Oberliga Süd (1945–1963)

The Oberliga Süd (English: Premier League South) was the southernmost of the five Oberligen, the regional leagues forming the top level of association football in West Germany from 1945 until the formation of the Bundesliga in 1963. Oberliga Süd covered the southern three German states of Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Hesse.

Oberliga Süd
Map of Germany:Position of the Oberliga Süd highlighted
Founded1945
Folded1963 (18 seasons)
Replaced byBundesliga
Country Germany
State
Level on pyramidLevel 1
Relegation to2. Oberliga Süd
Last championsTSV 1860 Munich
(1962–63)

Overview
Map of the five German Oberligas and East Germany in 1963.

The league was introduced as the highest level of football in the US occupation zone in 1945 to replace the disbanded Gauligen. It played its first round on 4 November 1945 and continued on throughout winter. No less than 16 clubs were elected into the new league, a novelty in German football and quite an achievement in the early post-war conditions.[1] At this stage, clubs from the south-western parts of Baden and Württemberg were not eligible to compete in it as they were based in the French occupation zone and had to play in the Oberliga Südwest (Südgruppe), where they remained until 1950, when the separation of South and Southwest was made final.[2] Play in the southern parts of Germany went underway almost straight after the end of the war while the north and east still had to wait some more years. One reason for this was the fact that the less industrial, more agricultural south had sustained much less damage to infrastructure. But there was another specific advantage. The authorities in the U.S. zone encouraged the relaunch of competitive sports on a regional basis much earlier than this happened in the other zones. Regional (or nationwide) football associations were not tolerated anywhere before 1948. The Oberliga Süd, however, was licensed to a group of private persons, thus being a sort of "independent" league during its first five seasons. It did not join the South German F.A. until 1950.

The clubs in the Oberliga Süd had been in the following Gauligen:

In addition to the Oberliga Süd, four other Oberligas were formed in Germany in the 1940s.

Set below the Oberliga were originally the Landesligas of Hessen, Bayern, Württemberg and Nordbaden, from 1950 also Südbaden. From 1950 the 2. Oberliga Süd was formed as an intermediate between Oberliga and Landesligas.

With the reintroduction of the German championship in 1948, the winner and runners-up of the Oberliga Süd went on to the finals tournament with the other Oberliga champions. In 16 attempts the Oberliga Süd managed to win it six times.

In 1950, the southern group of the Oberliga Südwest was disbanded and its clubs joined the Southern German Football Association. The SSV Reutlingen and the FC Singen 04 joined the Oberliga Süd, SV Tübingen, Freiburger FC and Vfl Konstanz were integrated into the new 2nd Oberliga Süd and the other eleven clubs were relegated to the Amateurliga.

The Oberliga Süd had quite a few permanent clubs. The VfB Stuttgart, 1. FC Nürnberg, Eintracht Frankfurt, Kickers Offenbach, VfR Mannheim and 1. FC Schweinfurt 05 played all of the 18 possible seasons in the league. The Karlsruher SC was also present for all 18 seasons but only by counting in both halves of the merger club.

Founding members of the Oberliga Süd

In order of finish:

Of those clubs, the Karlsruher FV was reformed and the Phönix Karlsruhe is now the Karlsruher SC.

Disbanding of the Oberliga

With the introduction of the Bundesliga, five teams from the Oberliga Süd were admitted to the new Bundesliga. The remaining clubs went to the new Regionalliga Süd, one of five new second divisions.

The teams admitted to the Bundesliga were:

The 3rd placed team of the 1963 season, the FC Bayern Munich was not admitted as the German Football Association did not want two teams from the same city in the league and TSV 1860 Munich had qualified in a higher position.

The following teams from the Oberliga went to the new Regionalliga:

Qualifying for the Bundesliga

The qualifying system for the new league was fairly complex. The league placings of the clubs playing in the Oberligen for the last ten seasons were taken into consideration, whereby results from 1952 to 1955 counted once, results from 1955 to 1959 counted double and results from 1959 to 1963 triple. A first-place finish was awarded 16 points, a sixteenth place one point. Appearances in the German championship or DFB-Pokal finals were also rewarded with points. The five Oberliga champions of the 1962–63 season were granted direct access to the Bundesliga. All up, 46 clubs applied for the 16 available Bundesliga slots.

