District League (GDR football)

In GDR football, the district league was the top division of a district . Apart from the years 1955 to 1963, the fifteen district leagues formed the third highest division in the game operations of the German Football Association (DFV) of the GDR. After the districts were dissolved in 1990, the district leagues were abolished in the summer of 1991 as part of the integration of East German football into the German league system .

Emergence

Up until 1952, the five eastern German states of Mecklenburg , Brandenburg , Saxony-Anhalt , Saxony , Thuringia and the capital East Berlin formed the larger administrative units of the GDR. Accordingly, there were six national leagues as a substructure for the GDR Oberliga and GDR League .

Due to the administrative reform of July 23, 1952, the states on the territory of the GDR were abolished and replaced by districts. Accordingly, the national leagues were dissolved at the beginning of the 1952/1953 football season and the clubs were distributed among the newly created district leagues. The existing state league was only renamed in East Berlin.

Game operation

Game operations were organized by the respective district specialist committees of the DFV. The next lower division in the districts was the district class, the next higher the second-rate GDR league. Between 1955 and 1963 the district leagues were only fourth class, because the second division of the GDR existed as the third division .

As a rule, the district leagues consisted of one season, at times the district leagues also played with two seasons. The Rostock district league played the longest in two seasons with 16 seasons, Berlin (1956) and Dresden (1961/1962) were only split in two during one season. The team with the highest points in a season became district champions. Was played in two seasons, the season first carried out finals for the district championship. The record champions were the Motor Eberswalde team , which won the title 20 times in the Frankfurt (Oder) regional league. Usually the district champion was automatically qualified for the next higher division. In 1953, 1956, 1962, 1963–1970 and 1984–1990, the district champions had to go through promotion rounds . When the Second GDR League was abolished in 1963, the district leagues had to accept 64 teams as relegated teams. The same thing was repeated in 1984 with 29 teams when the GDR league was reduced from five to two seasons.

Reserve teams

From 1957 numerous second teams from GDR league representatives played in the district leagues. The first teams in 1957 included Greifswald II , Warnowwerft Warnemünde II and Weimar II locomotive . With Dynamo Dresden II 1961/1962 for the first time a league reserve team was represented in a district league. With the founding of the football clubs in the 1966/1967 season, these teams were also eligible for promotion to the GDR league.

In the 1975/1976 season, the second teams of all football clubs represented in the upper league played in the GDR league, with the exception of 1. FC Lok Leipzig II and FC Rot-Weiß Erfurt II , which competed in the Leipzig and Erfurt district leagues. From the following season, a decision of the DFV was valid, which provided for the outsourcing of all reserve teams from the second division (GDR league). A separate junior league for the second teams in the league was formed. The reserve teams of the clubs, whose first teams could not hold the top division, were integrated into the district leagues in the following years (for example FC Vorwärts Frankfurt / Oder II 1978/1979). Conversely, the second representatives of league promoters left the district leagues in the junior league.

After the abolition of the junior league at the end of the 1982/1983 season, the junior teams were reintegrated as 2nd teams in the district leagues with promotion rights. This regulation lasted until the end of the 1988/89 season when the last two reserve teams in the league (BFC II and Dynamo Dresden II) gave up their starting positions to other communities (BSG Bergmann-Borsig Berlin and TSG Meißen) and like the district league teams the first division clubs were dissolved in the course of the reintroduction of the junior league.

resolution

Shortly before the conclusion of the unification treaty , the People's Chamber of the GDR passed the "Constitutional Law on the Formation of Lands in the German Democratic Republic" ( Land Introduction Act ) on July 22, 1990 . Thereafter, in October of the same year, the GDR districts were to be dissolved and the new federal states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , Brandenburg , Saxony-Anhalt , Thuringia and Saxony founded in their place . The former GDR capital was assigned to the state of Berlin .

With the exception of the future territory of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the regional leagues were introduced as the new third-highest division in GDR football at the beginning of the season in summer 1990. Below the newly created state leagues of Brandenburg , Saxony-Anhalt , Thuringia and Saxony , the district leagues initially remained. The Berlin regional league, on the other hand, was incorporated into the existing Berlin regional league as a separate season . After the end of the 1990/91 season and the subsequent integration of GDR football in the all-German game operation, the district leagues were dissolved except for the district leagues Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz in Saxony. The teams in question now belonged to the fourth-class regional leagues, which were expanded to include the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania regional league . In addition, the football Oberliga Nordost , which emerged from the Oberliga , acted in whose three seasons the previous national league teams played.

Record district champion

district	team	Title number
Rostock	Motor Warnowwerft Warnemünde	7th
Schwerin	Veritas Wittenberge	10
Neubrandenburg	Empor / TSG Neustrelitz	10
Potsdam	Motor Hennigsdorf	9
Frankfurt (Oder)	Motor Eberswalde	20th
cottbus	Activist Brieske-Senftenberg	7th
Magdeburg	Locomotive Halberstadt , Chemistry Schönebeck	7th
Hall	Chemistry Wolfen	7th
Erfurt	Motor Rudisleben , Motor / Robotron Sömmerda	6th
Gera	Bismuth Gera II	6th
Suhl	Up / Chemistry Ilmenau	8th
Dresden	TSG Gröditz	6th
Leipzig	Motor Altenburg	5
Chemnitz / Karl-Marx-Stadt	FC Karl-Marx-Stadt II	6th
Berlin	Lichtenberg 47	8th

Web links

www.f-archiv.de The German football archive

Individual references / footnotes

^ "Season 1975/76" statistics on the GDR football season 1975/1976 on www.sachsenfussball.de .
↑ In the promotion round of all district league champions 1983/84 , of 15 participating teams, no less than seven participants were second representatives of the upper division, of which FCV II, BFC II, RW Erfurt II, CZ Jena II and Dynamo Dresden II made the leap into the league.
↑ In 1987/88 with FCV II (due to the relegation of the first team to the league) as well as through sporting ways FC Hansa II and CZ Jena II, three of the five top division reserve teams still competing in the second division had to enter the district league.
↑ "Season 1988/89" statistics on the GDR football season 1988/1989 at www.sachsenfussball.de .

[1] "Season 1975/76" statistics on the GDR football season 1975/1976 on www.sachsenfussball.de .

[2] In the promotion round of all district league champions 1983/84 , of 15 participating teams, no less than seven participants were second representatives of the upper division, of which FCV II, BFC II, RW Erfurt II, CZ Jena II and Dynamo Dresden II made the leap into the league.

[3] In 1987/88 with FCV II (due to the relegation of the first team to the league) as well as through sporting ways FC Hansa II and CZ Jena II, three of the five top division reserve teams still competing in the second division had to enter the district league.

[4] "Season 1988/89" statistics on the GDR football season 1988/1989 at www.sachsenfussball.de .