On November 14 1998, the stadium announcer at the Stadion An der Alten Försterei welcomed a special guest on to the pitch for the Regionalliga game against Chemnitzer FC.

The guest was Nina Hagen, a famous East German singer who grew to prominence in the 1970s.

She was invited to sing a new club song "Eisern Union" which was commissioned by the club management a few months prior. 

This was a collaboration between the marketing department of 1. FC Union Berlin, the media company of former chairman Dr. Michael Kölmel, as well as, musicians Klaus Sperber and Andreas Cämmerer. The fina version was recorded in a studio in Frankfurt and then produced from Munich.

Later, Sperber recalled that the goal of this project was to give Union Berlin something suitable and extraordinary. The lyrics and the melody were supposed to stand out from every other German football club song, and the aritist was not supposed to be random to attract some extra media attention.

Nina Hagen grew to fame in East Germany in 1974 with the band "Automobil" and the hit song "Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen". After leaving for West Germany in 1976, she devoted herself to punk and German rock and later took on every other musical genre. As a personality, she was outspoken and sometimes controversial.

For the club's birthday three years — 50 years since the club's foundation in January 1966 — the anthem was played out across the stadium and accompanied by an impressive display.