been allowed to travel to Western countries for years. It turned out that the BFC Dynamo fan club Analen Jungs had apparently re-formed in the West by supporters who had been deported to the West by the Stasi before 1989 and supporters who had recently fled to the West. Three days later, on 1 November 1989, BFC Dynamo played the return leg against AS Monaco at the Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark. Supporters of BFC Dynamo fired flares at the
tartan track and vandalized large parts of a stadium block, causing extensive damage.
German reunification A wave of violence swept through the football stadiums of East Germany in 1990. The
Volkspolizei was overwhelmed by the amount of disorder and often reluctant to use enough force, due to the political situation. Masked supporters of FC Berlin rioted in central
Jena before the away match against
FC Carl Zeiss Jena in the
1989-90 DDR-Oberliga on 8 April 1990. They broke shop windows, smashed windscreens of police vehicles with stones and left a trail of destruction in the city center. Supporters of FC Berlin also fired flares at police officers during the match. The disorder at the stadium would not cease and the match was eventually interrupted. Supporters who had left East Germany for various reasons in recent years rejoined the hooligan scene after the opening of the
Berlin Wall. The skinhead outfit was exchanged after the Peaceful Revolution. One supporter of BFC Dynamo said: "There were good reasons for this ... Every idiot was running around dressed in a bomber jacket and shouting 'Sieg Heil'". Supporters who returned from West Germany brought back a new fashion based on designer clothing labels and expensive sportswear, which was adopted by the supporter scene. Riots broke out after match. About 250 hooligans threw gravel and other objects at the police. At least 14 police officers were injured in the clashes. Serious riots then continued in the city, involving hundreds of supporters. Street battles broke out in areas of East Berlin, even spreading to
Kreuzberg in West Berlin. One supporter of FC Berlin said: "In 1990, thanks to the many departures to the West, it became clear relatively quickly that there was no flowerpot to be won with the current team. We then turned our attention to other things." Hooligans in East Germany unleashed almost unbridled violence against the representatives of the disintegrating East German state. The situation peaked during a match between
FC Sachsen Leipzig and FC Berlin on 3 November 1990. A first group of around 100 supporters of FC Berlin entered the
Georg-Schwarz-Sportpark in time for kick-off. The group was blocked from entering the stadium by police equipped with helmets and shields, despite showing valid tickets. Cobblestones were thrown at the police waiting at the Pettenkofer Straße. Several others were injured and at least another three people were seriously injured. However, this was rebuffed by a youth
deacon and social worker, who had accompanied the supporters and who witnessed the course of events. A group of supporters stopped a
tram, kicked the driver out and maneuvered it down town. The ground floor of a department store on
Brühl was destroyed. The demonstration received support from politicians such as Lena Schraut from the
Alternative List and from
left-wing activists, notably from the
occupied houses near Senefelderplatz at the
Schönhauser Allee. Stadium attendance collapsed in 1990. Many supporters of BFC Dynamo stopped attending matches after the
Peaceful revolution, as the best players were sold off to clubs in
West Germany, sports performance slumped, tickets prices rose, mass unemployment spread and hooligans had come to dominate the stands. Some shifted their focus to
ice hockey instead. The average league attendance of the 1990–91 NOFV-Oberliga was by far the lowest in the league history. Ordinary supporters had disappeared. Only young supporters remained in the stadium at FC Berlin in 1990 and 1991. The police did not manage to control the situation despite a record strong presence of more than 600 officers. Riots broke out in central Rostock, where supporters smashed shops, demolished cars and attacked people. 21 people were injured in the clashes, including nine police officers. The damages amounted to around 750,000
Deutsche Marks. The report contains an interview with self-confessed hooligan Jens-Uwe Vogt. Up to 100 hooligans of FC Berlin then also attacked an asylum shelter that was located right next to the stadium in Greifswald. SV Hafen Rostock 61 subsequently postponed its upcoming league match at home against FC Berlin for security reasons. More than 400 hooligans of FC Berlin attended the away match against
