VfL Germania 1894 is a German association football club from the city of

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

. The club is notable as one of the

Founding Clubs of the DFB The DFB (''Deutscher Fußball-Bund'' or German Football Association) was formed 28 January 1900 in Leipzig. The commonly accepted number of founding clubs represented at the inaugural meeting is 86, but this number is uncertain. The vote held to ...

(Deutscher Fussball Bund or German Football Association) in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

in 1900.Grüne, Hardy (2001). Vereinslexikon. Kassel: AGON Sportverlag __TOC__

History

Germania was established 26 August 1894 as the first football club in the city and early on (1904) also formed an ice hockey department. In October 1897 the club helped found the Verbandes Süddeutscher Fußballvereine (Federation of South German Football Teams) and board member Fritz Seidenfaden served a term as head of the organization. Germania was also part of a local city circuit known as the Frankfurter Association Bund which existed at about the same time and included four other sides: Frankfurter Kicker and Viktoria 1899 – who would later go on to form

Eintracht Frankfurt Eintracht Frankfurt e.V. () is a professional sports club based in Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany. It is best known for its football club, which was founded on 8 March 1899. The team is currently playing in the Bundesliga, the top tier of the Germa ...

– Bockenheimer FC Germania 1899, and FC Nordend. They captured that league's first championship and enjoyed other successes including the 1904 Main Gau championship and a second-place finish in an international tournament staged at the

World's Fair A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specif ...

at Liège,

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

the following year. Germania established its own ground in 1906 where they played until the site was developed for housing. From 1910 to 1913, the club played in the

Nordkreis-Liga The Nordkreis-Liga (English: ''Northern district league'') was the highest association football league in the German Grand Duchy of Hesse and the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau from 1909 to 1918. The league was disbanded with the introduction ...

(I), with limited success. In 1913 they joined gymnastics club ''Frankfurter Turnverein 1860'' as that association's football department in an arrangement that helped the footballers develop and maintain a new home ground where the nation final would be contested in 1920 between 1. FC Nürnberg and Spvgg Fürth before 30,000 spectators. In the early 1920s, the club played in the

Kreisliga Nordmain The Kreisliga Nordmain (English: ''District league North Main'') was the highest association football league in parts of the German state of Hesse and the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau from 1919 to 1923. The league was disbanded with the introd ...

, winning the title there in 1921–22. A group of local clubs including 1.FC Sachsenhausen 03, Hellas 07, and Amicitia 1911 merged in 1922 to become VfL Sachsenhausen 03 which would in turn become part of Germania in 1933. In the period following World War I the team was very active in international friendlies playing notable sides such as perennial Hungarian title holders MTK Budapest, Switzerland's BSC Young Boys,

Wiener AC Wiener Athletiksport Club, also known as Wiener AC or WAC, is an Austrian sports club in Vienna. It is particularly noted for its hockey team, which was established in 1900. Its football team won the Austrian Championships and was Runner-up in ...

out of

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

, and Turkish champions

Galatasaray Galatasaray Spor Kulübü (, ''Galatasaray Sports Club'') is a Turkish sports club based on the European side of the city of Istanbul in Turkey. Most notable for its association football department, the club also consists of various other de ...

. They also hosted important German clubs such as

VfB Leipzig {{Short pages monitor