1.
Bundesliga
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The Bundesliga, is a professional association football league in Germany and the football league with the highest average stadium attendance worldwide. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germanys primary football competition, the Bundesliga is contested by 18 teams and operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the 2. Seasons run from August to May, most games are played on Saturdays and Sundays, with a few games played on weekdays. All of the Bundesliga clubs qualify for the DFB-Pokal, the winner of the Bundesliga qualifies for the DFL-Supercup. A total of 54 clubs have competed in the Bundesliga since its founding, FC Bayern Munich has won the Bundesliga the most, winning the title 25 times. However, the Bundesliga has seen other champions with Borussia Dortmund, Hamburger SV, Werder Bremen, Borussia Mönchengladbach, the Bundesliga is broadcast on television in over 200 countries. The Bundesliga was founded in 1962 in Dortmund and the first season started in 1963, the structure and organisation of the Bundesliga along with Germanys other football leagues have undergone frequent changes right up to the present day. The Bundesliga was founded by the Deutscher Fußball-Bund, but is now operated by the Deutsche Fußball Liga, the Bundesliga is composed of two divisions, the 1. Bundesliga, and, below that, the 2, Bundesliga, which has been the second tier of German football since 1974. Below the level of the 3, Liga, leagues are generally subdivided on a regional basis. For example, the Regionalligen are currently made up of Nord, Nordost, Süd, below this are thirteen parallel divisions, most of which are called Oberligen which represent federal states or large urban and geographical areas. The levels below the Oberligen differ between the local areas, the league structure has changed frequently and typically reflects the degree of participation in the sport in various parts of the country. In the early 1990s, changes were driven by the reunification of Germany, every team in the two Bundesligen must have a licence to play in the league, or else they are relegated into the regional leagues. To obtain a licence, teams must be healthy and meet certain standards of conduct as organisations. As in other leagues, there are significant benefits to being in the top division. Bundesliga teams draw significantly greater levels of fan support, average attendance in the first league is 42,673 per game — more than twice the average of the 2. Greater exposure through television and higher attendance levels helps 1, Bundesliga teams attract the most lucrative sponsorships. Bundesliga teams develop substantial financial muscle through the combination of television and gate revenues, sponsorships and this allows them to attract and retain skilled players from domestic and international sources and to construct first-class stadium facilities
2.
East Germany
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East Germany, formally the German Democratic Republic, was an Eastern Bloc state during the Cold War period. The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin, but did not include it, as a result, the German Democratic Republic was established in the Soviet Zone, while the Federal Republic was established in the three western zones. East Germany, which lies culturally in Central Germany, was a state of the Soviet Union. Soviet occupation authorities began transferring administrative responsibility to German communist leaders in 1948, Soviet forces, however, remained in the country throughout the Cold War. Until 1989, the GDR was governed by the Socialist Unity Party, though other parties participated in its alliance organisation. The economy was centrally planned, and increasingly state-owned, prices of basic goods and services were set by central government planners, rather than rising and falling through supply and demand. Although the GDR had to pay war reparations to the USSR. Nonetheless it did not match the growth of West Germany. Emigration to the West was a significant problem—as many of the emigrants were well-educated young people, the government fortified its western borders and, in 1961, built the Berlin Wall. Many people attempting to flee were killed by guards or booby traps. In 1989, numerous social and political forces in the GDR and abroad led to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the following year open elections were held, and international negotiations led to the signing of the Final Settlement treaty on the status and borders of Germany. The GDR was dissolved and Germany was unified on 3 October 1990, internally, the GDR also bordered the Soviet sector of Allied-occupied Berlin known as East Berlin which was also administered as the states de facto capital. It also bordered the three sectors occupied by the United States, United Kingdom and France known collectively as West Berlin. The three sectors occupied by the Western nations were sealed off from the rest of the GDR by the Berlin Wall from its construction in 1961 until it was brought down in 1989, the official name was Deutsche Demokratische Republik, usually abbreviated to DDR. West Germans, the media and statesmen purposely avoided the official name and its abbreviation, instead using terms like Ostzone, Sowjetische Besatzungszone. The centre of power in East Berlin was referred to as Pankow. Over time, however, the abbreviation DDR was also used colloquially by West Germans. However, this use was not always consistent, for example, before World War II, Ostdeutschland was used to describe all the territories east of the Elbe, as reflected in the works of sociologist Max Weber and political theorist Carl Schmitt
3.
