The Gauliga Saxony was the highest
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 ...
league in the German state of
Saxony
Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a landlocked state of ...
(German:''Sachsen'') from 1933 to 1945. Shortly after the formation of the league, the
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
reorganised the administrative regions in Germany, and the
Gau Saxony
The Gau Saxony (german: Gau Sachsen) was an administrative division of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 in the German state of Saxony. Before that, from 1926 to 1933, it was the regional subdivision of the Nazi Party in that area.
History
The Naz ...
replaced the state Saxony.
Overview
The league was introduced by the
Nazi Sports Office
The National Socialist League of the Reich for Physical Exercise (german: Nationalsozialistischer Reichsbund für Leibesübungen, abbreviated NSRL) was the umbrella organization for sports and physical education in Nazi Germany. The NSRL was kn ...
in 1933, after the
Nazi takeover of power in Germany. It replaced the ''
Bezirksligas'' and ''Oberligas'' as the highest level of play in German football competitions.
In its first season, the league had eleven clubs, playing each other once at home and once away. The league champion then qualified for the
German championship. The bottom three teams were relegated. The season after, the league was reduced to ten teams. It operated on the same modus until the outbreak of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
in 1939.
Due to the effects of the war, the 1939–40 season was played in two regional groups of six teams each with a home-and-away final between the two group winners.
During the war years, the
Dresdner SC
Dresdner Sportclub 1898 e.V., known simply as Dresdner SC, is a German multisport club playing in Dresden, Saxony. Founded on 30 April 1898, the club was a founding member of the German Football Association (Deutscher Fussball Bund) in 1900. Th ...
became a dominating force in German football, with two championships, in 1943 and 1944, a lost final in 1940 and two cup wins in 1940 and 1941. The