1939–40 Gauliga

The league champions entered the 1940 German football championship, won by FC Schalke 04 who defeated Dresdner SC 1–0 in the final.

[3][4] In the part of Czechoslovakia incorporated into Germany in March 1939, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, a separate Czech league continued to exist which was not part of the Gauliga system or the German championship.

[5][6] In Poland the German invasion in September 1939 caused the Polish league to stop play near the end of the 1939 season and, unlike in Bohemia and Moravia, the league would not resume till after the war.

[7] Eventually, in 1941, the Gauliga Wartheland, covering the Reichsgau Wartheland, and the Gauliga Generalgouvernement, covering the General Government, were created in the areas annexed by Nazi Germany and in occupied Poland put these leagues were only for ethnic German clubs and not open to Polish teams.

SK Rapid Wien, SV Waldhof Mannheim, Dresdner SC and FC Schalke 04 won their championship groups and advanced to the semi-finals with the latter two reaching the championship final which Schalke won.