The federal state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was created in 1990. This particular constellation actually existed from 1945 to 1952 but then the East German Communist government divided it up along Soviet lines into the districts of Rostock, Schwerin and Neubrandenburg.

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania borders on Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein to the west, Brandenburg to the south, Poland to the east and the Baltic Sea to the north with 340 kilometres of coastline. Every year the white, sandy beaches attract thousands of tourists, especially on the islands of Rügen and Hiddensee and the peninsulas of Usedom and Fischland/Darss. In springtime rape fields surround the coastal roads with a sea of yellow. The landscape was shaped by the ice age, so don’t imagine it to be flat, even though the highest point of the Helpter Hills rises to just 179 metres. People even call the region between Teterow and Malchin “Mecklenburg’s Switzerland”, because to the north German way of thinking it is almost mountainous here.

The people of Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania have elected three premiers since the fall of the Wall in 1989. They came from different parties, but they were all natives of this state. Although electing a candidate from another federal state was not unthinkable, nobody ever really talked seriously about the idea. And Juri Schlünz, manager of Hansa Rostock, the only soccer team from an eastern state to play in the federal league, comes from Mecklenburg. On several occasions the club asked the former assistant manager to take up the position. But he kept refusing, because after being with the club for over 30 years, he was afraid of failing and then having to leave Rostock and Mecklenburg. It’s about a year now since he took the team under his wing and led them to their current position in the league’s top ten.