German Hooligan Scene
The Germans, without a doubt, have always been seen as the main rivals to England when it comes to football both on and off the pitch. Football violence in Germany began to take shape in the 1970's, though has been more widespread and reported during the 1980's and 1990's with German fans being involved in some serious disturbances at home and on their travels .
Their main rivalry has always been with the Dutch and the English, the rivalry with the Dutch is down to the fact they are neighbours and it is very similar to the rivalry between the English and Scottish. The rivalry with England has existed for a long period but took a more serious side in 1987 when the 2 countries clashed in Dusseldorf. England were beaten and serious trouble took place in the streets surrounding the stadium.
Football violence in Germany came to the fore during the Euro '88 Championships held in Germany. Dutch and German fans fought running battles in the streets of Hamburg after one match, in what some people described as some of the most serious disturbances they had ever witnessed.
The German scene took another twist in 1989 with the unification of the East and West. This allowed fans from the East more freedom to travel, this lead to fans of Dynamo Dresden, Leipzig and FC Dynamo Berlin being involved in some serious disturbances not only in Germany but in European matches also.
Most club in Germany have three kinds of fans, the "scarfers" who wear club scarfs and hats etc, Hooligan/Ultra groups who are usually youths and the older ones who are the main Hooligans. The most notorious clubs in Germany for hooliganism are Schalke 04 with the Gelsenszena, 1.FC Köln with its Streetfighters and Eintracht Frankfurt with the Adlersfront, but the most notorious German hooligans of all come from Berlin. Most clubs in Berlin have hooligan followings but argueably the worst belong to FC Dynamo Berlin. There are a number of smaller clubs who also some good hooligan groups, such as Asoziale Randgruppe of Alemania Aachen.

Nowadays due to heavy policing and police inteligence trouble inside grounds is almost non-exsistent but trouble still breaks out in city centres or in a pre-arranged meets in parks etc. This is one area where Germany differs from Holland in that there is no combi travel arrangments so it is easier for German fans to travel independently to matches within Germany, away from the watchful eye of the police. German gangs are well organised and usually the use of weapons is non-exsistent. In fact some groups are so well organised that a video I recently watched of German hooligans in action saw one group handing out armbands to gang members so they new who was who during any fighting with the rival gang!!!! Though the use of weapons doesn't happen often at club level sometimes hooligans following the national side will be armed with some kind of weaponry.
A number of German clubs fans have frienships with each other. Some examples of friendship ties between clubs are those between ordinary fans of Schalke 04 and 1.FC Nürnberg, 1860 München and Kaiserslautern and Bochum and Bayern München. Examples of a friendship ties among the hooligans is that between Stuttgart and Bayer Leverkusen and Schalke and Nurnberg Red Devils. There is also stranegly a hooligan friendship between the hools of Bayern Munich and 1860 Munchen, leading to the Munich Service Crew. There are also some friendships with Dutch clubs. Casuals of Roda North Side have a freindship with Alemania Aachen and the Gelsenzsene of Schalke 04 have a freindship with Twente Enschede. Also lads from NAC have connections with fans of St. Pauli, this might be more to do with policitcal beliefs than hooliganism.
Fashion wise the Germans are beggining to catch up with the casual style. Some German brands have been brought onto the market, among which are Hooligan, Troublemaker and Category C. Though a few years back the Germans were into Umbro sweatshirts etc. this is slowly being replaced with Lacoste and Ralph Lauren gear. Umbro was popular in the middle of the ´90's now it's more kids and ultras that wear it. Popular trainers are white old school Nikes, Adidas and New Balance with the Reebok classic also getting more and more popular. Despite this Alpha flight jackets are still popular. German hooligans come from all classes of life and generally are a bit older, their age normally lies between 25 and 40 years, than German ultras who are usually aged between 15-20.

During the early 1990's the trouble heightened at German matches, Eintracht Frankfurt fans rioted in Copenhagen, the national teams fans rioted in Luxembourg and FC Dynamo Berlin fans rioted in Rostock and virtually destroyed a train on the journey home, the list of similar events is endless. In 1991 Dynamo Dresden were banned from European competition for 2 years after their fans were involved in serious trouble with rival fans in a match against Red Star Belgrade. In Austria in 94, there were over 1000 german hooligans, who attacked police and rival gangs from Vienna.
In 1995 600 German hooligans were involved in serious disturbances in a friendly match against Belgium in Brussels.
In ´96 a big mob traveled to Rotterdam for a match with the Dutch, 1300 hooligans had several battles with police and lads from Rotterdam and in ´97 German lads were involved in trouble before and during a friendly in Poland, a mob of 500-600 Germans attended the match. During the World Cup '98 in France around 700 Germans traveled to Lens. During serious rioting French policeman Daniël Nivel was badly beaten and ended up with brain damage. A number of fans were arrested and went on trial for the assault, leading to sentences of between 3 and 10 years being handed out. There has also been a Nazi under current to the German Hooligan scene.
The current situation in Germany is that the government has decided to ban known German hooligans from EURO 2000, so it will be interesting to see what presence they have at the championships.

The list below gives the names of German Hooligan gangs that I know of,
if you know the names of any other gangs please email them to me.

German Ultra/Hoolie Groups