Ownership of The BFC Logo
After German re-unification many former East German clubs rushed to drop the names they were often forced to bear during the Communist era and return to traditional names used prior to the end of World War II or to adopt completely new identities. Dynamo was among the clubs to do so, becoming FC Berlin. However, like many others of these clubs they found more value and fan recognition in the names, colours and crests they had played under in East Germany and so returned to these.
Dynamo's situation was complicated as they had neglected to copyright their old logo and found that when they tried to recover it in early 1999 that they no longer held title, having to share it with sports souvenir seller Peter "Pepe" Mager who laid claim to the orphaned image in March 1997. Control of the logo image has since passed to André Sommer and Rayk Bernt and their marketing firm Ra-Be GmbH through which they take ten percent of the value of all fan articles sold. Sommer and Bernt also served as directors in the period following the club's bankruptcy in 2001. This was the cause of additional concern for the beleaguered football association as the pair were known to have links to violent fan groups and the Hells Angels motorcycle club.
The situation has long remained unresolved and Dynamo has been working to recover the rights to its familiar traditional logo. Several alternative logos have been developed and registered in the event that they are unsuccessful in the attempt. The disputed image continued to be used on Dynamo's first team uniforms, at its website, and in other limited contexts, but the club was still unable to fully exploit the commercial value of the logo to its benefit. In 2009, in response to the problem the club decided to introduce a new logo that abandoned the traditional stylized "D" in favour of the Berlin bear.
Read more about this topic: Berliner FC Dynamo
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—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)