1941 German football championship

Overview

FC Schalke 04, having won five of the previous seven finals, being the defending champions and aiming for an unprecedented third consecutive German championship, were the favourites and led the final 3–0 after 57 minutes but Rapid scored four unanswered goals, the last three of them by Franz Binder, to win the championship. It marked the second of three occasions of a club from Vienna (German: Wien) in the final, Rapid becoming the only one to win the competition while Admira Wien had made a losing appearance in the 1939 final and First Vienna FC would do the same in 1942. Austrian clubs had played in the German league system from 1938, after the Anschluss, until the German surrender in 1945.

Rapid's victory led to a number of conspiracy theories. On Schalke's side it was speculated that Rapid was allowed to win to award a national championship to a club from the Ostmark while, in Austria, the theory developed that Rapid players were punished after the final by being sent to the front line. Both theories were disproven when Rapid, in 2009, commissioned a study into the history of the club during the Nazi era and found no evidence for either. Rapid continues to list both German titles, the 1941 championship and the 1938 cup win, in its honours.

Schalke's Hermann Eppenhoff became the top scorer of the 1941 championship with 15 goals, the highest individual amount for any player in the history of the competition from 1903 to 1963.

The twenty 1940–41 Gauliga champions, two more than in 1940 because of the addition of the Gauliga Elsaß and Gauliga Danzig-Westpreußen, competed in a group stage with the four group winners advancing to the semi-finals. The two semi-final winners then contested the 1941 championship final. The groups were divided into two with four clubs and two with six clubs with the latter, in turn, subdivided into two groups of three teams each and a final of these group winners to determine the overall group champions.

In the following season, the German championship was played with twenty five clubs. From there it gradually expanded further through a combination of territorial expansion of Nazi Germany and the sub-dividing of the Gauligas in later years, reaching a strength of thirty one in its last completed season, 1943–44.

Qualified teams

The teams qualified through the 1940–41 Gauliga season:

• Vorwärts-Rasensport Gleiwitz replaced Germania Königshütte for the finals.

Competition

Group 1

Group 1A

Group 1A was contested by the champions of the Gauligas Danzig-Westpreußen, Pommern and Schlesien:

Group 1B

Group 1B was contested by the champions of the Gauligas Brandenburg, Sachsen and Sudetenland:

Group 1 final

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Group 2

Group 2A

Group 2A was contested by the champions of the Gauligas Mitte, Nordmark and Ostpreußen:

Group 2B

Group 2B was contested by the champions of the Gauligas Hessen, Niedersachsen and Westfalen:

Group 2 final

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Group 3

Group 3 was contested by the champions of the Gauligas Elsaß, Mittelrhein, Niederrhein and Südwest:

Group 4

Group 4 was contested by the champions of the Gauligas Bayern, Baden, Ostmark and Württemberg:

Semi-finals

Three of the four clubs in the 1941 semi-finals had reached the same stage in the previous season, Rapid Wien, Dresdner SC and FC Schalke 04, while VfL Köln 99 replaced SV Waldhof Mannheim in comparison to 1940: |}

Third place play-off

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Final

Binder
Eppenhoff

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References

Sources

• kicker Allmanach 1990, by kicker, page 164 & 177 – German championship

References

1. [https://www.rsssf.org/tablesd/duitchamp.html (West) Germany -List of champions] rsssf.org, accessed: 26 December 2015
2. [http://www.weltfussball.de/teams/fc-schalke-04/1/ FC Schalke 04 » Steckbrief] {{in lang. de Weltfussball.de – FC Schalke 04 honours, accessed: 26 December 2015
3. [http://www.weltfussball.de/teams/rapid-wien/1/ Rapid Wien » Steckbrief] {{in lang. de Weltfussball.de – Rapid Wien honours, accessed: 26 December 2015
4. [https://www.welt.de/kultur/history/article13444013/Der-laengste-Tag-das-Protokoll-des-Ueberfalls.html Der längste Tag – das Protokoll des Überfalls] ''[[Die Welt]]'', published: 22 June 2011, accessed: 26 December 2015
5. [http://www.weltfussball.de/spielbericht/deutsche-meisterschaft-1941-finale-rapid-wien-fc-schalke-04/ Deutsche Meisterschaft 1940/1941 » Finale » Rapid Wien – FC Schalke 04 4:3] {{in lang. de Weltfussball.de, Game report, accessed: 26 December 2015
6. [http://www.sportal.de/die-deutsche-vergangenheit-von-rapid-wien-1-2012102523664400000 Die deutsche Vergangenheit von Rapid Wien] {{in lang. de sportal.de, The German history of Rapid Wien, accessed: 26 December 2015
7. [http://kurier.at/sport/fussball/deutscher-meister-rapid-1-leverkusen-0/825.084 Deutscher Meister: Rapid 1, Leverkusen 0] {{in lang. de ''[[Kurier]]'', published: 25 December 2012, accessed: 26 December 2015
8. [http://www.skrapid.at/de/startseite/verein/der-sk-rapid/erfolge/ Erfolge] {{Webarchive. link. (9 January 2016 {{in lang). de Rapid Wien website – honours, accessed: 27 December 2015
9. "Deutsche Meisterschaft » Torschützenkönige".
10. ''kicker Allmanach 1990'', page: 243-245
11. [https://www.rsssf.org/tablesd/duithistpre45.html German championship 1941] rsssf.org, accessed: 26 December 2015
12. [https://www.rsssf.org/tablesd/duithistpre45.html German championship 1940] rsssf.org, accessed: 27 December 2015
13. [http://www.weltfussball.de/spielplan/deutsche-meisterschaft-1941-halbfinale/0/ German championship 1941 – Semifinals] {{in lang. de Weltfussball.de, accessed: 26 December 2015
14. [http://www.weltfussball.de/spielplan/deutsche-meisterschaft-1941-3-platz/0/ German championship 1941 – Third place game] {{in lang. de Weltfussball.de, accessed: 26 December 2015