Company sports community

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Company sports community (abbreviated BSG ) generally stands as a term for the union of those interested in sports in a company or an industry. As a rule, the company sports association does not have its own legal personality . In exceptional cases, a BSG can be found in the form of an association . There are numerous such associations, often with the support of the employer, especially in companies whose philosophy has a pronounced social character.

Company sports associations in the Third Reich

After the National Socialists seized power in Germany in 1933, they also included sport in their politics. According to their understanding, it should serve to strengthen the military and promote the national community. As part of their policy of aligning all social areas, the previously independent sports clubs did not fit into the concept, and attempts were made to gradually push them back. Numerous NSDAP organizations such as the SS , SA and HJ set up their own sports organizations in which the Nazi ideology came into full effect. The German Labor Front (DAF), the unified union of the National Socialists, made an effort to promote sport. Their sub-organization KdF founded their own sports department in 1936, whose task it should be to bring sport into the companies for "military training and racial perfection". For this purpose, company sports associations (BSG) were set up in the larger plants to initially deal with popular sport. With increasing duration, however, the BSG also turned to competitive sports and partly took part in various sports across Germany. Most noticeable were the successes in football, where, for example, the BSG Gelsenguß Gelsenkirchen , Neumeyer Nürnberg and Volkswagenwerk Wolfsburg played in the Gauliga , the highest football class. Between 1938 and 1940 the number of company sports associations rose from 10,000 to 20,000. In November 1941, the BSG Krupp in Essen hosted the last German judo championship in the Third Reich. At this time, the leader of the DAF, Robert Ley , developed the plan to forcibly unite the company sports associations with the sports clubs to form so-called local sports associations. However, this plan was stopped by Hitler in 1942, because after the expansion of the Second World War, no further unrest should be brought to the population. After the end of the war, the company sports associations fell victim to the general ban on sports clubs, and they did not come back to life in the western zones even after club sports were reintroduced .

Company sports associations in the GDR

After the end of World War II , the sporting structures of the Nazi dictatorship in the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ) were completely smashed. All sports clubs were dissolved on the basis of Directive No. 23 of the Allied Control Council of the Occupying Powers of December 17, 1945. Sports competitions were initially only permitted at the local level with loosely organized sports communities in the cities and counties. It was not until autumn 1946 that football games could be expanded to the regional level. The organization was in the hands of the youth association " Free German Youth " (FDJ).

After a transnational championship had been held for the first time in the summer of 1948 with the 1st East Zone Soccer Championship, it became clear that the previous organizational forms were no longer sufficient. On the initiative of the Free German Trade Union Federation and the FDJ, the German Sports Committee (DS) was founded as an umbrella organization in the Soviet occupation zone on October 1, 1948 . One of his first tasks was the reorganization of the sports business, which was tackled under the motto “conversion on a production basis”. With the participation of the FDGB, company sports associations (BSG) were founded in production and administration companies. The so-called sponsoring companies took over the financing and logistics for their BSG, the company union groups were responsible. The BSG should promote and organize sporting activities on a broad basis. They offered a wide range of sports that were organized in so-called BSG sections. Each BSG had its own uniform management structure with BSG chairman and section heads. The financial resources were provided from the union funds of the sponsoring companies, in many cases the sports facilities were also built by the companies. Communities supported by sponsoring companies also appeared in some cases under the names industrial sports community (ISG) and central sports community (ZSG) .

To further optimize the system, the DS passed the resolution on April 3, 1950, “About the reorganization of sport on the production level”. It provided for the formation of central sports associations on the basis of the union structure, according to which all company sports associations were given uniform names according to their superordinate sports association (e.g. BSG Rotation Dresden with the sponsoring company VEB Sachsenverlag). They were given the task of organizing the promotion of the BSG within their area and regulating sports traffic. The latter happened, among other things, by organizing central SV competitions, but also by exerting influence when athletes switched to other BSG. The following 16 sports associations were founded:

Logo of a SPA
Sports association Union area
activist Mining
construction Construction industry
chemistry chemical industry, glass and ceramics
unit state and municipal administration
Up Trade and food industry
progress Light and textile industry
locomotive Reichsbahn
medicine Healthcare
engine Machine and vehicle construction, metal processing
post Office Post and telecommunications
rotation printing industry and publishing
steel metallurgy
tractor Agriculture
turbine Energy industry
bismuth Uranium mining (bismuth)
science Universities and colleges

To further strengthen the GDR Sports major sporting associations founded in the fall of 1954 each take sports clubs example, were particularly encouraged sports leadership GDR from the (eg. SC unit Dresden , SC Chemie Halle , SC Empor Rostock and SC bismuth Karl Marx City ). As a result, the company sports associations lost their importance with regard to top-class sport, which in future was part of the sports clubs; they were only second class sports associations. With the progressive centralization of GDR sport by the superordinate sports organ DTSB , founded in 1957, the central sports associations also increasingly lost their importance and were later barely noticed by the public. Wismut Aue, Stahl Riesa, Chemie Leipzig, Motor / Sachsenring Zwickau and Lokomotive Stendal were among the largest and most powerful company sports clubs in football. After the formation of the sports clubs, Chemie Leipzig was the only BSG to become GDR soccer champions.

The sports associations Vorwärts and Dynamo were outside the BSG system. They were sports organizations of the National People's Army or the People's Police . They were subordinate to the local army sports associations (ASG) "Vorwärts" and the sports associations "Dynamo".

When the state- owned companies stopped their organizational and financial support as a result of the changed economic conditions after the political change in 1990 , the company sports associations were forced to find new forms of organization. Most of them managed to transform directly into a registered association . Several company sports associations disbanded and were replaced by newly founded sports clubs.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Directive No. 23 regarding the restriction and demilitarization of sports in Germany of December 17, 1945 , for example contained in Claus Tiedemann: Allied legal provisions for sport in Germany 1944–1950 ( Memento of October 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on March 4, 2018; PDF; 395 kB)