Promotion and relegation
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In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams are transferred between two divisions based on their performance for the completed season. In some leagues, playoffs or qualifying rounds are used to determine rankings. This process can continue through several levels of divisions, with teams being exchanged between levels 1 and 2, levels 2 and 3, levels 3 and 4, the number of teams exchanged between the divisions is almost always identical. Such variations will almost inevitably cause an effect through the lower divisions. Even in the absence of such circumstances, the pyramid-like nature of most European football league systems can still create knock-on effects at the regional level. The system is said to be the characteristic of the European form of professional sports league organization. Promotion and relegation have the effect of allowing the maintenance of a hierarchy of leagues and divisions and they also maintain the importance of games played by many low-ranked teams near the end of the season, which may be at risk of relegation. In contrast, a low-ranked US or Canadian teams final games serve little purpose, although not intrinsic to the system, problems can occur due to the differing monetary payouts and revenue-generating potential that different divisions provide to their clubs. For example, financial hardship has sometimes occurred in leagues where clubs do not reduce their wage bill once relegated, some leagues offer parachute payments to its relegated teams for the following year. The payouts are higher than the money received by some non-relegated teams and are designed to soften the financial hit that clubs take whilst dropping out of the Premier League. However, in many cases these parachute payments just serve to inflate the costs of competing for promotion among the lower division clubs as newly relegated teams retain a financial advantage. If these are not satisfied, a team may be promoted in their place. While the primary purpose of the system is to maintain competitive balance. On several occasions, the Italian Football Federation has relegated clubs found to have involved in match-fixing. This occurred most recently in 2006, when the initial champions Juventus were relegated to Serie B. An exception is the proposed UEFA Nations League, which will feature promotion and relegation across four levels, in tennis, the Davis Cup has promotion and relegation where each group uses a knockout tournament format in which first-round losers play off to avoid relegation. In the United States, Canada, and Australia, teams are not promoted or relegated. The USL set up two leagues, now known as the United Soccer League and the Premier Development League, although the system is now in place, it is not compulsory and is rarely used
4.
FDGB-Pokal
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The FDGB-Pokal was an elimination football tournament held annually in the former East Germany. It was the second most important national title in East German football after the DDR-Oberliga championship, the founder of the competition was East Germanys major trade union. The inaugural FDGB Pokal was contested in 1949, four years before the initial DFB-Pokal was played in the half of the country. The first national cup competition had been the Tschammerpokal introduced in 1935, each football club which participated in the East German football league system was entitled to enter the tournament. Clubs from the lower leagues played in qualification rounds, with the winners joining the teams of the DDR-Oberliga and DDR-Liga in the main round of the tournament of the following year. Each elimination was determined by a game held on the ground of one of the two participating teams. Until the mid-80s the field of competition was made up of as many as sixty teams playing in five rounds due to the number of eligible clubs in the country. Beginning in 1975 the final was held each year in the Berliner Stadion der Weltjugend and drew anywhere from 30,000 to 55,000 spectators. The last cup final, played in 1991 after the fall of the Berlin Wall, was a 1–0 victory by Hansa Rostock over Stahl Eisenhüttenstadt, the most successful side in 42 years of competition was 1. FC Magdeburg which celebrated seven FDGB Cup wins, one of those wins ultimately led to victory in the UEFA Cup Winners Cup 1973-74, the only winners of the competition to reach the final of the DFB-Pokal since the re-unification of the country are 1. FC Union Berlin, who appeared in the 2001 German Cup final, to date the only other former East German club to appear in the German Cup final is Energie Cottbus. The performance of clubs is shown in the following table, Notes,1 Also known as SC Rotation Leipzig. 2 Also known as Motor Jena,3 Also known as SG Planitz, Horch Zwickau, Motor Zwickau and Sachsenring Zwickau. 4 In 1953, the club was picked up from Leipzig and moved to East Berlin to play as ZSK Vorwärts Berlin, later ASK Vorwärts Berlin, in 1971, the club was picked up and moved again, this time from the capital to Frankfurt, Brandenburg. The team was known as FC Vorwärts Frankfurt,5 Also known as FC Sachsen Leipzig and SC Lokomotive Leipzig. 6 Also known as SG Freiimfelde Halle and Hallescher FC Chemie,7 Also known as Empor Rostock. 8 Also known as SG Aue, BSG Pneumatik Aue, Zentra Wismut Aue, in 1954 the team moved from Aue to Chemnitz. After German reunification in 1990, the club was renamed FC Wismut Aue before taking on its current name,9 Also known as BSG KWU Erfurt, Fortuna Erfurt, Turbine Erfurt
5.
