“Eisern Union” has been around for a very long time. Union Berlin enjoy cult status well beyond football circles and far beyond Berlin. Like hardly any other club from the former GDR, Union cherish the image of a workers’ club, complete with a lovable, slightly quirky aura and a touch of Ostalgie.
Their famous rallying cry, also the title of the club anthem sung by Nina Hagen, is “Eisern Union”. That much is common knowledge. Less well known is that the cry is almost a hundred years old and probably dates back to the 1920s or 1930s.
Many supporters and players of predecessor club SC Union Oberschöneweide worked after the First World War in the industrial plants of Oberschöneweide, at that time a major industrial cluster of around 25 large firms and numerous workshops and laboratories, mainly in electrical engineering, metalwork and machinery. Work there was physically punishing and demanded an iron will. A metallic, martial chant mirroring the industrial atmosphere suited the local club perfectly, especially since Union already cultivated a particularly athletic, uncompromising style of football.
One urban legend says the chant first rang out against Hertha BSC when a draw against superior Herthaners seemed about to slip away. Another says it grew from the nickname Schlosserjungs, the locksmith lads, given to Union because of their blue kits and working-class roots before 1933.
