German Football Association

The German Football Association (german: Deutscher Fußball-Bund ; DFB ) is the governing body of football in Germany. A founding member of both FIFA and UEFA, the DFB has jurisdiction for the German football league system and is in charge of the men's and women's national teams. The DFB headquarters are in Frankfurt am Main. Sole members of the DFB are the German Football League (german: Deutsche Fußball Liga; DFL), organising the professional Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga, along with five regional and 21 state associations, organising the semi-professional and amateur levels. The 21 state associations of the DFB have a combined number of more than 25,000 clubs with more than 6.8 million members, making the DFB the single largest sports federation in the world.

History

1875 to 1900

From 1875 to the mid-1880s, the first kind of football played in Germany was according to rugby rules. Later, association-style football teams formed separate clubs, and since 1890, they began to organise on regional and national levels.

1900 to 1933

The DFB (Deutscher Fußball-Bund) was founded on 28 January 1900 in Leipzig by representatives of 86 clubs. The vote held to establish the association was 62:22 in favour (84 votes). Some delegates present represented more than one club, but may have voted only once. Other delegates present did not carry their club's authority to cast a ballot. Ferdinand Hueppe, the representative of DFC Prague, was named its first president. The DFB consolidated the large number of state-based German regional competitions in play for a single recognized national title for the season 1902/03. Germans were not present in Paris when FIFA was founded by seven nations in May 1904, but by the time the FIFA statutes came into effect on 1 September, Germany had also joined by telegram as the eighth nation. The German national team played its first game in 1908.

Before 1914, the German Empire was much larger than today's Germany, comprising Alsace-Lorraine and the eastern provinces. The borders of the regional associations were drawn according to suitable railway connections. Also, teams based in Bohemia, then part of Austria-Hungary, were eligible, as they were German Football clubs and thus considered German. Thus, a German team from Prague was runner-up in the German championship. On the other hand, clubs of the Danish minority in Northern Schleswig refused to join the DFB. This area after World War I voted to join Denmark. Due to border changes imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, the DFB had to adapt its structure. The Saarland, Danzig, and the Memelland were detached from Germany and East Prussia was cut off from the main part by the Polish Corridor.

1933 to 1945

The role of DFB and its representatives like Felix Linnemann under Nazi Germany was documented in ''100 Jahre DFB'' and by Nils Havemann in ''Fußball unterm Hakenkreuz''. According to '' Gleichschaltung'' policy, the DFB, with its large membership from all political sides, and strong regional structures compared to weak national ones, submitted to new rulers and new Gau structures. On a short general meeting on 9 July 1933 in Berlin, the DFB did so, at least formally.

Later, the Hitler salute was made compulsory; Marxists and Jews were expelled. The records of German Jews were erased from the DFD's records, such as those of Gottfried Fuchs who had scored a world record ten goals for Germany in a 16–0 win against Russia at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, becoming the top scorer of the tournament and setting an international record. When, in 1972, German former player and national team coach Sepp Herberger asked the German Football Association vice president Hermann Neuberger to invite Fuchs as a guest or a guest of honour to an international against Russia on the 60th anniversary of Fuchs' performance for the German team, the DFB Executive Committee declined to do so, writing that it wasn't willing to invite Fuchs because it would have created an unfortunate precedent (as was pointed out, given that Fuchs was the last remaining former Jewish German international, the DFB's concern about creating a precedent was a difficult one to understand). As of 2016, Fuchs was still the top German scorer for one match.

A new organization, Deutscher Reichsbund für Leibesübungen (German Reich League for Physical Exercise), was established and Linnemann was appointed leader of its ''Fachamt Fußball'' (Football section), which took over the operational affairs, whereas the DFB lost most of its duties until it was formally dissolved in 1940.

On the pitch, Germany had done well in 1934, but after a 0–2 loss to Norway in the quarter finals of the 1936 Summer Olympics, with Adolf Hitler attending, the DFB and football fell from grace. ''Reichsjugendführer'' Baldur von Schirach and the Hitler Youth took over youth football (under 16) from the clubs following a deal with ''Reichssportführer'' Hans von Tschammer und Osten, who had been in charge of all sports in Germany since 1933, making DFB officials even more powerless. Germany had made a bid to host the 1938 World Cup, but it was withdrawn without comment.

Following the Anschluss in March 1938 that made Austria part of Germany, the Austrian Football Association became part of the German federation. New coach Sepp Herberger was told on short notice to use also Austrian players in his team, which was eliminated in the first round of the World Cup, weakening the situation of football within the Nazi politics to near meaninglessness. Four Germans (Hans Jakob, Albin Kitzinger, Ludwig Goldbrunner, and Ernst Lehner) represented West Europe in a FIFA friendly on 20 June 1937 in Amsterdam, and another two (Kitzinger again and Anderl Kupfer) represented a FIFA continental team on 26 October 1938 in London, England. During the war, Germany played international games until 1942.

1945 to 1963

In the aftermath of World War II, German organisations were disbanded by the allies. FIFA decided in November 1945 to ban the no longer existing DFB (and Japan's football association) from international competition, while the Austrian association was re-founded. Internationally, Germans were still represented, with Zürich-based Ivo Schricker serving as General Secretary of FIFA from 1932 to December 1950. In 1948, Switzerland requested FIFA to lift the ban on games against Germans, but this was denied. Swiss clubs played German clubs anyway, but had to cease doing so due to international protests. This was only changed in 1949 when The Football Association requested FIFA to lift the ban on club games. FIFA did so on 7 May 1949, two weeks before the Federal Republic of Germany was founded, thus games required permission by the military governments of the time.
Due to partition into several occupation zones, and states, the DFB was legally re-founded in Stuttgart on 21 January 1950 only by the West German regional associations, without the Saarland Football Association