User:OdinFK/German football champions

The first German football champions are the annual winners of the Bundesliga, Germany's premier football league. Teams in bold won the DFB-Pokal in the same sesaon thereby completing the double. The football champions from the GDR (1949–91) are also included in the list.

Since 1903 there have been 141 tournaments held which decided 138 champions. From 1949 until 1991 two German champions were decided each year, one for Eastern Germany and one for Western Germany. 40 clubs have since won a German football championship with Bayern Munich holding the most titles (21).

History
When the competiton was incepted in 1903 no nationwide league existed in Germany yet. The tournament instead featured several regional champions which competed in the single elimination to decide the German football champion. After the competition had been halted due to World War I for several years until it continued in 1920. The mode was changed by the Nazis in 1933 and from then on several times until the competition came again to halt due to World War II in 1945.

From 1946 on championships were played out in the occupied territories of Germany and in 1948 the champions form the four western territories decided the first post-war German football champion. While the competition was continued in the West, Eastern Germany incepted its own competition, the first nationwide football league in Germany. In 1963 the DFB created the Bundesliga, the nationwide league in West Germany. After the German Reunification in 1990 the Oberliga was dissolved in 1991. Hansa Rostock and Dynamo Dresden were admitted to the Bundesliga the follwoing season, thereby forming the first German football league covering all German states.

Trophy
frame|right|Championship trophies now and then – the "Viktoria" (1903-1944) and the "Championship Plate" (since 1949)

From 1903 to 1944, the teams played for the "Viktoria" donated by Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia. The trophy was originally intended to be awarded on an annual alternating basis to the championship teams of the German Football Association and the nation's rugby union teams, but the trophy stayed with the footballers as that game became dominant.

The last team to win the Viktoria was Dresdner SC who defeated the air force club Luftwaffen SV Hamburg in Berlin's Olympic Stadium 4 – 0 at the end of the 1943–44 competition. In the confusion at the end of World War II, the trophy disappeared. It was re-discovered decades later in an East German bank safe-deposit box where it had been placed by a Dresden supporter for safekeeping. It has since been returned to the German football association. In the meantime, a new championship trophy, the Meisterschale ("Championship Plate"), was created in 1949. 1. FC Nuremberg, the first post-war champions had to make do with a pennant.

German football championship 1903–1945
The German football championship was held for the first time in 1903. Every champion from a regional German football association could compete in the national championship. The competition was a single elimination tournament with each match held on a neutral ground. In 1933 the Naziregime changed the German league structure drastically. At first 16 Gauligas were incepted. The champions of each Gauliga competed in the national championship. The championship itself had a group stage which qualified for the final single elimination stage. Beginning in 1939 the mode of the competition was often changed in its last years. This was owed to the war leading to material shortcoming and difficulties in transportation. Also several new Gauligas, partly from the occupied territories, had to be included.



Champions of the occupation zones 1946–48
Seperate championships were held in the different zones of occupation from 1946 until 1948.

German football championship 1948
The 1948 German football championship should have been a nationwide tournament, but the Eastern German administration prohibited SG Planitz to participate.

German football championship (BRD) and Fußball-Oberliga (GDR) 1949–1963
In Western Germany the championship was decided by a single-elemination tournament similar to the pre-war mode of the competition until 1963 while a nationwide football league, the Fußball-Oberliga, was established in Eastern Germany in 1949.

Bundesliga (BRD) and Oberliga (DDR) 1964–1991
In 1963 a nationwide football league, the Bundesliga, was established in Western Germany.

Bundesliga 1992–
After the 1991 season the Fußball-Oberliga was dissolved and the clubs affiliated with the DFB. The best two teams of the last Oberliga season, Hansa Rostock and Dynamo Dresden, were admitted to the Bundesliga.

Total titles won
Forty clubs have been champions.

Titles by region
The following table lists the German football champions by region. The 40 champions came from all regions with the exception of the Saarland. With SK Rapid Wien one former champion does not reside on German territory any more. The most successful region is Bavaria having won 34 championships. Saxony was the most successful region of the GDR, having won 15 out of 43 championships.