1. FC Dynamo Dresden on 16 March 1996. Hooligans of FC Berlin rioted in central
Dresden before the match. They broke shop windows and looted shops. It took a major police operation with 580 officers to get the riots under control. 101 people were taken into preventive custody for various offenses. Hooligans of FC Berlin were also involved in fights with
squatters and other left-wing groups in the 1990s. A number of people allegedly associated with the hooligan scene of FC Berlin attacked formerly occupied houses and a meeting point for left-wing football supporters at Brunnenstraße 6 and 7 in
Mitte on the night of 6 September 1997. A punk concert was held on the premises at the time. Four people had to be hospitalized with injuries. In the years after German reunification, the club's eternal outsider image attracted people from the underground. The hooligan scene of FC Berlin had developed close contacts with the eastern Berlin
bouncer scene by the mid-1990s. The eastern Berlin bouncer scene would eventually be almost completely organized from the hooligan scene of BFC Dynamo. One of those involved in the assault on French policeman
Daniel Nivel during the
1998 FIFA World Cup had connections to the hooligan scene of FC Berlin. 400 supporters of BFC Dynamo invaded the pitch after the final whistle to celebrate the title. Some supporters also attacked players of Berlin Türkspor 1965. Two players of Berlin Türkspor 1965 were injured, one of them had suffered a stab wound. BFC Dynamo Club President Volkmar Wanski was able to prevent a total escalation by giving a calming speech over the stadium microphone. He immediately apologized for the behavior of the supporters at the press conference after the match. BFC Dynamo and Berlin Türkspor 1965 agreed to meet in a friendly match later in the season and to organize a joint meal for players and responsible. Wanski made it clear in the speakers ahead of the last home match against
FC Rot-Weiß Erfurt in the
1998-99 Regionalliga Nordost on 15 May 1999 that "anyone who cannot behave has no business in our stadium". The hooligan scene of BFC Dynamo was still considered one of the toughest in Germany in the early 2000s. The hooligan scene was made up of around 300 people in 2001. Around 500 supporters of BFC Dynamo then attacked police at Eberswalder Straße. Karin Halsch simultaneously expressed sadness that the riots destroyed a lot of reconstruction work in the club and announced that there would be many stadium bans. Also coach Jürgen Bogs spoke out about "senseless violence" that would once again fall back on the club, but also criticized the police for provocations. Violence broke out during the match between
Tennis Borussia Berlin and BFC Dynamo in the
2004-05 NOFV-Oberliga Nord at the
Mommsenstadion on 11 February 2005. A flare was lit and a couple of bangers set off in the guest block at the beginning of the second half. Police then decided to intervene against away supporters. Police officers were pelted with beer cups and attacked by supporters of BFC Dynamo when they entered gest block. Eight police officers were injured and 11 supporters of BFC Dynamo arrested. BFC Dynamo criticized the police operation as "disproportionate". Supporters of BFC Dynamo claimed that they had been called "Nazis", "
Ossis" and "
Unioners" by police officers. Riots had broken out also when Tennis Borussia Berlin played 1. FC Union Berlin in round of 16 of the 2004-05 Berlin Cup at the Mommsenstadion a couple of weeks before. Riots again broke out in connection to a match between BFC Dynamo and SV Yeşilyurt at the opening of the
2005-06 NOFV-Oberliga Nord at the Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark on 5 August 2005. The match was attended by 1,200 supporters of BFC Dynamo. Hooligans in the crowd threw bottles and stones at police officers during the match. Fights between hooligans and police then broke out after match. Around 150 hooligans had participated in the riots, according to police information. BFC Dynamo spokesperson Yiannis Kaufmann claimed that those involved were a "mob of travelling fans who wants to cause trouble everywhere and now discredit the BFC". Police made a controversial raid against the
discothèque Jeton in
Friedrichshain where supporters of BFC Dynamo and other people had gathered to celebrate in connection to a fan tournament in memory of Mike Polley on the night of 20 August 2005. The fan tournament had been visited by 45 teams, including supporters from
