On 21 August, the Society for the Study of the History of Democracy organised a panel discussion at the stadium of the former GDR first-division club FC Carl Zeiss Jena. The topic was the period of upheaval in (East) Germany between 1989 and 1994: What did football mean in the late GDR, and particularly during the period of upheaval? What was it like to be a fan? And how did fan culture in the early 1990s change you?
The panellists included Uwe Dern, co-founder of the Jena Fan Project, and Heidi Vater, a former GDR international, alongside Dr Kai Reinhart from the IfS Münster, an expert on sport in the GDR and the period of transition. The discussion was moderated by Liane von Billerbeck (Deutschlandfunk).