Eimsbütteler TV made headlines in 2011 when it lost almost its complete first and second teams because of disagreements over how to split the money earned from reaching the first round of the 2011–12 DFB-Pokal after winning the Hamburg Cup.

This club in turn joined HETV to create Eimsbütteler Turnverband on 19 February 1898 with the goal of constructing a common sports hall.

The Eimsbüttel side enjoyed its greatest success playing in the Gauliga Nordmark, one of sixteen top flight divisions formed in the 1933 reorganization of German football under the Third Reich.

These Gauliga titles qualified ETV for participation in the preliminary rounds of the national championship where they scored victories in matches against eventual champions FC Schalke 04 in group play in both 1934[3] and 1935.

ETV made several appearances in the opening rounds of the Tschammerpokal tournament (1935–37, 1939–42), predecessor to today's DFB-Pokal, and also saw four different players capped through the 1930s and 40s.

World War II forced play across the country to become more local in character and the Gauliga Nordmark was broken up into three separate leagues after the 1941–42 season.

ETV won its way to the Oberliga the next year on the strength of a campaign that saw the team capture its division by winning seventeen and drawing one its of eighteen matches.

They earned lower table results over most of the next several seasons and with the establishment of the Bundesliga in 1963, the second division Amateurliga became a third tier circuit where ETV continued to struggle against relegation.

In the face of frequent league restructuring, ETV avoided slipping deeper into lower-tier football through timely promotions.

The club was overmatched in Oberliga play and struggled against relegation for four seasons, only avoiding demotion by the voluntarily withdrawal of other teams facing financial and license problems.