In chapter four of the reading Sheffer discusses the 1949 soccer match between Sonneberg and Neustadt. As an event that crosses the East and West boarder, it seems like a huge event that displays how badly these two sides want to be unified. Yet, Sheffer quickly shows the reader that this successful event is not all it seems to be. Although Easterners and Westerners were allowed to cross the boarder on the day of the match, and they did so in hoards, that hoard was heavy with Eastern Germans. She states, “And third, interest was lopsided between East and West. Westerners accounted for less than a fifth of spectators at the game. Only four hundred to five hundred Neustadters ventured into the Soviet zone after the boarder opened, compared to the tens of thousands of Easterners headed West, “(Sheffer, 73). Continually, the same Eastern excitement followed through with the officials who organized the event, as they took the lead and the Western officials treated the match as a headache. In fact it seems as though the Eastern officials purposely timed these boarder crossing events as a way to undermine the newly formed West Germany. However, while the Eastern officials sought to use these events as propaganda to promote German unification there is something about this that gives me pause. These events saw thousands of Eastern Germans crossing the boarder, but not the same number of Western Germans. So, doesn’t that fact make the East look bad? Or, am I missing a piece of the puzzle? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In chapter four of the reading Sheffer discusses the 1949 soccer match between Sonneberg and Neustadt. As an event that crosses the East and West boarder, it seems like a huge event that displays how badly these two sides want to be unified. Yet, Sheffer quickly shows the reader that this successful event is not … <\/p>\n