Following this system, by 11 January 1963, the DFB announced nine fixed clubs for the new league and reduced the clubs eligible for the remaining seven places to 20. Clubs within the same Oberliga that were separated by less than 50 points were considered on equal rank and the 1962-63 placing was used to determine the qualified team.[3]

Of the thirteen clubs from this league applying, the 1. FC Nürnberg and Eintracht Frankfurt qualified early. Karlsruher SC and VfB Stuttgart held third and fourth place in the overall points ranking. Kickers Offenbach and FC Bayern Munich missed out to TSV 1860 Munich due to the latter winning the league in 1962–63 even though 1860 were 153 points behind Offenbach and 59 behind FC Bayern.[4]

Points table:

Rank Club Points 1952 to 1963 Place in 1962–63
1 1. FC Nürnberg 1 447 2
2 Eintracht Frankfurt 1 420 4
3 Karlsruher SC 2 419 5
4 VfB Stuttgart 2 408 6
5 Kickers Offenbach 2 382 7
6 FC Bayern Munich 2 288 3
7 TSV 1860 Munich 2 229 1
8 VfR Mannheim 3 227 12
9 SpVgg Fürth 3 224 9
10 1. FC Schweinfurt 05 3 185 11
11 FC Bayern Hof 3 90 13
12 TSV Schwaben Augsburg 3 61 15
13 KSV Hessen Kassel 3 36 10
  • Source: DSFS Liga-Chronik (in German), page: B 12, accessed: 4 November 2008
  • 1 Denotes club was one of the nine selected on 11 January 1963.
  • 2 Denotes club was one of the 20 taken into final selection.
  • 3 Denotes club was one of the 15 applicants which were removed from final selection.

Honours

The winners and runners-up of the Oberliga Süd:[5]

Season Winner Runner-Up
1945–46 VfB Stuttgart 1. FC Nürnberg
1946–47 1. FC Nürnberg SV Waldhof Mannheim
1947–48 1. FC Nürnberg TSV 1860 Munich
1948–49 Kickers Offenbach VfR Mannheim
1949–50 SpVgg Fürth VfB Stuttgart
1950–51 1. FC Nürnberg SpVgg Fürth
1951–52 VfB Stuttgart 1. FC Nürnberg
1952–53 Eintracht Frankfurt VfB Stuttgart
1953–54 VfB Stuttgart Eintracht Frankfurt
1954–55 Kickers Offenbach SSV Reutlingen
1955–56 Karlsruher SC VfB Stuttgart
1956–57 1. FC Nürnberg Kickers Offenbach
1957–58 Karlsruher SC 1. FC Nürnberg
1958–59 Eintracht Frankfurt Kickers Offenbach
1959–60 Karlsruher SC Kickers Offenbach
1960–61 1. FC Nürnberg Eintracht Frankfurt
1961–62 1. FC Nürnberg Eintracht Frankfurt
1962–63 TSV 1860 Munich 1. FC Nürnberg
  • Bold denotes team went on to win German Championship.

Placings & all-time table of the Oberliga Süd

The final placings and all-time table of the Oberliga Süd:[5][6]

Club 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 S G GF GA Points
1. FC Nürnberg 2 1 1 11 8 1 2 9 4 9 7 1 2 3 6 1 1 2 18 560 1348 754 739
Kickers Offenbach 12 5 9 1 3 10 3 6 3 1 4 2 5 2 2 4 4 7 18 560 1236 848 684
VfB Stuttgart 1 6 5 6 2 4 1 2 1 13 2 4 9 5 7 7 5 6 18 560 1165 824 661
Eintracht Frankfurt 11 3 10 13 14 8 4 1 2 4 6 5 3 1 4 2 2 4 18 560 1117 809 661
FC Bayern Munich 6 11 4 3 13 9 8 7 9 16 10 7 4 3 8 3 3 17 530 1060 922 554
VfR Mannheim 14 12 8 2 4 12 5 13 10 10 3 7 10 8 10 9 10 12 18 560 1022 1066 546
SpVgg Fürth 13 10 15 1 2 6 3 11 11 13 6 4 7 11 11 12 9 17 530 920 899 528
1. FC Schweinfurt 05 7 9 13 10 12 7 14 5 8 3 8 12 8 10 12 14 14 11 18 560 854 953 524
TSV 1860 Munich 9 4 2 4 9 6 13 15 16 6 6 5 6 7 1 15 470 908 815 507
FSV Frankfurt 10 14 7 12 5 5 7 11 7 6 9 11 13 11 9 12 15 17 530 812 907 506
Karlsruher SC 4 5 5 1 3 1 9 1 3 9 5 11 330 727 524 401
SV Waldhof Mannheim 4 2 6 5 6 14 10 8 15 16 13 16 12 380 646 704 369
Stuttgarter Kickers 3 7 3 8 16 12 14 14 12 14 14 16 16 13 406 774 795 360
BC Augsburg 8 17 14 10 16 10 12 7 11 13 12 15 11 16 14 432 737 983 353
TSV Schwaben Augsburg 5 8 11 7 11 13 15 8 12 15 13 15 12 380 600 711 347
Viktoria Aschaffenburg 15 17 11 12 16 5 8 11 14 15 10 316 504 720 264
SSV Reutlingen * 18 2 15 14 12 8 5 8 14 9 274 470 598 243
TSG Ulm 1846 13 12 15 16 13 14 15 8 8 256 390 508 212
VfB Mühlburg 14 9 7 3 9* 5 162 309 248 166
SSV Jahn Regensburg 15 6 14 10 9 15 16 7 210 281 509 164
VfL Neckarau 16 16 11 16 4 140 242 344 111
FC Bayern Hof 13 10 6 13 4 120 181 262 105
KSV Hessen Kassel 13 15 10 3 90 140 198 70
Phönix Karlsruhe 15 20 2 68 100 185 42
Karlsruher FV 16 19 2 68 81 196 40
1. FC Bamberg 18 1 38 44 75 28
SV Darmstadt 98 15 1 34 54 86 25
FC Singen 04 * 17 1 34 56 112 22
Rot-Weiß Frankfurt 18 1 38 50 99 22
FC Wacker München 19 1 38 41 89 21
Freiburger FC * 16 1 30 43 66 20
1. Rödelheimer FC 02 16 1 30 40 73 17
Sportfreunde Stuttgart 20 1 38 30 100 14

