Among the players delegated from SG Dynamo Dresden were Johannes Matzen, Herbert Schoen and Günter Schröter. The trio had only a few years earlier been delegated from SG Volkspolizei Potsdam to SG Volkspolizei Dresden. SG Volkspolizei Dresden had been chosen as an ideologically acceptable replacement for the popular SG Friedrichstadt. SG Friedrichsstadt had been dissolved by the authorities after the 1949-50 DDR-Oberliga season and its place in the DDR-Oberliga was transferred to SG Volkspolizei Dresden. SG Volkspolizei Dresden soon became a dominant side in East German football and was reformed as SG Dynamo Dresden in 1953. The city of Dresden had two sides in the DDR-Oberliga in the 1953–54 season, as BSG Rotation Dresden (then BSG Sachsenverlag Dresden) had qualified for the league in 1950. Berlin had no representation in the DDR-Oberliga at the time, and this allegedly did not please the president of SV Dynamo Erich Mielke. Berlin was the capital of the republic, and he thought it needed a strong football team to represent it.