Overview
The league was introduced by the Nazi Sports Office in 1933, after the Nazi take over of power in Germany and Baden. It replaced the Bezirksliga as the highest level of play in German football competitions.
The Gauliga Hessen was established with ten clubs, all from the region of Hesse.
The Gauliga replaced as such the Bezirksliga Main-Hessen and Bezirksliga Hessen-Hannover , the highest leagues in the region until then. As such, it mixed clubs which had previously belonged to different Football Associations, the Southern German FA (Main/Hessen) and the West German FA (Hessen/Hannover).
The Bezirksliga Main-Hessen was the highest association football league in the German state of Hesse and the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau from 1927 to 1933. The league was disbanded with the rise of the Nazis to power in 1933.
The region it covered was never particularly successful in German football and this didn't change with the establishment of the Gauliga. No club from this league reached any German cup or championship final in this period.
In its first season, the league had ten clubs, playing each other once at home and once away. The league winner qualified for the German championship while the bottom two teams were relegated. The league remained unchanged until the outbreak of World War II.
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.
In 1939-40 and 1940–41, the league played in two separate groups of six teams with a home-and-away final at the end to determine the leagues champion.
In 1941, the league returned to a single-division format and renamed Gauliga Kurhessen, but with only nine clubs. Also, some of the clubs from the south, like FC Hanau 93, left the league for the new Gauliga Hessen-Nassau. The 1942-43 season was played in the same modus.
FC Hanau 93 is a German association football club based in Hanau, Hesse.
The worsening war situation and lack of players forced many clubs to merge and form KSG's, Kriegsspielgemeinschaften (combined wartime side) and therefore the league only had seven clubs in 1943-44.
For the Gauligas final season, it was split in three regional divisions with a varying number of clubs.
The imminent collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945 gravely affected all Gauligas and football in Hessen ceased in early 1945 with none of the groups having absolved their full program.
Nazi Germany is the common English name for Germany between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party (NSDAP) controlled the country through a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany was transformed into a totalitarian state that controlled nearly all aspects of life via the Gleichschaltung legal process. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich until 1943 and Großdeutsches Reich from 1943 to 1945. Nazi Germany is also known as the Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", the first two being the Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and the German Empire (1871–1918). The Nazi regime ended after the Allies defeated Germany in May 1945, ending World War II in Europe.
With the end of the Nazi era, the Gauligas ceased to exist. In the US occupation zone, which the newly created federal state of Hessen was part of, the Oberliga Süd was formed in late 1945, to replace this league.
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