Armeesportvereinigung Vorwärts (ASV)
Encyclopedia
The Armeesportvereinigung Vorwärts (Army Sports Club Forward), briefly ASV Vorwärts , was the sport organization of the German Democratic Republic
German Democratic Republic
The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
's National People's Army
National People's Army
The National People’s Army were the armed forces of the German Democratic Republic .The NVA was established in 1956 and disestablished in 1990. There were frequent reports of East German advisors with Communist African countries during the Cold War...
(NVA) and its predecessor, the Barracked People's Police (Kasernierte Volkspolizei).
Together with the sport clubs and the Sportvereinigung Dynamo, the ASV was one of the most important supports of the GDR's achievement sport system.
From their clubs in Potsdam
Potsdam
Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....
, Frankfurt (Oder)
Frankfurt (Oder)
Frankfurt is a town in Brandenburg, Germany, located on the Oder River, on the German-Polish border directly opposite the town of Słubice which was a part of Frankfurt until 1945. At the end of the 1980s it reached a population peak with more than 87,000 inhabitants...
, Neubrandenburg
Neubrandenburg
Neubrandenburg is a city in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is located in the southeastern part of the state, on the shore of a lake called the Tollensesee ....
, Stralsund
Stralsund
- Main sights :* The Brick Gothic historic centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.* The heart of the old town is the Old Market Square , with the Gothic Town Hall . Behind the town hall stands the imposing Nikolaikirche , built in 1270-1360...
or Rostock
Rostock
Rostock -Early history:In the 11th century Polabian Slavs founded a settlement at the Warnow river called Roztoc ; the name Rostock is derived from that designation. The Danish king Valdemar I set the town aflame in 1161.Afterwards the place was settled by German traders...
emerged well-known sportsmen like the boxer Henry Maske
Henry Maske
Henry Maske is a German boxer, one of Germany's most popular sports figures.-Amateur career:Maske was an Olympic Gold Medalist 1988 in Seoul for East Germany...
or the canoeist Birgit Fischer
Birgit Fischer
Birgit Fischer is a kayaker, who has won eight gold medals over six different Olympic Games, a record she shares with Aladár Gerevich, spanning seven Olympiads: twice representing East Germany , then four times representing the reunited nation...
.
In almost every city with barracks or other army installations the ASV kept a training center. Apart from providing the training equipment, the most important task of the local sections was the promotion of youth sports.
The uniform ASV tracksuit, brown polyamide
Polyamide
A polyamide is a polymer containing monomers of amides joined by peptide bonds. They can occur both naturally and artificially, examples being proteins, such as wool and silk, and can be made artificially through step-growth polymerization or solid-phase synthesis, examples being nylons, aramids,...
with yellow-red stripes and the oval ASV emblem
Emblem
An emblem is a pictorial image, abstract or representational, that epitomizes a concept — e.g., a moral truth, or an allegory — or that represents a person, such as a king or saint.-Distinction: emblem and symbol:...
on the chest, attained cult status after the German reunification
German reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
.