Allied-occupied Germany
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The four powers divided Germany into four occupation zones for administrative purposes, into what is collectively known now as Allied-occupied Germany. This division was ratified at the Potsdam Conference, in Autumn 1944 the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union had agreed on the zones by the London Protocol. The Final German Peace Treaty would result in the westward of Polands borders back to approximately as they were before 1722. In the closing weeks of fighting in Europe, United States forces had pushed beyond the boundaries for the future zones of occupation. The so-called line of contact between Soviet and American forces at the end of hostilities, mostly lying eastward of the July 1945-established inner German border was temporary. After two months in which they had areas that had been assigned to the Soviet zone. All territories annexed by Germany before the war from Austria and Czechoslovakia were returned to these countries, the Memel Territory, annexed by Germany from Lithuania before the war, was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945 and transferred to the Lithuanian SSR. All territories annexed by Germany during the war from Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Poland, the American zone consisted of Bavaria and Hesse in Southern Germany, and the northern portions of the present-day German state of Baden-Württemberg. The ports of Bremen and Bremerhaven were also placed under American control because of the American request to have certain toeholds in Northern Germany, the headquarters of the American military government was the former IG Farben Building in Frankfurt am Main. Beginning in May 1945, many of the American combat troops and airmen in, Army, the Army Air Forces, and the U. S. Navy upon their return home. The Canadian Army was tied down in surrounding the Netherlands until the Germans there surrendered on 5 May 1945 – just two days before the surrender of the Wehrmacht in Western Europe to U. S. Then in July 1945, the British Army withdrew from small slices of Germany that had previously agreed to be occupied by the Soviet Army. Within the British Zone of Occupation, the CCG/BE re-established the German state of Hamburg, also in 1947, the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen became an exclave of the American Zone of Occupation located within the British Zone. In 1946, the Norwegian Brigade Group in Germany had 4,000 soldiers in Hanover, despite its being one of the Allied Powers, the French Republic was at first not granted an occupation zone in Germany. This created a French zone of occupation in the westernmost part of Germany and it consisted of two barely contiguous areas of Germany along the French border that met at just a single point along the Rhine River. It included the Saargebiet, which was disentangled from it on 16 February 1946, by 18 December 1946 customs controls were established between the Saar area and allied occupied Germany. The French zone ceded further adjacent municipalities to the Saar, included in the French zone was the town of Büsingen am Hochrhein, a German exclave separated from the rest of the country by a narrow strip of neutral Swiss territory. The Swiss government agreed to limited numbers of French troops to pass through its territory in order to maintain law
6.
Nazism
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National Socialism, more commonly known as Nazism, is the ideology and practice associated with the 20th-century German Nazi Party and Nazi Germany, as well as other far-right groups. Nazism subscribed to theories of racial hierarchy and Social Darwinism, identifying Germans as part of what Nazis regarded as an Aryan or Nordic master race and it aimed to overcome social divisions and create a homogeneous society, unified on the basis of racial purity. The term National Socialism arose out of attempts to create a nationalist redefinition of socialism, the Nazi Partys precursor, the Pan-German nationalist and anti-Semitic German Workers Party, was founded on 5 January 1919. By the early 1920s, Adolf Hitler assumed control of the organisation, following the Holocaust and German defeat in World War II, only a few fringe racist groups, usually referred to as neo-Nazis, still describe themselves as following National Socialism. The full name of Adolf Hitlers party was Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the shorthand Nazi was formed from the first two syllables of the German pronunciation of the word national. The term was in use before the rise of the NSDAP as a colloquial and derogatory word for a peasant, characterizing an awkward. It derived from Ignaz, being a version of Ignatius, a common name in Bavaria. Opponents seized on this and shortened the first word of the name, Nationalsozialistische. The NSDAP briefly adopted the Nazi designation, attempting to reappropriate the term, the use of Nazi Germany, Nazi regime, and so on was popularised by German exiles abroad. From them, the spread into other languages and was eventually brought back to Germany after World War II. In English, Nazism is a name for the ideology the party advocated. The majority of scholars identify Nazism in practice as a form of far-right politics, far-right themes in Nazism include the argument that superior people have a right to dominate over other people and purge society of supposed inferior elements. Adolf Hitler and other proponents officially portrayed Nazism as being neither left- nor right-wing, but the politicians of the Right deserve exactly the same reproach. It was through their miserable cowardice that those ruffians of Jews who came into power in 1918 were able to rob the nation of its arms, a major inspiration for the Nazis were the far-right nationalist Freikorps, paramilitary organisations that engaged in political violence after World War I. The Nazis stated the alliance was purely tactical and there remained substantial differences with the DNVP, the Nazis described the DNVP as a bourgeois party and called themselves an anti-bourgeois party. After the elections in 1932, the alliance broke after the DNVP lost many of its seats in the Reichstag, the Nazis denounced them as an insignificant heap of reactionaries. The DNVP responded by denouncing the Nazis for their socialism, their violence. Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was pressured to abdicate the throne and flee into exile amidst an attempted communist revolution in Germany, there were factions in the Nazi Party, both conservative and radical
7.