FC St. Pauli,
1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig,
Aberdeen F.C.,
VfL Bochum and
Malmö FF. The large-scale police operation involved 300 officers, including 100 members of the
SEK. 158 persons were arrested. Among the detainees were 19 Category C-supporters and 22 Category B-supporters. 39 people at the discothèque were injured. Police stated that the raid was a preventative measure on short notice to prevent hooligans from organizing for the upcoming match against Union Berlin on 21 August 2005. The return match between BFC Dynamo and Union Berlin in the 2005–06 NOFV-Oberliga Nord was played at the Stadion im Sportforum on 13 May 2006. The standing was 1–1 when supporters of BFC Dynamo invaded the pitch in an attempt to storm the block of Union Berlin around the 75th minute. Supporters of Union Berlin fled in panic. The match was abandoned and Union Berlin was awarded a 2–0 win. The players of BFC Dynamo wore the motto "No power of violence" on their shirts in the following match against
BFC Preussen away on 17 May 2006. The Stadion im Sportforum was temporarily closed for matches in the NOFV-Oberliga Nord after the riots. The riots during the match against 1. FC Union Berlin threw the club into a financial crisis. Treasurer Sven Radicke concluded: "Four years of our work were ruined in five minutes". More than 500 police officers were deployed to the match. Tennis Borussia Berlin eventually took control of the match. Someone in the guest block threw a
banger on the pitch. A second banger was then thrown on the pitch and the police suddenly decided to violently storm the guest block with
tear gas and
truncheons. The Chairman of the Economic Council of BFC Dynamo Peter Meyer tried to mediate, but was sparayed with tear gas as well. He then also hit the other supporter that was standing next to him. BFC Dynamo has often attracted hooligans from outside, and hooligans who are otherwise not involved in the supporter scene, to high-profile matches. The club has repeatedly complained about so-called "riot tourists". Riots broke out after the match against
Berliner AK 07 in the final of the 2009–10 Berlin Cup at the Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark on 2 June 2010. Around 100–150 supporters of BFC Dynamo stormed the pitch after the final whistle. Major riots then occurred after the match against
1. FC Kaiserslautern in the first round of the
2011-12 DFB-Pokal at the Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark on 3 July 2011. Around 200–300 supporters of BFC Dynamo invaded the buffer zone and stormed the guest block after the match. An important supporter group among the older supporters is the supporter group 79er. Supporters threw parties and organized collections, made donations and travelled to countries such as
Austria and
Switzerland to convince creditors to accept smaller pay-offs in order to save the cub. The insolvency crisis remains a defining moment for older supporters. The first edition of the fan tournament was arranged in the Sportforum Hohenschönhausen in 2003 and comprised 28 teams. A march in memory of Mike Polley in Leipzig in 2018 was attended by 850 supporters of BFC Dynamo. New groups of younger
ultra-oriented supporters have emerged since the 2000s. The club has encouraged the new groups of younger supporters and club management has taken a stand against
racism and
right-wing extremism. In an interview in a revised and expanded edition of the book "Stadionpartisanen - Fans und Hooligans in der DDR", about football supporters and hooligans in the East German era, by Frank Willmann (
de), BFC Dynamo supporter representative Rainer Lüdkte, who became an active supporter in the 1970s, commented on the supporter scene in the 1980s, saying that he was never right-wing, that he hated those who
raised their arms and that he sees himself more to the
left. He said that the riots that occurred in the late 1980s were "no longer his thing", and that he believes that what happened at the time of the German reunification was catastrophic. Lüdtke, who himself did not take part in the FC Berlin era, said that: "Maybe we, 'normal' fans, who ... had nothing to do with Nazi shit, should have intervened back then." Lüdtke also said that he believes that for the club to have a chance, "everyone involved needs to be ready for change." BFC Dynamo engages in active fan work and has taken measures to control violent elements, to exclude known violators and to distance itself from radical supporters. Lawyer, supporter and former club vice-president René Lau said in an interview with
