Introduction of the Bundesliga
The Introduction of the Bundesliga was the long-debated step of establishing a top-level association football league in Germany in 1963.
The season annually culminated in a final, of which VfB Leipzig's 7–2 win over Deutscher FC Prag in 1903 was the first while Borussia Dortmund's 1963 victory over 1.
The driving force behind this was the idea of having a league which would include only the best teams in the country, contrary to the original system where strong clubs would play together with weaker ones in small local competitions and would only be truly challenged at the German finals round.
[2] Felix Linnemann, president of the DFB at the time, wished for the introduction of the Reichsliga but failed to get the motion passed by the regional associations in 1932.
To general surprise, the annual convention of the DFB on 16 October 1932 in Wiesbaden passed a resolution to permit professionalism, without the subject even having been on the list of items to debate and after years of opposition.
The DFB was converted to the new Reichsamt Fußball and the German football landscape reorganised into 16 Gaue with a regional league, the Gauliga, on top of each.
The freshly unified German-Austrian team, playing with high expectations at the 1938 FIFA World Cup was a complete disappointment, being knocked out in the first round.
The embarrassment to Germany and its Nazi government caused the latter to approve plans for the concentration of forces in German football.
New leagues were gradually formed in Allied-occupied Germany, first in the South and Berlin, later in the West and North, too, which had suffered greater damage to its infrastructure through strategic bombing during the war.
[2][3] West Germany's surprise victory at the 1954 FIFA World Cup led the team's coach, Sepp Herberger, to demand a national league once more.
Kremer became the voice of the powerful clubs in the West, raising the issue at every annual convention of the German association.
[1] In 1957, a twelve-men commission was formed to investigate the Bundesliga question, in April 1958 a special conference of the DFB declined the introduction of the league once more.
[1] In 1960, the football association of the Saarland, Neuberger's home region, demanded a reduction of top-level clubs without clearly mentioning the word Bundesliga, a step that was approved but its execution procrastinated.
[3] Disillusioned with the slow process of implementing this reduction, the clubs from the West once more raised a motion, to introduce the Bundesliga in 1963, which was approved.
On 28 July 1962, at the annual convention of the DFB in the Westfalenhalle, Dortmund, at 17:45, the introduction of the Bundesliga was officially approved with 103 votes for the league and 26 against.
Parallel to this, new guidelines for professionalism were approved, too, raising the permissible monthly income to DM 1,200, including bonuses.
[3] On 24 August 1963, the first round of the new Bundesliga was played, enthusiastically welcomed as "finals atmosphere every weekend" by kicker Sportmagazin.
The weeding out of the last 13 that would not get a Bundesliga place in 1963 was fiercely contested, to the point that Kickers Offenbach and Alemannia Aachen took their rejection to court, without success.
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.
[15] The second tier mainly experienced an influx of former Oberliga clubs that failed to gain entry to the Bundesliga or had not applied in the first place.
