Thorough divorce

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The organizational separation between football and other modern sports on the one hand and gymnasts on the other hand is referred to as a clean divorce in Germany in 1923 and 1924 . Within the German Reich Committee for Physical Exercise , double memberships were no longer possible for clubs in specialist sports associations such as the German Football Association and the German Gymnastics Association . As a result, numerous gymnastics clubs were split into pure gymnastics clubs on the one hand and sports clubs such as football clubs on the other.

Relationship between gymnastics and football

One of the early points of contention between gymnasts and other athletes was the question of the competitive nature. In 1891 the German Gymnastics Association openly condemned gymnastics for medals and prizes. As a result, the personal competitions were only replaced by group competitions (club against club). Eventually, competition was completely abolished at gymnastics festivals. In parallel displaced so-called Free and obedience exercises by Adolf Spiess the Gymnastics . Gymnastics became unattractive for young people, and they turned to sport based on the English model. Football in particular became a competition. The acceptance of football by the military, which became part of officer training in Germany in 1905, also contributed to this.

During the First World War there was a rapprochement between gymnasts and athletes. In the economic hardship of the immediate post-war period, there were even mergers, such as in Bielefeld between the 1st Bielefeld football club Arminia and the gymnastics community from 1848 to form TG Arminia Bielefeld . In 1920 the German Gymnastics Association allowed the football departments of their clubs to participate in the German championship of the DFB . This resulted in further mergers, which in many places led to "gymnastics and sports clubs" (TSV, TuS, TuSpo, TuRa, TSG or STG).

Conflict over the professional association system

The conflict between gymnasts and athletes broke out again on November 28, 1920 when some sports associations asked the German gymnastics association to agree to a professional association system. This would have reduced the German gymnastics association to a pure professional association. Therefore, she rejected the request. In February 1921 there was a compromise of double membership: the game departments of gymnastics clubs could also take part in the championships of the sports associations. However, since the gymnasts had lost a third of their members since 1918, the gymnastics body wanted to abolish double membership soon. As early as April 13, 1922, it unilaterally dissolved the agreement. The sports associations responded by excluding the game departments of gymnastics clubs from their competitions. It was most problematic for those sports that were widely represented in both gymnastics and sports clubs. Athletics was already practiced as a popular exercise in gymnastics clubs when the athletics coming from England with English weights and measures was not yet widespread. Athletes always started at mountain gymnastics festivals , German gymnastics champions were more powerful than athletics in some disciplines (sprint, all-around). The separation therefore hurt both sides.

Thorough divorce

After the sports federations rejected the compromise to found a joint German association for physical exercise , the gymnastics union unilaterally announced on September 1, 1923 the “clean separation” between gymnastics and sport. By November 1st, the gymnast's game departments had to choose between membership in either the sports association or the gymnastics association. While the gymnastics club then lost around 25,000 members who played football, most of the football departments remained associated with the DFB.

The result was the separation of numerous clubs, which took place in 1923, but mostly in 1924. The game departments such as soccer, handball and other team sports separated from the gymnasts and started their own business. This is how the FC Schalke 04 , which separated from TuS 1877 Schalke , and FC St. Pauli , when the soccer department of Hamburg-St. Pauli TV made it independent in 1862 . On the other hand, Eimsbütteler TV , for example, left the gymnastics community completely.

Sometimes there were also double structures. So a part of the set up Footballer of the Harburger TB 1865 the SV Harburg , who took part in the competitions of the DFB soccer. But there was still a football department in the Harburger TB 1865. Like the remaining 676 football departments in the German Gymnastics Association, this took part in the gymnastics championship.

While the separation in the field of football was not very successful from a gymnast's point of view, events in swimming, which had also been organized by a national professional association since 1886, turned out to be much better: "Here, the German gymnastics association was able to build a real parallel world for more than a decade In 1935 the development was stopped completely by political interventions from outside ”, the swimming journalist Wolfgang Philipps works out in a study.