West Berlin
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West Berlin was an enclave which comprised the western part of the city of Berlin during the Cold War. It was formally controlled by the Western Allies and formed a de facto part of West Germany, and was entirely surrounded by the Soviet-controlled East Berlin and East Germany. West Berlin had great significance during the Cold War, as it was widely considered by westerners as an island of freedom. A wealthy city, West Berlin was noted for its liberal and cosmopolitan character. With about two million inhabitants, West Berlin had the biggest population of any city in Cold War Germany and it was 100 miles east of the Inner German border and only accessible by land from West Germany by narrow rail and highway corridors. It consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors established in 1945 and was de facto part of West Germany and it had a special and unique legal status because its administration was formally conducted by the Western Allies. East Berlin, de jure occupied and administered by the Soviet Union, was the de facto capital of East Germany, the Berlin Wall, built in 1961, physically divided West Berlin from its East German surroundings until it fell in 1989. The Potsdam Agreement established the framework for the occupation of Germany in the wake of World War II. The territory of Germany, as it existed in 1937, would be reduced by most of Eastern Germany thus creating the former territories of Germany. The remaining territory would be divided into four zones, each administered by one of the allied countries, according to the agreement, the occupation of Berlin would end only as a result of a quadripartite agreement. The Western Allies were guaranteed three air corridors to their sectors of Berlin, and the Soviets also informally allowed road, at first, this arrangement was intended to be only a temporary administrative structure, with all parties declaring that Germany and Berlin would soon be reunited. However, as the relations between the allies and the Soviet Union soured and the Cold War began, the joint administration of Germany. Soon, Soviet-occupied Berlin and western-occupied Berlin had separate city administrations, in 1948, the Soviets tried to force the Western Allies out of Berlin by imposing a land blockade on the western sectors—the Berlin Blockade. The West responded by using its air corridors for supplying their part of the city with food, in May 1949, the Soviets lifted the blockade, and West Berlin as a separate city with its own jurisdiction was maintained. Following the Berlin Blockade, normal contacts between East and West Berlin resumed, however, in cases this proved only temporary. In 1952, the East German government began sealing its borders, as a direct result the electrical grids were separated and phone lines were cut. However, the culmination of the schism did not occur until 1961 with the construction of the Berlin Wall. From the legal theory followed by the Western Allies, the occupation of most of Germany ended in 1949 with the declaration of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic
8.
