The East Germany national rugby union team was the representative side of East Germany in rugby union during the country's existence from 1949 to 1990.
East Germany internationals
East Germany played its first rugby international in 1951 in Bucharest against the Romanians, losing 26-64. The East Germans played against mostly Eastern Bloc countries, but they did play Netherlands (once), Sweden (three times), Denmark (twice) and Luxembourg (once). Their one-game against Luxembourg also happened to be their last, taking place shortly before the reunification of Germany in 1990. Despite requests from its West German counterpart, the East German rugby body, DTSB, refused to permit an international against West Germany to take place and the two teams never played each other over their 40-year history.
The team did not compete in the FIRA championship but did take part in a number of four-nation tournaments: 1961 in Brno, 1964 in Malmö, 1978, 1979 and 1983 in Bulgaria (Varna and Nesebar).
Record Below is a table of the representative rugby matches played by an East Germany national XV at test level up until 15 September 1990, updated after match with .
Opponent Played Won Lost Drawn % Won 23 10 13 0 % 16 2 12 2 % 2 2 0 0 % 1 1 0 0 % 1 0 1 0 0% 1 1 0 0 % 21 3 17 1 % 13 0 12 1 0% 1 0 1 0 0% 4 0 4 0 0% 3 3 0 0 % Total 86 22 60 4 %
GDR Coaches The coaches of the GDR national team were the following: Term Name 1951–1972 Erwin Thiesies 1972–1983 Dr. Detlef Krüger 1983–1985 Gerhard Schubert 1985–1990 Rüdiger Tanke 1990 Peter Gellert