The Gauligen began in 1933 to replace the Bezirkligen of the Weimar Republic. The Nazis introduced 16 regional gauligen. The ‘gaue’ were used to replace the ‘lander’, former German states of the Weimar Republic such as Prussia and Bavaria, and to better control the country. This change raised the expectations of the creation of a Super League, the Reichsliga, a great unified competition for all of Germany. Before the Nazis came to power, the DFB convened a special assembly on May 28 and 29, 1933, to found the Reichsliga as a professional league. But the arrival of the Nazis meant that such a meeting was never held.
The Reichsliga and the Hitler Cup
Hitler, advised by Goebbelsused sport as a propaganda weapon for Nazism, but the fiasco of the German team in the 1938 World Cup reopened the debate on the suitability of the Reichsliga. In August 1939, another meeting was called again to reorganize six Gauligas as a transition model towards the Reichsliga, but the beginning of the Second World War suspended everything again. During the conflict, competitions were reduced because the majority of players were called up to the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany. The lack of footballers caused many clubs to merge or form associations.
With the arrival of Nazism to power It was planned to make an Italian-style national league, but von Tschammen und Osten, Reichssportführer (responsible for sports in the Nazi government), had other plans. These leagues were reformed, so that from 1934 to 1938 the league competition integrated the 16 regional champions into four groups of four teams each that faced each other in home and away matches. The winners of each group advanced to the round, then facing direct elimination. Since 1938, the number of participating teams was expanded and the final matches were a single match. During the war, a regional league was added to each invaded territory. In 1933 it was played Adolf Hitler’s first and only Cup. The Nazis prohibited workers’ or Jewish clubs from participating in these championships, although the latter were allowed to have their own league until 1938. With these measures, clubs with years of tradition fell into disgrace, such as Bayer Munich (the last champion before the Nazism), Eintrach, Kaiserlaunten or Vienna Austria, until they removed the Jews from their organizational chart. At the same time, new clubs with Nazi ideology appeared, such as the Luftwaffen of Hamburg and Danzig or the SS of Strasbourg.
The last season played was 1943-1944. During these years, Professional teams mostly played with young people or those over fifty years old because many footballers had died on the front.. Some stadiums had been destroyed by bombing and it was difficult to travel from one square to another. The last official match played in the Third Reich was on April 23, 1945, FC Bayern defeated TSV 1860 3-2.
The Bayern of the Jews
The case of Bayern Munich is highly studied and relevant. Bayern was considered the team of the Jewspartly because of the figures of two of its founders, Joseph Pollack and Benno Elkan, but especially because of its legendary president Kurt Landauer. All the relations between the Jews and Bayern are collected in the book “FC Bayern and its Jews. Rise and destruction of a liberal football culture” by Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling. Kurt Landauer wore the Bayern shirt in 1901 and was president four times. He left football early to train as a banker. In 1913 he returned to Munich and was elected president of the club. Landauer’s Jewish blood, like that of the coach, Richard Dombi, caused Bayern to be declared a Judenclub and Munich 1860 became the Nazi club of the city cradle of said ideology. In 1933, Landauer was forced to resign from his position as president and the day after Kristallnacht he was sent to the Dachau concentration camp where he was locked up until December 12. He later emigrated to Switzerland, leaving three brothers killed by the Nazis and a sister missing. In Central Europe, a segregation model was adopted in which the teams from Bohemia, Moravia and Poland that were able to participate in the championship could only have footballers of German ethnic origin.. The most outstanding team of these years was Schalke 04, which won three championships, followed by Dresdner SC with two and Rapid Vienna with one.
Due to this, the last season, that of the 1944-45 academic year, was not concluded and the competitions were canceled as the regions fell into the hands of Allied control until the final capitulation of the Nazis on May 8, 1945. Germany was occupied by the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and France and the clubs were dissolved in the denazification process, which allowed them to rebuild. Championships were inaugurated in each occupation zone and a tournament was played in Berlin, which was divided into four zones occupied by the four powers.
Hitler and his sports minister. Hans von Tschammen und Osten / Blioteka elblaska
The Oberligas, especially the DDR
With their sights always set on strengthening their football to compete in the World Cup, in which they had had no luck until then, German football was reorganized from 1945 into different zone championships called Oberligas.. Thus there was a Southern Oberliga (American zone), the Southwestern Oberliga (French), and the Northern and Western Oberliga (British) and the Berlin Oberliga. And in the Soviet zone, what would be, starting in 1958, the DDR-Oberliga, the league of the German Democratic Republic, was formed, which competed until 1991 independently of football in the western part.
One of the great promoters when it came to organizing a great League in Germany was Sepp Herberger, coach of the Germany champion in the ’54 World Cup, the ‘Miracle of Berne’. Herberger met with DFB officials to move forward with the project, but they were unable to move it forward. So Germany’s great league, which was finally called the Bundesliga and not the Reichsliga, was not established until 1963 in the city of Dortmund and the reason, once again, was the team’s disappointing performance in the 1962 World Cup. And for carry it out They had to reduce the number of teams from 600 to 170, organized into three divisions (Bundesliga, Zweite Bundesliga and Dritte Bundesliga) and several groups. The first step towards the current structure.
2024-06-11 05:49:53
#Football #political #propaganda #Hitlers #Gauligen #Bundesliga
