Jörg Berger was a respected coach in East Germany who, according to some, was once destined to succeed Georg Buschner as national team coach. While in charge of the East German youth national team, he used a game in Yugoslavia in 1979 to defect to the West. He later coached Darmstadt in the 2. Bundesliga and also Freiburg from 1986 to 1988. As a GDR defector he lived under threat from the Stasi and survived an attempted poisoning in the mid-1980s while coaching Hessen Kassel.\n\nAfter reunification, his Stasi files revealed there had been further plans to kill him.
He suffered several cancer operations from 2002 onwards and died on June 23, 2010.