The 1954 German football championship was the culmination of the

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

season in the

Federal Republic of Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated between ...

in 1953–54.

Hannover 96 Hannoverscher Sportverein von 1896, commonly referred to as Hannover 96 (), Hannover, HSV or simply 96, is a German professional football club based in the city of Hanover, Lower Saxony. They played in the Bundesliga for a total of 30 years betwe ...

were crowned champions for the second time after a group stage and a final. It was Hannover's second appearance in the German final, having previously won the championship in 1938, beating

Schalke 04 Fußballclub Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04 e. V., commonly known as FC Schalke 04 (), Schalke 04 (), or abbreviated as S04 (), is a professional German football and multi-sports club originally from the Schalke district of Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine ...

4-3 after extra-time. Kaiserslautern were making their fourth appearance, and was the third time they had reached the final in four years, following their championship wins in 1951 and 1953. The format used to determine the German champion was different from the 1953 season. Only six teams qualified for the championship, instead of eight. These six teams were split into two groups of three, and only played a single round of matches with games on neutral grounds; previously it had been home-and-away games. The reason for this format change and the reduction in the number of games was Germany's qualifying for the

1954 FIFA World Cup The 1954 FIFA World Cup was the fifth edition of the FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football tournament for senior men's national teams of the nations affiliated to FIFA. It was held in Switzerland from 16 June to 4 July. Switzerla ...

, held shortly after the championship final. As in the past seasons, the two group winners then played the national final.

Qualified teams

The teams qualified through the 1953–54 Oberliga season:

Competition

Group 1

Group 2

Final

Sources

German Championship 1953-54
at Weltfussball.de

at RSSSF.com
German championship 1954
at Fussballdaten.de {{DEFAULTSORT:German Football Championship 1954

1954 Events January * January 1 – The Soviet Union ceases to demand war reparations from West Germany. * January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. * January 7 – Georgetown-IBM experiment: The fir ...