| East German Football Championship |
|---|
| Founded |
| 1948 |
| Folded |
| 1991 |
| Last Champions |
| F.C. Hansa Rostock (1st title) |
| Country |
 East Germany |
| Most successful club |
| BFC Dynamo (10 titles) |
The East German football champions were the annual winners of the DDR-Oberliga.
The 1948 and 1949 East German Champions were determined in a single elimination tournament of three rounds. A nationwide football league, the DDR-Oberliga, was established for the 1949–50 season. [1] The Oberliga was dissolved after the 1990–91 season.
The 1954–55 season was a transitional season and neither was a championship awarded nor were clubs relegated. Due to the transition from a fall-spring to a spring-fall schedule starting with 1956, teams only met each other once from August to December 1955. [2]
In the 1961–62 season the DDR-Oberliga returned from a spring-fall to fall-spring schedule, the teams thus met each other three times. The third meeting was held on neutral ground. [3]
The performance of various clubs is shown in the following table: [4]
Clubs are named by the last name they used before the German reunification.
| Club | Winners | Runners-up | Third Place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berliner FC Dynamo 1 | 10 | 4 | 3 |
| SG Dynamo Dresden 2 | 8 | 8 | 6 |
| FC Vorwärts Frankfurt 3 | 6 | 4 | 1 |
| FC Carl Zeiss Jena 4 | 3 | 9 | 5 |
| 1. FC Magdeburg | 3 | 2 | 6 |
| BSG Wismut Aue 5 | 3 | 2 | — |
| FC Rot-Weiß Erfurt 6 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| BSG Chemie Leipzig 7 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
| BSG Sachsenring Zwickau 8 | 2 | — | 3 |
| BSG Turbine Halle 9 | 2 | — | — |
| F.C. Hansa Rostock 10 | 1 | 4 | — |
| FC Karl-Marx-Stadt | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig 11 | — | 3 | 8 |
| Hallescher FC Chemie 12 | — | 1 | 1 |
| BSG Aktivist Senftenberg 13 | — | 1 | 1 |
| SG Friedrichstadt | — | 1 | — |
| BSG Motor Dessau 14 | — | — | 1 |
Notes:
| City | Winners | Club(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Berlin | 16 | BFC Dynamo (10), FC Vorwärts Berlin (6) |
| Dresden | 8 | SG Dynamo Dresden (8) |
| Chemnitz | 4 | SC Wismut Karl-Marx-Stadt (3), FC Karl-Marx-Stadt (1) |
| Jena | 3 | FC Carl Zeiss Jena (3) |
| Magdeburg | 3 | 1. FC Magdeburg (3) |
| Erfurt | 2 | FC Rot-Weiß Erfurt (2) |
| Leipzig | 2 | BSG Chemie Leipzig (2) |
| Zwickau | 2 | BSG Sachsenring Zwickau (2) |
| Halle | 2 | BSG Turbine Halle (2) |
| Rostock | 1 | F.C. Hansa Rostock (1) |
The DDR-Oberliga was the top-level association football league in East Germany.
Fußball Club Erzgebirge Aue e.V., commonly known as simply FC Erzgebirge Aue or Erzgebirge Aue, is a German football club based in Aue-Bad Schlema, Saxony. The former East German side was a founding member of the 3. Liga in 2008–09, after being relegated from the 2. Bundesliga in 2007–08. The city of Aue-Bad Schlema has a population of about 20,800, making it one of the smallest cities to ever host a club playing at the second highest level of German football. However, the team attracts supporters from a larger urban area that includes Chemnitz and Zwickau, whose own football sides are among Aue's traditional rivals.
The FDGB-Pokal was an elimination football tournament held annually in East Germany. It was the second most important national title in East German football after the DDR-Oberliga championship. The founder of the competition was East Germany's major trade union.
The football league system of the German Democratic Republic existed from 1949 until shortly after German reunification in 1991.
The 1952–53 DDR-Oberliga was the fourth season of the DDR-Oberliga, the first tier of league football in East Germany.
The 1954–55 DDR-Oberliga was the sixth season of the DDR-Oberliga, the first tier of league football in East Germany. After the 1954–55 season the league played a transition round in autumn 1955, followed by five seasons, until 1960, where it played in the calendar year format. From 1961–62 onwards the league returned to its traditional format.
