The league was contested by fourteen teams, one less than in the previous season, a strength the DDR-Oberliga would operate at for the rest of its history.
[3][4] Willy Tröger of SC Wismut Karl-Marx-Stadt was the league's top scorer with 22 goals.
A number of enterprise sports communities (BSG) were also replaced by the new sport clubs from October 1954 onwards, indicated by the SC before the name, to concentrate the best players in centers of excellence at certain locations and to improve the level of the game in East Germany.
[5] The football department of BSG Wismut Aue was delegated to the newly founded sports club SC Wismut Karl-Marx-Stadt, but the team remained in Aue and did not move to Chemnitz, then called Karl-Marx-Stadt, despite joining SC Wismut Karl-Marx-Stadt.
The 1954–55 season saw two newly promoted clubs, ASK Vorwärts Berlin and BSG Chemie Karl-Marx-Stadt.