The story
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, North Schleswig 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 DFB'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 was not 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.
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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 in the French occupied Saarland, which on 12 June 1950 would be recognized by FIFA as the first of three German FAs after the war. At the FIFA congress held on 22 June prior to the 1950 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, the Swiss Football Association requested that the DFB be reinstated with full FIFA membership, which was granted on 22 September 1950 in Brussels. Thus, Germany was excluded from the 1950 FIFA World Cup and could resume international games only in late 1950.
In the early years of the division of Germany, West Germany claimed exclusive mandate of all of Germany. Unlike the IOC, which granted only provisional recognition to the East Germans in 1955, demanding they participate in an All-German Olympic team (United Team of Germany), FIFA fully recognized the East German Football Association in 1952. Winning the 1954 World Cup was a major success for the DFB, and the popularity of the sport in Germany.
The teams of the DFB and the Saarland played against one another in the qualifiers for the 1954 World Cup before the Saarland and its FA were permitted to rejoin Germany and the DFB in 1956.
1963 to present
Due to that success, and due to regional associations fearing loss of influence, the old amateur structure, in which five regional leagues formed the top level, remained in effect longer than in many other countries, even though a Reichsliga had been proposed decades ago. Also, professionalism was rejected, and players who played abroad were considered "mercenaries" and not capped. The conservative attitude changed only after disappointing results in the 1962 FIFA World Cup when officials like the 75-year-old Peco Bauwens retired. According to the proposals of Hermann Neuberger, the DFB finally introduced a single nationwide professional league, the Bundesliga, for the 1963–64 season.
The DFB has hosted the World Cup in 1974 and 2006. Germany also hosted the European Championship in 1988 as well as in 2024. Upon reunification in 1990, the East German Deutscher Fußball-Verband der DDR (DFV) was absorbed into the DFB along its honours.
The national team won the World Cup for a second time in 1974, a third time in 1990, and a fourth in the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Also, they were crowned European champions three times, in 1972, in 1980 and in 1996. On top, the Mannschaft were runners-up in the 1966, 1982, 1986 and 2002 World Cups and in 1976, 1992 and 2008 European Championships, making it the second-most successful national team in the world as well as the most successful national team in Europe.
The DFB has also overseen the rise of Germany as a world power in women's football. The national team has won World Cups in 2003 and 2007—the latter without conceding a goal in the final tournament, making them the only World Cup champions for men or women to do so. Furthermore, the women's national team's victory in 2003 made Germany the only nation to have won both the Men's and Women's World Cups, until Spain achieved the same milestone in 2023. They have also won eight UEFA Women's Championships.
In 1990, mere months before reunification became official, the DFB founded the women's Bundesliga (Frauen-Bundesliga), directly modelled after the men's Bundesliga. Initially, it was played in north and south divisions but became a single league in 1997. Bundesliga teams have enjoyed more success in the UEFA Women's Champions League than those from any other nation; four different clubs have won a total of nine titles, with the most recent being 2015 champions 1. FFC Frankfurt, now known as Eintracht Frankfurt.
Since 2005, in memory of former German-Jewish Olympian international footballer Julius Hirsch who was killed in Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust, the German Football Federation awards the "Julius-Hirsch-Preis" for outstanding examples of integration and tolerance within German football.
In 2020, a poll found that the unpopularity of the DFB was caused by increasing commercialization, among other reasons. An academic panel study in 2023 similarly found that the DFB had become deeply unpopular among important figures in German football, who cited reasons such as a lack of transparency, poor communication and distance from fans, and a lack of open reflection on mistakes. In 2025, its 125 year anniversary, the DFB reached more than eight million memberships.
From Wikipedia’s article on German Football Association, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5