Source: "Oberliga Süd". Das deutsche Fussball-Archiv. Retrieved 2007-12-26.

  • VfB Mühlburg and Phönix Karlsruhe merged in 1952 to form Karlsruher SC.
  • * denotes club played in the Oberliga Südwest until 1950.

Top scorers

The league's top scorers:

Year Player Club Goals
1945–46 Robert Schlienz VfB Stuttgart 45
1946–47 Hans Pöschl 1. FC Nürnberg 41
1947–48 Robert Schlienz VfB Stuttgart 31
1948–49 Otto Thanner TSV 1860 Munich 19
Georg Herbold SV Waldhof Mannheim
Emil Maier Kickers Offenbach
1949–50 Horst Schade SpVgg Fürth 21
1950–51 Max Morlock 1. FC Nürnberg 28
1951–52 Max Morlock 1. FC Nürnberg 26
1952–53 Horst Schade SpVgg Fürth 22
1953–54 Helmut Preisendörfer Kickers Offenbach 22
1954–55 Ernst-Otto Meyer VfR Mannheim 36
1955–56 Ernst-Otto Meyer VfR Mannheim 30
1956–57 Heinz Beck Karlsruher SC 34
1957–58 Siegfried Gast Kickers Offenbach 20
1958–59 Ernst-Otto Meyer VfR Mannheim 27
1959–60 Heinz Strehl 1. FC Nürnberg 30
1960–61 Rudolf Brunnenmeier TSV 1860 Munich 23
Erwin Stein Eintracht Frankfurt
1961–62 Lothar Schämer Eintracht Frankfurt 26
1962–63 Rudolf Brunnenmeier TSV 1860 Munich 24
Kurt Haseneder 1. FC Nürnberg
Rainer Ohlhauser FC Bayern Munich

Source: 50 Jahre Bayerischer Fussball–Verband. Vindelica Verlag. 1996. p. 189.

References
  1. 100 Jahre Süddeutscher Fussball Verband (in German), publisher: Vindelica Verlag, published: 1996, page: 71, accessed: 3 November 2008
  2. 100 Jahre Süddeutscher Fussball Verband (in German), publisher: Vindelica Verlag, published: 1996, page: 19, accessed: 3 November 2008
  3. DSFS Ligachronik: Qualifikation zur Bundesliga 1963 (in German), page: B 11 - 12, publisher: Deutscher Sportclub für Fussballstatistik - DSFS, accessed: 3 November 2008
  4. "Die Oberliga Süd 1962/63 - Abschlusstabelle" (in German). fussballdaten.de. Retrieved 3 November 2008.
  5. Germany - Oberliga Süd 1945-63 rsssf.org, accessed: 15 December 2015
  6. Oberliga Süd (1945-63) » Ewige Tabelle (in German) Weltfussball.de, All-time table of the Oberliga Süd, accessed: 15 December 2015

Sources
  • Kicker Almanach, (in German) The yearbook on German football from Bundesliga to Oberliga, since 1937, published by the Kicker Sports Magazine
  • Süddeutschlands Fussballgeschichte in Tabellenform 1897-1988 (in German) History of Southern German football in tables, publisher & author: Ludolf Hyll
  • 100 Jahre Süddeutscher Fussball-Verband (in German) 100-year-anniversary book of Southern German football Association, publisher: Vindelica Verlag, published: 1997
  • Die Deutsche Liga-Chronik 1945-2005 (in German) History of German football from 1945 to 2005 in tables, publisher: DSFS, published: 2006
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