It also expanded into occupied territories, some of them annexed into Greater Germany, increasing the number of tier-one Gauligas considerably from the original 16 in 1933.
[5] With the end of the war, ethnic German football clubs in the parts of Germany that were awarded to Poland and the Soviet Union disappeared.
Clubs like VfB Königsberg and Vorwärts-Rasensport Gleiwitz, who had successfully competed in the German championship on many occasions[6] disappeared for good.
In Czechoslovakia, where the ethnic German minority in the Sudetenland was forced to leave the country, clubs experienced the same fate.
[14] With the outbreak of the Second World War, Germany did not cease to play internationals but was limited to neutral, axis and puppet states.
[15] Scotland played 19 unofficial wartime internationals between 2 December 1939 and 24 August 1946, 17 against England and one each against Wales and Northern Ireland.
[18][19] Tom Finney captained Army football teams, and organised friendly matches in Austria and Egypt.
An amateur club like SVO Germaringen saw ten of its eleven players that had won a local youth championship in 1940 not return from the battle fields.
Those that did return found the clubs facilities completely destroyed by air raids on the town in October 1944 and April 1945.
[31] Julius Hirsch, the first Jewish player to represent the Germany national team, was murdered at Auschwitz, being legally declared dead in May 1945.
Alexandre Villaplane, who was captain of the French national side, worked actively with the Gestapo and eventually became a SS lieutenant.
[39] English player Harry Goslin, who with the entire Bolton Wanderers team had enlisted as one just before the war, had received the Military Cross before he died of wounds in Italy.