The 1956 DDR-Oberliga was the eighth season of the DDR-Oberliga, the first tier of league football in East Germany. Rather than in the traditional autumn-spring format the Oberliga played for six seasons from 1955 to 1960 in the calendar year format, modelled on the system used in the Soviet Union. From 1961–62 onwards the league returned to its traditional format.
The 1959 DDR-Oberliga was the eleventh season of the DDR-Oberliga, the first tier of league football in East Germany. Rather than in the traditional autumn-spring format the Oberliga played for six seasons from 1955 to 1960 in the calendar year format, modelled on the system used in the Soviet Union. From 1961–62 onwards the league returned to its traditional format.
The 1961–62 DDR-Oberliga was the 13th season of the DDR-Oberliga, the first tier of league football in East Germany. It was the first season played in the traditional autumn-spring format again after the Oberliga had played for six seasons from 1955 to 1960 in the calendar year format instead, modelled on the system used in the Soviet Union. The league was played as a triple round with a home-and-away round and an additional round of games at neutral venues to allow for an earlier start.
The 1963–64 DDR-Oberliga was the 15th season of the DDR-Oberliga, the first tier of league football in East Germany.
The 1965–66 DDR-Oberliga was the 17th season of the DDR-Oberliga, the first tier of league football in East Germany.
The 1966–67 DDR-Oberliga was the 18th season of the DDR-Oberliga, the first tier of league football in East Germany.
The 1984–85 DDR-Oberliga was the 36th season of the DDR-Oberliga, the first tier of league football in East Germany.
Football club was a designation for a specially promoted club for elite football in East Germany. The football clubs were formed during the winter break 1965-1966 as centers of excellence in East German football. The football clubs enjoyed considerable advantages over other sports communities in East German football. In addition to the ten designated football clubs, SG Dynamo Dresden was also promoted in a similar way to the dedicated football clubs from 1968.
A sports club (SC) was a specially promoted sports club for elite sport in the East German sports system. The sports clubs emerged in East Germany after 1954. They were originally founded by the so-called sports associations (SV), which served as umbrella organizations for the sports communities (SG) or enterprise sports communities (BSG) of the different trade union areas in East Germany. The East German sports management then tightened up the system in the early 1960s and instead set up regional district sports clubs. The sports clubs existed in this form until the end of 1990, when they were either dissolved or given new legal statuses based on the West German model. The system of sports clubs came to prove itself in view of the very large number of medals that athletes in East Germany won in the Olympic games and in European and World Championships.
The 1956 FDGB-Pokal started with 148 teams. It was the sixth time that the East German national cup in association football was contested. Due to the switch to a calendar year season the final took place at the end of the year.
The Oberliga or DDR-Eishockey-Oberliga was the top level of ice hockey in East Germany. From 1949 to 1970, the increasingly popular sport of ice hockey saw the creation of a variety of leagues, with the Oberliga at the top level. However, in 1970 funding for all but two ice hockey teams was abruptly ended by the Politburo. Some of the de-funded teams went on to participate in the DDR-Bestenermittlung, an unofficial continuation of the former "Gruppenliga".
The history of BFC Dynamo began with the founding of the sports club Dynamo Berlin in 1954. SC Dynamo Berlin entered the 1954–55 DDR-Oberliga after taking over the first team of SG Dynamo Dresden and its place in the league. The relocation was designed to provide the East German capital with a competitive team that could rival the teams from West Berlin. Prominent players in the team were Günter Schröter, Johannes Matzen, and Herbert Schoen. Dynamo Berlin captured its first trophy in the 1959 FDGB-Pokal. The team then finished the 1960 DDR-Oberliga as runner-up. However, the team was relatively weak in the 1960s and was overshadowed in the capital by ASK Vorwärts Berlin.
The 1959 FDGB-Pokal was the eleventh edition of the FDGB-Pokal. The competition started with a qualifying round comprising the 30 finalists of the 15 regional district cups, 54 teams from the third tier II. DDR-Liga and 14 teams from the second tier DDR-Oberliga. The winners of the qualifying round then met the 14 teams from the first tier DDR-Oberliga in the first round.
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| League system |
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