Deutsche Welle in 2019: "If you had asked me 25 years ago [if BFC had a problem with Nazis], I would have said yes. But is today's BFC Dynamo a Nazi club? I would vehemently dispute that." The organization supports young fans in various aspects of life and aims at promoting a positive supporter culture. Gegengerade is a
left wing-oriented supporter group. Supporters of BFC Dynamo have displayed a
Norwegian flag with the text "Thanks
Norway", in memory of
Norway's 2–0 win over
Nazi Germany in the quarter-finals of the
1936 Summer Olympics. Another banner that has occasionally been displayed at the stadium contains the text "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out", with reference to the 1980s British cult band
The Smiths. The supporters of BFC Dynamo have maintained friendly relations with the supporters of the
Polish side Pogoń Szczecin since 2009. The friendship was made official in 2026. Supportergroup Fraktion H maintains a friendship with the supporters of
Eintracht Trier, while members of the now dissolved Ultras BFC have had contacts with the ultras of Swedish football club
GAIS. BFC Dynamo had 100 Category C and 190 Category-B supporters in 2019. Younger hooligans of BFC Dynamo have contacts with supporter group Kaliber 030 at Hertha. 20–25 supporters of BFC Dynamo joined Hertha in the guest block of the
Stadion an der Alten Försterei during the
derby between Union Berlin and Hertha on 2 November 2019. Older hooligans of BFC Dynamo, on the other hand, maintain friendly relationships with like-minded supporters of
1. FC Magdeburg. Around 1,300 supporters of BFC Dynamo was eventually admitted to the
Marschweg-Stadion, where they marked their presence with a banner, a scarf choreography and flares. Ultras BFC announced its dissolution on 23 January 2023, after the group had lost essential material in an attack. An individual in the group was attacked by a group of people in front of his private residence and robbed of essential group material. The group apologized to the supporter scene of BFC Dynamo and consequently dissolved, but at the same time announced that this was not the end. The attack has been traced to
Cottbus. A new supporter group named Banda Invicta eventually appeared with a banner on the first matchday of the
2023-24 Regionalliga Nordost on 29 July 2023. The banner read "On to a new chapter". The BFC Dynamo supporter scene traditionally organizes an annual fan tournament in the Sportforum Hohenschönhausen. The ninth edition in 2024 was won by a multicultural team with players from
Syria,
Palestine,
Asia and Germany, who had been invited to the tournament by the supporter scene. One of the most well-known books in Germany about the supporter scene of BFC Dynamo is "Der BFC war schuld am Mauerbau" by German author and BFC Dynamo fan Andreas Gläser (
de). The book was first published in 2002 and describes the supporter scene from the late 1970s and forward. Gläser grew up in
Prenzlauer Berg and became a supporter of BFC Dynamo in the 1970s. The book "Stadionpartisanen - Fans und Hooligans in der DDR", by authors Anne Hahn and Frank Willmann, first published in 2007, also contains extensive interviews with BFC Dynamo supporters from the late 1970s and forward. In an interview with football magazine
11 Freunde about the play, Friedrich stated that he doesn't want to have anything to do with Nazis. Gläser, clarified that they both come from the ”alternative spectrum”. The fanzine "Zugriff" is dedicated to BFC Dynamo. The fanzine has been produced by Andreas Gläser and members of supporter group Gegengerade since 2008. The tenth and latest issue was published in 2014. The tenth issue came with as music
CD mixed by Andreas Gläser. The CD included numerous
ska and
punk tracks as well as a 25 seconds long recording of Erich Mielke ranting about skinheads and punks. The owner of the store, Sven Friedrich, has a background in the supporter scene of BFC Dynamo in the East German era. After more than 30 years, Hoolywood closed its store in Prenzlauer Berg in 2025, but continues its business online. German rap musician Joe Rilla has also dedicated a song to BFC Dynamo. The song is called "Heb die Faust Hoch (BFC Dynamo Straßenhymne)" and was released in 2008. Joe Rilla, whose real name is Hagen Stoll (
de), comes from the locality of
Marzahn and has a background in the 1990s hooligan scene of BFC Dynamo. ==Rivalries==