# 1943 German football championship

The 1943 German football championship, the 36th edition of the competition, was won by Dresdner SC, the club's first-ever championship, won by defeating FV Saarbrücken in the final.
The twenty-nine 1942–43 Gauliga champions, four more than in the previous season, competed in a single-leg knock out competition to determine the national champion. In the following season, the last completed one during the war, the German championship was played with thirty one clubs, expanded through a combination of territorial expansion of Nazi Germany and the sub-dividing of the Gauligas in later years.
The 1943 championship marked the end of the golden era of Schalke 04 which had reached the semi-finals of each edition of the national championship from 1932 to 1942 and won the competition in 1934, 1935, 1937, 1939, 1940 and 1942 while losing the final in 1933, 1938 and 1941. In 1943 defending champions Schalke was knocked out in the quarter-finals by Holstein Kiel, thereby ending the clubs quest for a twelfth consecutive semi-finals appearance.
Ernst Kalwitzki of FC Schalke 04 and Herbert Binkert of 1. FC Saarbrücken were the joint top scorers for the 1943 championship with five goals each, the lowest for any top scorer since 1925. For Kalwitzki it was the third and last time, after 1937 and 1939, to finish as top scorer.
Dresdner SC became the last club to be awarded the Viktoria, the annual trophy for the German champions from 1903 to 1944. The trophy disappeared during the final stages of the war, did not resurface until after the German reunification and was put on display at the DFB headquarters in Frankfurt until 2015, when it was moved to the new Deutsches Fußballmuseum in Dortmund.
Dresdner SC completed the 1942–43 season unbeaten, finishing the Gauliga Sachsen with 18 wins out of 18 games, and winning all five games in the championship to claim the title.

## Qualified teams

The teams qualified through the 1942–43 Gauliga season:
| Club | Qualified from |
| VfR Mannheim | Gauliga Baden |
| Berliner SV 92 | Gauliga Berlin-Brandenburg |
| SV Neufahrwasser | Gauliga Danzig-Westpreußen |
| FC Mühlhausen 93 | Gauliga Elsaß |
| SG Warschau | Gauliga Generalgouvernement |
| Victoria Hamburg | Gauliga Hamburg |
| Kickers Offenbach | Gauliga Hessen-Nassau |
| SV Victoria Köln | Gauliga Köln-Aachen |
| SV 06 Kassel | Gauliga Kurhessen |
| TSG Rostock | Gauliga Mecklenburg |
| SV Dessau 05 | Gauliga Mitte |
| TuS Neuendorf | Gauliga Moselland |
| Westende Hamborn | Gauliga Niederrhein |
| LSV Reinicke Brieg | Gauliga Niederschlesien |
| 1. FC Nürnberg | Gauliga Nordbayern |
| Germania Königshütte | Gauliga Oberschlesien |
| First Vienna | Gauliga Ostmark |
| VfB Königsberg | Gauliga Ostpreußen |
| LSV Pütnitz | Gauliga Pommern |
| Dresdner SC | Gauliga Sachsen |
| Holstein Kiel | Gauliga Schleswig-Holstein |
| TSV 1860 München | Gauliga Südbayern |
| MSV Brünn | Gauliga Sudetenland |
| Eintracht Braunschweig | Gauliga Südhannover-Braunschweig |
| SDW Posen | Gauliga Wartheland |
| SpVgg Wilhelmshaven | Gauliga Weser-Ems |
| Schalke 04 | Gauliga Westfalen |
| FV Saarbrücken | Gauliga Westmark |
| VfB Stuttgart | Gauliga Württemberg |
* Gauliga champions LSV Adler Deblin were replaced by SG Warschau.
* Stuttgarter Kickers and VfB Stuttgart finished on equal points and the same goal average and were therefore declared joint champions but only VfB advanced to the German championship.

## Competition
### Qualifying round

| Team 1 | Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score | Team 2 | 1st leg | 2nd leg |
| Holstein Kiel | 5–1 | TSG Rostock | 4–0 | 1–1 |

### First round

Holstein Kiel, SpVgg Wilhelmshaven, Kickers Offenbach and Westende Hamborn received a bye for the first round.
| Team 1 | Score | Team 2 |
| 2 May 1943 |||
| Berliner SV 92 | 2–2 | LSV Pütnitz |
| Dresdner SC | 2–1 | SV Dessau 05 |
| Eintracht Braunschweig | 5–1 | Victoria Hamburg |
| FV Saarbrücken | 5–1 | FC Mühlhausen 93 |
| LSV Reinecke Brieg | 4–3 | Germania Königshütte |
| Schalke 04 | 8–1 | SV 06 Kassel |
| SG Warschau | 3–1 | DWM Posen |
| TSV 1860 München | 3–0 | VfB Stuttgart |
| VfB Königsberg | 3–1 | SV Neufahrwasser |
| VfR Mannheim | 3–1 | 1. FC Nürnberg |
| First Vienna | 5–2 | MSV Brünn |
| SV Victoria Köln | 2–0 | TuS Neuendorf |

#### Replay

| Team 1 | Score | Team 2 |
| 9 May 1943 |||
| Berliner SV 92 | 2–0 | LSV Pütnitz |

### Round of 16

| Team 1 | Score | Team 2 |
| 16 May 1943 |||
| Dresdner SC | 4–0 | Eintracht Braunschweig |
| FV Saarbrücken | 5–0 | SV Victoria Köln |
| Holstein Kiel | 2–0 | Berliner SV 92 |
| Schalke 04 | 4–1 | SpVgg Wilhelmshaven |
| TSV 1860 München | 2–0 | Kickers Offenbach |
| VfB Königsberg | 5–1 | SG Warschau |
| VfR Mannheim | 8–1 | Westende Hamborn |
| First Vienna | 8–0 | LSV Reinecke Brieg |
* VfB Königsberg was disqualified and replaced by SV Neufahrwasser in the quarter-finals.

### Final

DRESDNER SC 1898: :
| GK | Willibald Kreß |
| DF | Herbert Pechan |
| DF | Heinz Hempel |
| MF | Herbert Pohl |
| MF | Walter Dzur |
| MF | Helmut Schubert |
| FW | Heiner Kugler |
| FW | Heinrich Schaffer |
| FW | Richard Hofmann |
| FW | Helmut Schön |
| FW | Franz Erdl |
| Manager: |||
| Georg Köhler ||||
FV SAARBRÜCKEN: :
| GK | Karl Dalheimer |
| DF | Heinrich Schmidt |
| DF | Hugo Decker |
| MF | Wilhelm Sold |
| MF | Heinz Plückhahn |
| MF | Johann Herberger |
| FW | Heinz Kurtsiefer |
| FW | Herbert Dorn |
| FW | Herbert Binkert |
| FW | Jakob Balzert |
| FW | Herbert Baier |
| Manager: |||
| Ernst Georg ||||