How to win the cup in both East and West Germany

A week before the start of the new Bundesliga season, German football returns with the opening round of the German Cup and its traditional David vs. Goliath encounters.

Though Bayern Munich's tie with Bremer SV was postponed due to a number of coronavirus infections at the fifth-division club, many matchups in the first round will see Bundesliga sides square off with lower-league opposition. One of those featured Bayer Leverkusen, who beat fourth-tier side Lokomotive Leipzig 3-0 on Saturday.

One man who kept a particularly close eye on events at Leipzig's Bruno-Plache-Stadion was Heiko Scholz. The former attacking midfielder won domestic cups with both clubs, in both East and West Germany, either side of German reunification in 1990.

Scholz, now 55, was in the Lok Leipzig team that beat Hansa Rostock 4-1 to win the East German FDGB-Pokal in 1987. Six years of political upheaval later, he was also part of the Bayer Leverkusen side that beat Hertha Berlin's reserves 1-0 in the final of the DFB-Pokal, the West German domestic cup that became the sole cup competition after reunification.

"Both finals were similar because my team was the favorite in both," Scholz tells DW. "Rostock were in the [East German] second division at the time, while with Leverkusen we played against Hertha's amateurs. With respect, it would have been embarrassing to lose against them in front of 76,000 people."

From East to West Germany

Born in Görlitz, Germany's most eastern city on the border with Poland, in 1966, Scholz came through the youth academy of nearby Dynamo Dresden. He would eventually get his footballing breakthrough in Leipzig, first with Chemie (from 1984 to 1986) and then Lokomotive (from 1986 to 90).

When the East German league was absorbed into the West German system following reunification, Scholz was one of the hundreds of East German players who headed westwards, but not before a two-year spell with Dresden, fulling a "childhood dream."

Then, Bayer Leverkusen called. "I couldn't say no to that," recalls Scholz. "Leverkusen was a top destination for East German players."

How Leverkusen conquered the East German transfer market

Indeed, East German defectors Falko Götz and Dirk Schlegel had signed for Leverkusen as early as 1984. After reunification, Leverkusen sporting director Reiner Calmund led the West German charge into the Eastern German market, snapping up the likes of Andreas Thom from BFC Dynamo and Ulf Kirsten from Dynamo Dresden.

Just six days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Calmund infamously sent a scout to a World Cup qualifier between East Germany and Austria in Vienna disguised as a photographer. The scout positioned himself behind the East German bench and, at full time, immediately spoke to Thom and Kirsten to secure their contact details. Two days later, the moves were secured.

"The GDR had top class youth academies with full-time coaches, stuff that we in the West could only dream of in the 1980s," recalled Calmund, speaking to Leverkusen's official website last year. "It was only after the (German national team's) European Championship disaster in 2000 that academies with adequate infrastructure were made mandatory for all Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 clubs."

Calmund and others have been accused of exploiting the economic weakness and naivety of East German clubs in the years following reunification to sign top players for drastically reduced fees. Eduard Geyer, the last East German national team coach, even compared the situation to a "slave trade."

But Scholz, who eventually joined Leverkusen in 1992, doesn't see it that way. "I wouldn't say the clubs were exploited," he tells DW. "Calmund was just quick off the mark and stuck the feelers out.

"Perhaps they were able to negotiate slightly lower salaries because we East Germans had grown up with completely different wages. And it was certainly difficult for the clubs to get used to the transfer fees, the taxes, the sponsorship and everything that came with the free market. In the GDR, all that had been regulated by the state."

'We used to train harder in the East'

On the pitch, Scholz adjusted quickly to life in western Germany, helped by having played one Bundesliga season for Dynamo Dresden and by the presence of other East Germans at Leverkusen. But he also feels that the East German training routines he had been used to gave him a physical advantage.

"We trained harder in the East and placed a greater emphasis on endurance," he explains. "In Leverkusen, I used to do extra training because I didn't think it was enough."

Tactically, he also felt comfortable: "We'd played a very modern style of football with Lok Leipzig in the late 80s," he says. "We didn't call it 'Gegenpressing,' though; we called it pre-checking and counter-attack."

Off the pitch, however, it was a different world.

"In the West, the marketing and the glamor and the products were unusual for us and incomparable with the GDR. Everything was a step ahead: the stadiums were more modern and the training centers were better. On the whole, everything was just a bit more professional."

An international both sides of reunification

Scholz went on to play 98 times for Leverkusen. On 14 October 1992, he was called up to the German national team for a friendly against Mexico in his hometown of Dresden, making him one of only seven players to represent both East Germany and reunited Germany at the international level.

"For me, both countries were absolutely fine as they were," he says, looking back. "I couldn't have changed anything, anyway. I could have defected, but other things were more important to me, such as my family."

The high-point of Scholz's international career came on 12 September 1990, when he was one of just 14 East German players who showed up for their country's last ever international against Belgium in Brussels.

"I was determined to be on that final team photo," he says. "It wasn't the best team, but those who turned up all wanted to give their all. It was a great few days, relaxed but with a bit of national pride in representing our country for the last ever time, and that was cool."

East Germany won 2-0. Less than a month later, on October 3, the country ceased to exist.

Scholz went on to play for Werder Bremen, Fortuna Köln and Wattenscheid before returning to Lok Leipzig as coach between 2013 and 2018. He's currently on the coaching staff back at Dynamo Dresden, who were promoted back to Bundesliga 2 last season.

Dresden edged past Paderborn in the cup on Friday night. before, on Saturday, Scholz watched his two former clubs in Leipzig. The straightforward Leverkusen win was exactly what Scholz predicted, but really he couldn't lose in that one.