Karlsruher FV is a
German association football club that plays in
Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the third-largest city of the German state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital of Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. ...
,
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...
. Established on 17 November 1891, KFV was a
founding member of the
German Football Association (Deutscher Fussball-Bund) in 1900 and is the oldest still existing football club in Southern Germany. The club was one of the leading German football clubs before the First World War. The team went on to capture the national championship in 1910 with a 1–0 victory over
Holstein Kiel
Kieler Sportvereinigung Holstein von 1900 e.V., simply as KSV Holstein or Kieler SV Holstein, commonly known as Holstein Kiel (), is a German association football and sports club based in the city of Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein. From the 1900s thro ...
, but lost the final in 1905 and 1912. The KFV claimed the
Southern German football championship
The Southern German football championship (German: ''Süddeutsche Meisterschaft'') was the highest association football competition in the southern Germany, established in 1898. The competition was disbanded in 1933 with the rise of the Nazis to p ...
from 1901 to 1905 and from 1910 to 1912. After a financial collapse and a resulting disqualification from league operations in 2004, the club continued its activities in 2007.
History
Early prominence
KFV co-founder
Walther Bensemann
Walther Bensemann (13 January 1873 – 12 November 1934) was a German pioneer of football and founder of the country's major sports publication, ''Kicker''.
Bensemann was born in Berlin, Brandenburg, as the son of a Jewish banker. During his time ...
established Internationaler FC Karlsruhe, the first football team in south Germany, in 1889. This club became part of KFV in 1894. He also had a hand in founding the Frankfurter Kickers a predecessor side to
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 ...
. As well, Bensemann established
kicker
Kicker or The Kicker may refer to:
Sports
* Placekicker, a position in American and Canadian football
* ''Kicker'' (sports magazine), in Germany
* Kicker, the German colloquial term for an association football player
* Kicker, the word used i ...
, Germany's first football magazine.
KFV was one of Germany's most successful sides in the years before the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. The club captured the South German title eight times from 1901 to 1912, leading to national final appearances in 1905, 1910, and 1912.
KFV figures in the strange story of Germany's first national championship in 1903 which was won by