Walter and her son Silvio (left) and husband Andreas, in their kitchen, all black and yellow, to match their favourite team, Borussia Dortmund. Photos: Patrick Pleul/dpa
Everything in Kristina Walter's world is black and yellow, the colours of her favourite team, Borussia Dortmund (BVB).
In her home, the football club's logo is everywhere you look, starting with the walls of her house, which are yellow with black window frames, doors and beams.
Her letterbox is also black and yellow, as is the car.
Walter herself wears a yellow shirt, dark trousers and a black cardigan.
"I don't actually have clothes in any other colours," she says.
She lives in Quappendorf, a village in Brandenburg where her home has become a landmark that locals have learned to love.
Anyone who drives through the village cannot help but pass by and admire the home Walter and her husband Andreas Walter built after they moved out of Berlin into the countryside nearby.
"Some people stop and take a closer look," says Andreas.
"It's not really my style," says Franziska Wetzlar, who runs Pimpinelle, a dairy sheep farm diagonally opposite the colourful house.
There might not be any other BVB fans in Quappendorf, given Dortmund is located hundreds of kilometres away in western Germany. But the locals have all been friendly and welcoming, says Walter, a retired geriatric nurse.
"Almost everyone came to our topping-out ceremony and brought presents – wrapped in black and yellow, of course," she says.
Raised in East Berlin, she started following BVB shortly after the German reunification in 1990.
Walter, her son Silvio (left) and her husband Andreas with the black and yellow car whose colours proudly show off her loyal support for a football team, Borussia Dortmund.
"Back then, I thought Matthias Sammer was great and he was one of the first East German players to move to a West German club, BVB," Walter says.
Sammer no longer plays for the side but Walter is still faithful to BVB.
"My new favourite is Marco Reus," she says.When the Dortmund team comes to Berlin, she and her husband head to the stadium to watch the game live – though Andreas actually follows a different team.
A former postman, he supports Hertha BSC, a Berlin team whose colours are blue and white.
"But I am not as fanatical a fan as my wife. Otherwise there would be a lot of noise around here," Andreas says, placing a coffee pot in Hertha's colours on the table.Walter has only seen her team play at home twice, as Dortmund is on the other side of the country.
She approved of the fans there though, she says. "It was very different from Berlin, the fans know how to behave. No one leaves the stadium before the last goal is scored, even if Borussia is losing."
She drove to the games in her car – yellow, with black trim and emblazoned with a large logo on the bonnet – which was frequently photographed by fans in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Many other BVB fans live in Dortmund's home state who also show off their team pride. One farmer mowed the BVB logo into a field, says a BVB press office employee.
"Many people around Dortmund who decorate their house or flat in black and yellow or celebrate their wedding or birthday at the stadium if it isn't a match day," says Luisa Walleit from BVB's fans department.
BVB has followers nationwide and beyond, in the Netherlands and Belgium. Even then, the Walter family are serious fans, Walleit says.
Quappendorf, a village of around 100 people, was initially ambivalent, says Mayor Mario Eska.
"The BVB is not to everyone's taste. Houses here in the Oderbruch region are more traditional," he says of local architectural styles.
But it is not up to him how people decorate their homes, he says.
"Though if it wasn't BVB but Bayern Munich, the mood in the village would be very different. Nobody likes them here," he says.
Plenty of Germans outside of Bavaria resent Bayern Munich, the nation's wealthiest club, as it dominates the league tables and can afford many of the best players in other teams.
The Walters only moved into their new home last year, leaving behind the stress of Berlin for the tranquil Oderbruch area.
Walter's pride and joy is her new kitchen, kitted out with yellow furniture which contrasts nicely with the dark worktops, black and yellow tiles and pot holders and dark refrigerator.
There's also her BVB mug collection, a toaster that plays the club's song and lamps shaped like footballs.
Next, they plan to decorate the party room with scarves, caps and a large wall tattoo.
Outside, they painted the kennel in the club colours. Still on their to-do list is a flagpole where they can hoist the Borussia Dortmund flag. They also want to set up a moving spotlight to shine the logo across their building.
Then they are planning a house-warming party though they haven't decided whether to have a dress code.
After all, when they got married they wore their teams' colours, with Walter in a yellow dress with black dots and Andreas wearing a blue suit and white shirt. – dpa
