No other East German soccer player was as good as he was: Hans-Jürgen Dörner in a UEFA Cup game in Stuttgart in 1980
Photo: imago/Sportfoto Rudel
Oh, always these crooked parables! They all wrote it like that one last time, and this time it is as ignorant, as arrogant and wrong as anything: No, Hans-Jürgen Dörner was not the »Beckenbauer of the East«! No and again no! Because the native of Upper Lusatia lacked too many things: chutzpah, vanity, complacency, maybe money and possibly business acumen – not to mention the willingness to deal with one or the other black millionaire.
What Dixie Dörner certainly didn’t lack – in addition to an outstanding understanding of the game and a great overview of the game – was elegance and a feel for the ball. He clearly stood out from the combative, athletic way that football was usually played in the GDR. They called him the conductor at the time because, as captain, he was able to lead his teammates across the field with such perfect rhythm: suddenly eleven artists were out and about in shorts.
His record as a player is impeccable: Olympic champion, 100 international matches, five championship titles, five FDGB cup victories: You certainly don’t need a “Kaiser” to put Hans-Jürgen Dörner in perspective. He was a top footballer, possibly the greatest that East Germany has ever produced.
Dixie Dörner died in his apartment in Dresden on Wednesday night after a long, serious illness. SG Dynamo Dresden, the club whose jersey Dörner wore from the age of 17 until the end of his career, mourned yesterday for the honorary captain, whose portrait hangs on a larger-than-life poster in the Dynamo Stadium: “We have lost an admirable personality, that tears a big hole in our midst,” wrote club president Holger Scholze.
When Dörner came to Dynamo as a youngster, the Dresdeners were playing in the second division, the GDR league. Even before he climbs up with the people from the Elbe, he is called up to the blue and white national team. In the selection and also in the club, the trained striker soon proves to be the ideal candidate for the libero position: the switchboard in the center of defence, the starting point for all offensive actions, with plenty of freedom for excursions into midfield – thanks to the stopper.
Young Dörner at a photo shoot in 1969 Photo: imago images/Werner Schulze
In 1974, Dörner missed the World Cup in Germany, he caught jaundice on a trip to South America with the national team. Dörner missed out on the legendary 1-0 win over Beckenbauer of the West, instead he took part in the GDR national team’s only major title win, the 1976 Olympic victory in Montreal. For Dörner, the sporting highlight, as he explained in the nd interview in 2016: »For me it is definitely the greatest success in football, I will always remember the day. You’re an Olympic champion your whole life.« Dörner played 558 games for Dresden and scored 101 goals when he retired in 1986. The fans adore him, also because of his incomparable hairstyle – the cold wave with blonde highlights is style-defining in Saxony.
Like his colleague Beckenbauer, the ambitious Dörner then becomes a coach: first with Dresden’s youth, after the reunification with the DFB juniors. In 1996 he attained great fame as a coach: Willi Lemke from SV Werder Bremen hired him. Dörner is the first East German football personality to lead a Bundesliga team as head coach. The club is 16th when Dörner arrives and ninth when Dörner has to leave after a year and a half. A professionally outstanding coach who is overwhelmed by the circus of professional football.
Coach Dörner will never aim as high as in Bremen again, he never really understood that himself, as he would later say again and again. FSV Zwickau, Al-Ahly SC in Cairo and VfB Leipzig (2001 to 2003) are the names of the following stations, after which he stops as a professional coach.
Dörner in January 2021 in Dresden’s Great Garden Photo: dpa/Robert Michael
He remains a legend in Dresden: in 2013, the fans with the most votes elected him to the supervisory board. From then on he devoted himself to his family and heart club – until his death.
His dynamos now want to wear black ribbons in the second division away game in Hanover on Sunday – in memory of an unforgettable East German footballer. One last honor for: the Dixie Dörner of the East!
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