BFC Preussen is a German football club from

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. The team is part of a sports club which also has departments for handball, volleyball, athletics, gymnastics, and ice hockey. ''Preussen'' was one of the founding clubs of the

German Football Association The German Football Association ( ; DFB ) is the governing body of Association football, football, futsal, and beach soccer in Germany. A founding member of both FIFA and UEFA, the DFB has jurisdiction for the German football league system and ...

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

in 1900.

History

The club was formed as ''BFC Friedrich Wilhelm'' on 1 May 1894 by a number of players who had left ''Hevellia Berlin''. It was named in honour of Crown Prince Wilhelm, an early and enthusiastic supporter of the new game of football who donated the Kronprinzenpokal (en: Crown Prince's Cup), the German game's earliest prize. In 1895, the club was renamed ''Preußen'' for the

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...

, and went on to success playing in the Verband Deutscher Ballspiel Vereine (Federation of German Ballgame Teams). The team lost the league final in 1898 before going on to win three consecutive titles in 1899–1901, and then repeating as champions in 1910 and 1912. While ''Preußen'' remained a prominent side playing in the Verbandsliga Berlin-Brandenburg and Oberliga Berlin-Brandenburg through to the early 1930s, they earned just mid-table results. In 1933, German football was re-organized under the

Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

into sixteen regional first division

Gauligen A Gauliga () was the highest level of play in German football from 1933 to 1945. The leagues were introduced in 1933, after the Nazi takeover of power by the National Socialist League of the Reich for Physical Exercise. Name The German word '' ...

. However, an uncharacteristically poor finish to the 1932–33 season that saw ''Preußen'' finish in last place put the club out of top-flight football. In the aftermath of World War II occupying Allied authorities banned organizations throughout Germany, including sports and football clubs, as part of the process of

denazification Denazification () was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of the Nazi ideology following the Second World War. It was carried out by removing those who had been Nazi Par ...

. The club was dissolved, then re-established in 1949. By the 1970s, ''Preussen'' had settled into third-tier competition in the Amateurliga Berlin (III). A short-lived breakthrough to the Regionalliga Berlin (II) lasted two seasons from 1972 to 1974 before the team briefly crashed to the Landesliga Berlin (IV) in 1974–75. The team's quick return to the third tier Amateur Oberliga Berlin was marked by five exceptional seasons in which they earned three first and two second-place finishes. They narrowly missed promotion to the 2. Bundesliga in 1980 when they lost the playoff to '' SC Göttingen 05'' (0–1 and 1–1). ''Preußen'' played out the balance of the 1970s and on into the early 1990s in the third division. The team soon found itself in the fifth tier Verbandsliga Berlin and slipped as low as the Landesliga Berlin-1 (VI) in 1999–2000. In 2011–12, they were demoted from the Berlin-Liga (VI) after an 18th-place result. After three seasons in the Landesliga they were promoted back to the Berlin-Liga by winning the 2014–15 Landesliga Berlin 1.

International players

* Rudolf Droz, German international * Edwin Dutton, former German international * Alfred "Puttchen" Gelbhaar, German international * Erich Massini, German international * Oliver Pötschke, Filipino international * Otto Thiel, German international * Gustav Unfried, German international * Otto Völker, German international

Honours

The club's honours: *

Brandenburg football championship The Brandenburg football championship () was the name of highest association football competition in the Prussian Province of Brandenburg, including Berlin, established in 1898. The competition was organized by various regional football associatio ...

** Champions: 1899, 1900, 1901, 1910, 1912 * Oberliga Berlin (III) ** Champions: 1972, 1977, 1980, 1981 * Verbandsliga Berlin (V) ** Champions: 2005 *

Berliner Landespokal The Berliner Landespokal () is an annual football cup competition held by the Berlin Football Association (German: Berliner Fußballverband, BFV). The cup winner qualifies for the national DFB-Pokal. Cup finals are usually held in the Friedrich-L ...

** Winners 1979, 1980, 1981,

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

** Runners-up 1988

Recent seasons

References

External links

Official website (club)

Official team site (football)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Berlin Preussen Association football clubs established in 1894 Football clubs in Germany Football clubs in Berlin 1894 establishments in Germany Wilhelm, German Crown Prince