Berliner FC Dynamo
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Berliner FC Dynamo is a German football club from Berlin and the record champion of East Germany with ten consecutive championships from 1979 through 1988. A predecessor side to the club was established in 1949 as Sportgemeinde Deutsche Volkspolizei Berlin. In March 1953, this assumed the place of SC Volkspolizei Potsdam in the DDR-Liga. The Potsdam and Berlin sides were formally merged and after 27 March 1953 played as part of the larger Sportvereinigung Dynamo sports club under the name SG Dynamo Berlin. After a 14th-place result in the 1953–54 season, the team was demoted to the Bezirksliga Berlin, the club was again renamed, being christened Sport Club Dynamo Berlin on 1 October 1954. In 1954, team members of Dynamo Dresden were ordered to leave for the capital to establish a side in Berlin. Dynamo Berlin enjoyed some success in the late 1950s and early 1960s with a number of top-three finishes, by 1963, however, their play had fallen off and they had become a lower table side leading to their relegation in 1967. The club returned to first division play after a seasons absence. The side was known as being the team of Erich Mielke. Playing in the DDR-Oberliga BFC won ten titles from 1979 to 1988 allegedly assisted by obedient referees. BFC Dynamo was reviled by many East Germans and referee obedience incurred the unofficially expressed displeasure of the countrys ruling Politburo. After German re-unification in 1990, the side was renamed FC Berlin in an attempt to re-package it and distance it from its past, in 1999, they again took up the name BFC Dynamo. Without its powerful patron and losing its best players to West German Bundesliga teams, the club filed for insolvency in 2001–02 but was required by the German Football Association to play out the balance of its games for the season as mandatory friendlies. BFC recovered to win the Verbandsliga Berlin championship in 2004 and return to fourth division play in the Oberliga Nordost-Nord where they settled in as upper-table side. On 12 June 2013, BFC Dynamo won the Berlin Cup for a time, beating SV Lichtenberg 47 1–0, thus qualifying for the national cup of the DFB. The crowd of 6,381 set a new record for a Berlin Cup final, the subsequent DFB-Pokal match against VfB Stuttgart took place on 4 August 2013 in front of 9,227 spectators. The stadium capacity of the Friedrich Ludwig Jahn Sportpark had been limited, while Dynamos Christoph Köhne came close after hitting the inner post in the 31st minute, Vedad Ibišević won the game for Stuttgart with goals in the 40th and 75th minutes, resulting in a 0–2 defeat. In the 2013–14 Oberliga season, BFC Dynamo won 15 out of the initial 16 games, after 21 season matches, the streak was extended to 20 wins and one draw, effectively securing promotion to Regionalliga Nordost with a 25-point lead
9.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
10.
Dynamo Dresden
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Sportgemeinschaft Dynamo Dresden e. V. commonly known as SG Dynamo Dresden or Dynamo Dresden, is a German association football club, based in Dresden, Saxony. It was founded on 12 April 1953, as an affiliated with the East German police. After the reunification of Germany, Dynamo played four seasons in the top division Bundesliga, the club will begin the 2016–17 season in the 2. The city of Dresden had played a significant part in German football before, after the war the occupying Allied authorities dissolved organizations across the country, including sports and football clubs like SC, as part of the process of denazification. DSC was reestablished in 1946 as SG Friedrichstadt, but with the part of the country, including Dresden, under Soviet control. After a riot at the final of the 1950 East German championship, the city needed a new, ideologically safe representative, and a new football club as founded, as part of SG Deutsche Volkspolizei Dresden. A team was assembled with players delegated from 11 other police-affiliated clubs, in April 1953, the central sports society SV Dynamo was founded, to which VP Dresden were affiliated, taking the name of SG Dynamo Dresden. Shortly after this the club claimed its first East German title and this success, though, proved to be the clubs undoing. Erich Mielke, head of the Stasi, of which Dynamo were now part, was unhappy that Dresden was enjoying footballing success, while the capital, East Berlin, in 1954, Dynamos team were moved to Berlin, to form Dynamo Berlin. Dynamo Dresden were left with a composed of youth and reserve players. They began to climb the leagues, though, and by 1962 they were back in the DDR-Oberliga and they recovered equally well from another relegation in 1968, and remained in the Oberliga from 1969 until its dissolution in 1991. Dynamo Dresden were one of these, although retained the title of Sportgemeinschaft. During the 1970s, Dynamo established themselves as one of the top teams in East Germany and they won five league titles, and two cups. FC Magdeburg for domination of the league, and became the most popular the side in the country, regularly drawing crowds of 25,000, around three times what other clubs were attracting. During this time Dynamo came up against West German opposition for the first time, on three occasions they were eliminated by English side Liverpool, twice in the UEFA Cup and once in the European Cup, and each time Liverpool went on to win the competition. In 1973, Hans-Jürgen Kreische was the first Dynamo Dresden player to be named East German Footballer of the Year, Kreische was the leagues leading goalscorer on four occasions, and was named in East Germanys squad for the 1974 World Cup, along with team-mate Siegmar Wätzlich. History was to repeat itself, though, at the end of the 1970s, East German football had generally been set up in favour of the Fußballclubs, who were usually delegated the best players, but the authorities had usually kept out of on-pitch matters. This changed in the late-1970s and 80s though, as players, BFC won ten consecutive titles, from 1979 to 1988
