The 1961–62 Oberliga was the seventeenth season of the Oberliga, the first tier of the

football league system Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' generally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

. The league operated in five regional divisions,

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...

South South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...

Southwest The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A '' compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west— ...

and

West West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...

. The five league champions and the runners-up from the west, south, southwest and north then entered the 1962 German football championship which was won by

1. FC Köln 1. Fußball-Club Köln 01/07 e. V., better known as simply 1. FC Köln () or FC Cologne in English language, English, is a German professional association football, football club based in Cologne in North Rhine-Westphalia. It was formed in 1948 ...

. It was 1. FC Köln's first-ever

national championship A national championship(s) is the top achievement for any sport or competition, contest within a league of a particular nation or nation state. The title is usually awarded by contests, ranking systems, stature, ability, etc. This determines the be ...

Hamburger SV Hamburger Sport-Verein e.V. (), commonly known as Hamburger SV () or Hamburg (), or HSV (), is a German sports club based in Hamburg, with its largest branch being its Association football, football department. Though the current HSV was founde ...

equaled the Oberliga start record set in 1952–53 by

and repeated by

Hannover 96 Hannoverscher Sportverein von 1896, commonly referred to as Hannover 96 (), is a German professional association football, football club based in the city of Hanover, Lower Saxony. They played in the Bundesliga for a total of 30 years between 19 ...

the season after, winning its first eleven games, a mark never surpassed. A similar league, the

DDR-Oberliga The DDR-Oberliga (English: ''East German Premier League'' or ''GDR Premier League'') was the top-level association football league in East Germany. Overview Following World War II, separate sports competitions emerged in the Allied-occupied G ...

, existed in

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

, set at the first tier of the East German football league system. The 1961–62 DDR-Oberliga was won by

ASK Vorwärts Berlin 1. Fußballclub Frankfurt (Oder) E. V. e. V., commonly known as 1. FC Frankfurt, is a German football club based in Frankfurt (Oder), Brandenburg. The club was founded as the army club SV VP Vorwärts Leipzig in Leipzig in East Germany in 1951. ...

Oberliga Nord

The 1961–62 season saw two new clubs in the league,

Bremer SV Bremer SV is a German association football club, founded in 1906 and based in the city of Bremen. The club play their home games at the Panzenberg Stadium and currently competes in the fourth-tier Regionalliga Nord. History Bremer SV was form ...

and

Eintracht Nordhorn Eintracht Nordhorn was a German association football club from the city of Nordhorn, Lower Saxony. The club was founded in 1945 as ''Sportverein Nordhorn'' and adopted the name ''Eintracht Nordhorn'' in 1947. A separate football club known as ' ...

, both promoted from the Amateurliga. The league's top scorers were

Uwe Seeler Uwe Seeler (; 5 November 1936 – 21 July 2022) was a German Association football, footballer and football official. As a Striker (association football), striker, he was a prolific scorer for Hamburger SV and also made 72 appearances for the Ger ...

(Hamburger SV) and Gerd Koll (Holstein Kiel) with 28 goals each.

Oberliga Berlin

The 1961–62 season saw one new club in the league, Union 06 Berlin, promoted from the

Amateurliga Berlin The Amateur-Oberliga Berlin was the second tier of the German football league system in the city of West Berlin in Germany from 1947 until the formation of the Bundesliga in 1963, operating under the name of Amateurliga Berlin. After 1963, it was ...

. The league's top scorers were Wolfgang Seeger (Tennis Borussia Berlin) and Lutz Steinert (Hertha BSC) with 18 goals each.

Oberliga West

The 1961–62 season saw two new clubs in the league,

Fortuna Düsseldorf Düsseldorfer Turn- und Sportverein Fortuna 1895 e.V., commonly known as Fortuna Düsseldorf (), is a Football in Germany, German football club based in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, that competes in the 2. Bundesliga. Founded in 1895, Fo ...

and Schwarz-Weiß Essen, both promoted from the 2. Oberliga West. The league's top scorer was Manfred Rummel of Schwarz-Weiß Essen with 26 goals.

Oberliga Südwest

The 1961–62 season saw two new clubs in the league, BSC Oppau and

VfR Kaiserslautern VfR Kaiserslautern () is a German sports club in Kaiserslautern, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Creation VfR Kaiserslautern was created through several mergers. In 1893, MTV Kaiserslautern was formed. The football team split off and formed ...

, both promoted from the 2. Oberliga Südwest. The league's top scorer was Rudi Dörrenbächer of Borussia Neunkirchen with 37 goals, the highest total for any scorer in the five Oberligas in 1961–62.

Oberliga Süd

The 1961–62 season saw two new clubs in the league,

BC Augsburg BC Augsburg was a German football club based in Augsburg, Bavaria. The team was founded as Fußball-Club Allemannia Augsburg in 1907 and played as Ballspiel-Club Augsburg from 1921 to 1969. Facing imminent financial collapse, BC merged with the ...

and

Schwaben Augsburg TSV Schwaben Augsburg is a German football club which is part of a larger sports association whose origins go back to the 1847 formation of the gymnastics club Turnverein Augsburg. The association's football department was formed in 1907 and af ...

, both promoted from the 2. Oberliga Süd. The league's top scorer was Lothar Schämer of Eintracht Frankfurt with 26 goals.

German championship

The 1962 German football championship was contested by the nine qualified Oberliga teams and won by

, defeating 1. FC Nürnberg in the final. The runners-up of the Oberliga Nord and West played a pre-qualifying match. The remaining eight clubs then played a home-or-away round in two groups of four. The two group winners then advanced to the final.Das Finale der Deutschen Meisterschaft 1961/1962

Fussballdaten.de fussballdaten.de is a German-language website that predominantly collects comprehensive statistics on the top five tiers of German football. The website offers statistics on every Bundesliga, 2. Bundesliga and 3. Liga The 3. Liga is a p ...

, accessed: 8 December 2015

Qualifying

Group 1

Group 2

Final

References

Sources

* ''30 Jahre Bundesliga'' 30th anniversary special, publisher: '' kicker Sportmagazin'', published: 1993 * ''kicker-Almanach 1990'' Yearbook of German football, publisher: ''kicker Sportmagazin'', published: 1989, * ''DSFS Liga-Chronik seit 1945'' publisher: DSFS, published: 2005 * ''100 Jahre Süddeutscher Fußball-Verband'' 100 Years of the Southern German Football Federation, publisher: SFV, published: 1997

External links

The Oberligas on Fussballdaten.de
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oberliga, 1961-62 1961-62 1 Ger