Gauliga Wartheland

:For the main article, see "Gauliga"

The Gauliga Wartheland was the highest football league in "Gau" "Wartheland" from 1941 to 1945. The "Gau" was made up from the former Polish Voivodeship of Poznań and parts of Warsaw Voivodeship and Łódź Voivodeship which had been occupied by Nazi Germany in 1939 and incooperated into the "Third Reich". The league and the region are named after the local river "Warthe" (Polish:"Warta"), and not after the Prussian province Posen, which it had been from 1848 to 1918.

Overview

The league was introduced in 1941, a considerable time after the defeat of Poland. The league started out in two groups of five teams, with the two divisional champions playing each other in a home-and-away series to determined the "Gauliga" champion. The league champion then qualified for the German championship. Polish clubs were not permitted to take part in the competition, only clubs from the German ethnic minority, which made up between five and ten percent of the population in the region and about two percent of the overall population of Poland [ [http://www.halgal.com/graphics/PUR/polishpop.jpgPopulation of Poland in 1931 - Statistics and map] Genealogy of Halychyna / Eastern Galicia, accessed: 24 June 2008] .

In its second season, the league played with ten teams in a single division. The bottom three teams were relegated at the end of the season. The 1943-44 edition initially saw no change, but the SG Freihaus dropped out of the league during the season and not all games were played through out the season.

The imminent collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945 gravely affected all "Gauligas" and football in the region ceased in 1944. The 1944-45 season may not have been started at all anymore.

Aftermath

With the end of the Nazi era, the "Gauligas" ceased to exist. The "Wartheland" came under Soviet control. The region then became a part of Poland again. The German population was almost completely expelled from the region. All German football clubs were dissolved.

Founding members of the league

The ten founding members were:

Group I:
* Deutscher SC Posen
* BSG DWM Posen
* SG Ordnungspolizei Posen
* Reichsbahn SG Posen
* Post SG Posen

Group II:
* SG Ordnungspolizei Litzmannstadt
* Union 97 Litzmannstadt
* SG Zdunska Wola
* Reichsbahn SG Litzmannstadt
* SG Sturm Pabianice

Litzmannstadt was the German name for Łódź from 1939 to 1945, named after Karl Litzmann.

Winners and runners-up of the Gauliga Wartheland

ources

* [http://www.f-archiv.de/ The Gauligas] "Das Deutsche Fussball Archiv" (in German)
* [http://www.rsssf.com/tablesd/duithistpre45.html Germany - Championships 1902-1945] at RSSSF.com
* [http://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/crossborder.html Where's My Country?] Article on cross-border movements of football clubs, at RSSSF.com

References