Luftwaffensportverein Danzig was a short-lived German association football club from the city of Danzig,

West Prussia The Province of West Prussia (german: Provinz Westpreußen; csb, Zôpadné Prësë; pl, Prusy Zachodnie) was a province of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and 1878 to 1920. West Prussia was established as a province of the Kingdom of Prussia in 177 ...

(today

Gdańsk Gdańsk ( , also ; ; csb, Gduńsk;Stefan Ramułt, ''Słownik języka pomorskiego, czyli kaszubskiego'', Kraków 1893, Gdańsk 2003, ISBN 83-87408-64-6. , Johann Georg Theodor Grässe, ''Orbis latinus oder Verzeichniss der lateinischen Benen ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

). ''LSV'' was an air force (

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

) sports club that was active from 1941–44 and was made up primarily of

flak Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based, ...

soldiers. During

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 ...

it was common in Germany for military sides to take part in domestic competition. The most successful of these clubs was ''

LSV Hamburg Luftwaffen-SV Hamburg (literally: Airforce sports club Hamburg) was a short-lived military German association football club active during World War II and is notable as the most successful of the wartime military sides. History Military spor ...

'' which appeared in the final of the Tschammerpokal, predecessor of today's

German Cup The DFB-Pokal ( is a German knockout football cup competition held annually by the German Football Association (DFB). Sixty-four teams participate in the competition, including all clubs from the Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga. It is considere ...

, in 1943 and in the national championship final in 1944.Grüne, Hardy (2001). Vereinslexikon. Kassel: AGON Sportverlag ''LSV Danzig'' won a promotion round playoff at the end of the 1941–42 season to advance to the first division

Gauliga Danzig-Westpreußen The Gauliga Danzig-Westpreußen was the highest football league in the former Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia (German: Danzig-Westpreußen), a Nazi administrative unit established partly from German and partly from annexed territory. Overview Th ...

where they captured the title in 1944. That earned the club a place in the opening round of the national playoffs where they played ''

Hertha BSC Berlin Hertha, Berliner Sport-Club e. V., commonly known as Hertha BSC (), and sometimes referred to as Hertha Berlin, Hertha BSC Berlin, or simply Hertha, is a German professional football club based in the locality of Westend of the borough of Charlo ...

'' to a scoreless draw before losing the rematch 1–7. The Gauliga Danzig-Westpreußen collapsed in September 1944 in the latter stages of the war with the club disappearing at the same time. During the war, ''LSV'' made use of the facilities of ''

Gedania Danzig KS Gedania Danzig was an ethnically-Polish association football club that was part of German football competition in the inter-war period. It was formed in 1922 in what was at the time the Free City of Danzig (present day Gdańsk, Poland). Ban ...

'', an ethnically-Polish club that was banned for political reasons by 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 ...

in 1938.

Honours

* Gauliga Danzig-Westprussen champions: 1944

References

External links

Das deutsche Fußball-Archiv
historical German domestic league tables

football in East Prussia and Danzig {{DEFAULTSORT:Danzig, LSV Defunct football clubs in Germany Defunct football clubs in former German territories Luftwaffe football clubs Sport in Gdańsk Danzig in World War II 1941 establishments in Germany 1941 establishments in Poland Association football clubs established in 1941 Association football clubs disestablished in 1944