End of separation

The conflict was officially settled in Berlin in 1930 through the conclusion of a contract between the DFB, DT and the German Sports Authority for Athletics . From 1931 the German Gymnastics Association no longer held its own football and athletics championships. Under the government of the NSDAP in 1933 the synchronization of the gymnastics and sports movement was part of the political program. While the workers ' sports movement with the communist combat group for red sports unit and the social democratic workers' gymnastics and sports union was initially smashed and then the denominational associations Deutsche Jugendkraft and Eichenkreuz were dissolved, the German Reich Committee for Physical Exercise and Subordination finally took place on May 10th of the individual professional associations under the Reich Sports Leader Hans von Tschammer and Osten . From this moment on, the soccer departments of the gymnastics clubs, like all other soccer clubs, took part in a uniform German championship. Some football departments of gymnastics clubs that had become independent as a result of the clean divorce returned to their parent clubs. B. the SV Harburg to the Harburger TB 1865.

literature

  • Becker, Hartmut: The clean divorce. Attempt to separate gymnastics and sport between 1921 and 1924 . In the S. (Ed.): For a humane sport. Collected contributions to the sports ethos and history of sports . Schorndorf 1995, pp. 98-109.
  • Loose, Hans: The historical development of physical exercises in Germany. The struggle between gymnastics and sport , Phil. Diss. Leipzig 1924.
  • Philipps, Wolfgang: Sporty parallel worlds: gymnast swimming in the Weimar Republic . In: Christian Becker et al. (Hrsg.): Geschichte des Turnens in Norddeutschland , Münster et al. 2017 ( series of publications by the Lower Saxony Institute for Sport History - Scientific series , vol. 25), pp. 143–169.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ However, some gymnastics clubs offered the game themselves; The football department of Eimsbütteler TV, founded in 1906, became a member of the DFB, and its chairman August Bosse led the North German Football Association from 1914 to 1924. See Jankowski / Pistorius / Prüß (see below), especially p. 44 ff.
  2. Hardy Greens : Gymnastics, Soccer, Fatherland. In: ders .: 100 Years of the German Championship. The history of football in Germany . Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-89533-410-3 , pp. 78–86.
  3. a b c d Hardy Greens: "Clean divorce", inflation and football boom , In: ders .: 100 years of German championship. The history of football in Germany . Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2003. ISBN 3-89533-410-3 , pp. 122–128.
  4. ^ Antje Fenner & Arnd Krüger : The history of the mountain gymnastics festivals in Lower Saxony, in: Hans Langenfeld (Hrsg.): Contributions to the history of sports in Lower Saxony. Part 1: 19th century. (⇐ Series of publications by the Lower Saxony Institute for Sports History , Vol. 13) Hoya: NISH 1999, 127 - 135.
  5. a b c Bernd Jankowski, Harald Pistorius, Jens R. Prüß: Football in the north. 100 years of the North German Football Association. History - Chronicle - Names - Dates - Facts - Figures . AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 2005, ISBN 3-89784-270-X , p. 44 ff.
  6. Hardy Greens : FC Schalke 04. In: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 7: Club Lexicon . AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 2001, ISBN 3-89784-147-9 , p. 401.
  7. ^ Hardy Greens: FC St. Pauli. In: Encyclopedia of German League Football. Volume 7: Club Lexicon. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 2001, ISBN 3-89784-147-9 , p. 431.
  8. Wolfgang Philipps: Sporty parallel worlds: gymnast swimming in the Weimar Republic. In: Christian Becker et al. (Hrsg.): Geschichte des Turnens in Norddeutschland , Münster et al. 2017 ( series of publications by the Lower Saxony Institute for Sport History eV - Scientific series , vol. 25), pp. 143 - 169, here p. 144.
  9. cf. Jankowski / Pistorius / Prüß, p. 189
  10. ^ Hardy Greens: The transformation of the German sport. In: ders .: 100 Years of the German Championship. The history of football in Germany , Göttingen: Verlag Die Werkstatt. ISBN 3-89533-410-3 , pp. 190-198.
  11. Hardy Greens: Harburger TB. Welcome to the Jahnhöhe Circus. In: ders .: Legendary football clubs. Northern Germany. Between TSV Achim, Hamburger SV and TuS Zeven. AGON Sportverlag, Kassel 2004, ISBN 3-89784-223-8 , pp. 126-128.