Participation of Non-German Clubs
German championships have included clubs from countries other than Germany. DFC Prag, vice-champions in the first national final and a founding member of the DFB, was an ethnically-German club from Bohemia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (today part of the Czech Republic) which did not at the time have its own national football federation.
Following the Anschluss, which united Germany and Austria within the Third Reich in 1938, Austrian clubs became part of German competition; Admira Wien made a losing appearance in the German national final in 1939, Rapid Wien captured the championship in 1941, and First Vienna also lost in 1942. In each case their opposition was Schalke 04. Throughout the course of World War II, clubs in German-occupied territories were made part of German competition in the Gauligen and took part in the regional qualifying rounds of the national championship, but without the same success as Austrian sides.
Read more about this topic: German Football Championship
Famous quotes containing the word clubs:
“We shall exchange our material thinking for something quite different, and we shall all be kin. We shall all be enfranchised, prohibition will prevail, many wrongs will be righted, vampires and grafters and slackers will be relegated to a class by themselves, stiff necks will limber up, hearts of stone will be changed to hearts of flesh, and little by little we shall begin to understand each other.”
—General Federation Of Women’s Clubs (GFWC)