The 1941

German football championship German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

, the 34th edition of the competition, was won by

SK Rapid Wien Sportklub Rapid Wien (), commonly known as Rapid Vienna, is an Austrian football club playing in the country's capital city of Vienna. Rapid has won the most Austrian championship titles (32), including the first title in the season 1911–12, ...

, the club's sole German championship. Rapid, which had previously won twelve Austrian football championships between 1911 and 1938 as well as the 1938 German Cup, won the competition by defeating

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 in the final.(West) Germany -List of champions
rsssf.com, accessed: 26 December 2015 The final was held on 22 June 1941, the same day

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

invaded the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...

Overview

Bundesarchiv Bild 183-2004-1001-503, Berlin, Zuschauer beim Fußball-Endspiel

FC Schalke 04, having won five of the previous seven finals, being the defending champions and aiming for an unprecedented third consecutive German championship, were the favourites and led the final 3–0 after 57 minutes but Rapid scored four unanswered goals, the last three of them by

Franz Binder Franz "Bimbo" Binder (1 December 1911 – 24 April 1989) was an Austrian football player and coach who played as a forward. Internationally he represented the Austria national football team and the Germany national football team during the Ansch ...

, to win the championship. It marked the second of three occasions of a club from

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

(German: ''Wien'') in the final, Rapid becoming the only one to win the competition while Admira Wien had made a losing appearance in the

1939 This year also marks the start of the Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history. Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 ** Third Reich *** Jews are forbidden to ...

final and

First Vienna FC First Vienna FC is an Austrian association football club based in the Döbling district of Vienna. Established on 22 August 1894, it is the country's oldest team and has played a notable role in the history of the game there. It is familiarly k ...

would do the same in

1942 Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 – WWII: The Declaration by United Nations is signed by China, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and 22 other nations, in wh ...

. Austrian clubs had played in the German league system from 1938, after the ''

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...

'', until the

German surrender The German Instrument of Surrender (german: Bedingungslose Kapitulation der Wehrmacht, lit=Unconditional Capitulation of the "Wehrmacht"; russian: Акт о капитуляции Германии, Akt o kapitulyatsii Germanii, lit=Act of capit ...

in 1945. Rapid's victory led to a number of conspiracy theories. On Schalke's side it was speculated that Rapid was allowed to win to award a national championship to a club from the ''

Ostmark Ostmark is a German term meaning either Eastern march when applied to territories or Eastern Mark when applied to currencies. Ostmark may refer to: *the medieval March of Austria and its predecessors ''Bavarian Eastern March'' and ''March of Pann ...

'' while, in Austria, the theory developed that Rapid players were punished after the final by being sent to the

front line A front line (alternatively front-line or frontline) in military terminology is the position(s) closest to the area of conflict of an armed force's personnel and equipment, usually referring to land forces. When a front (an intentional or uninte ...

. Both theories were disproven when Rapid, in 2009, commissioned a study into the history of the club during the Nazi era and found no evidence for either. Rapid continues to list both German titles, the 1941 championship and the 1938 cup win, in its honours. Schalke's

Hermann Eppenhoff Hermann Eppenhoff (19 May 1919 – 10 April 1992) was a German football player and manager. Career The forward was a member of FC Schalke 04 squad, which won the German Championship in the years 1939, 1940 and 1942. He also won three cap ...

became the top scorer of the 1941 championship with 15 goals, the highest individual amount for any player in the history of the competition from 1903 to 1963. The twenty 1940–41

Gauliga A Gauliga () was the highest level of play in German football from 1933 to 1945. The leagues were introduced in 1933, after the Nazi takeover of power by the National Socialist League of the Reich for Physical Exercise. Name The German word '' ...

champions, two more than in

1940 A calendar from 1940 according to the Gregorian calendar, factoring in the dates of Easter and related holidays, cannot be used again until the year 5280. Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January *January ...

because of the addition of the

Gauliga Elsaß The Gauliga Elsaß was the highest football league in the region of Alsace (German: Elsaß, the old orthography of Elsass) from 1940 to 1945. The Nazis reorganised the administrative region and the Alsace became part of the Gau Baden-Elsaß. Ov ...

and

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 ...

,''kicker Allmanach 1990'', page: 243-245 competed in a group stage with the four group winners advancing to the semi-finals. The two semi-final winners then contested the 1941 championship final. The groups were divided into two with four clubs and two with six clubs with the latter, in turn, subdivided into two groups of three teams each and a final of these group winners to determine the overall group champions.German championship 1941
rsssf.com, accessed: 26 December 2015 In the following season, the German championship was played with twenty five clubs. From there it gradually expanded further through a combination of territorial expansion of

and the sub-dividing of the Gauligas in later years, reaching a strength of thirty one in its last completed season, 1943–44.

Qualified teams

The teams qualified through the

1940–41 Gauliga The 1940–41 Gauliga was the eighth season of the Gauliga, the first tier of the football league system in Germany from 1933 to 1945. It was the second season of the league held during the Second World War. The league operated in twenty regional ...

season: *

Vorwärts-Rasensport Gleiwitz Vorwärts-Rasensport Gleiwitz was a German association football club from the city of Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, today Gliwice, Poland. __TOC__ History The team had its origins within the gymnastics club ''Turnverein Vorwärts Gleiwitz'' estab ...

replaced Germania Königshütte for the finals.

Competition

Group 1

Group 1A

Group 1A was contested by the champions of the Gauligas Danzig-Westpreußen, Pommern and Schlesien:

Group 1B

Group 1B was contested by the champions of the Gauligas Brandenburg, Sachsen and Sudetenland:

Group 1 final

Group 2

Group 2A

Group 2A was contested by the champions of the Gauligas Mitte, Nordmark and Ostpreußen:

Group 2B

Group 2B was contested by the champions of the Gauligas Hessen, Niedersachsen and Westfalen:

Group 2 final

Group 3

Group 3 was contested by the champions of the Gauligas Elsaß, Mittelrhein, Niederrhein and Südwest:

Group 4

Group 4 was contested by the champions of the Gauligas Bayern, Baden, Ostmark and Württemberg:

Semi-finals

Three of the four clubs in the 1941 semi-finals had reached the same stage in the previous season, Rapid Wien, Dresdner SC and FC Schalke 04, while VfL Köln 99 replaced

SV Waldhof Mannheim SV Waldhof Mannheim is a multi-sports club, located in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg. It is most known for its association football team; however, there are also professional handball and table-tennis sides. The club today has a membership of over ...

in comparison to 1940: , align="center" style="background:#ddffdd" colspan=3, 8 June 1941

Third place play-off

, align="center" style="background:#ddffdd" colspan=3, 22 June 1941German championship 1941 – Third place game
Weltfussball.de, accessed: 26 December 2015

Final

References

Sources

* ''kicker Allmanach 1990'', by

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 ...

, page 164 & 177 – German championship

External links

German Championship 1940–41
at weltfussball.de

at RSSSF
News broadcast from 22 June 1941 with footage of the final
''

Die Deutsche Wochenschau ''Die Deutsche Wochenschau'' (''The German Weekly Review'') was the title of the unified newsreel series released in the cinemas of Nazi Germany from June 1940 until the end of World War II. The coordinated newsreel production was set up as a vi ...

'' {{1940–41 in European football (UEFA) 1

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

German football championship seasons