Hertha Berlin

Early years

The club was formed in 1892 as BFC Hertha 92, taking its name from a steamship with a blue and white smokestack; one of the four young men who founded the club had taken a day trip on this ship with his father. The name Hertha is a variation on Nerthus, referring to a fertility goddess from Germanic mythology. The ship itself was named for the ship's owner's daughter.

Hertha performed consistently well on the field, including a win in the first Berlin championship final in 1905. In May 1910, Hertha won a friendly match against Southend United, which was considered significant at the time, as England was where the game originated and English clubs dominated the sport. However, their on-field success was not matched financially, and in 1920 the staunchly working-class Hertha merged with the well-heeled club Berliner Sport-Club to form Hertha Berliner Sport-Club. The new team continued to enjoy considerable success in the Oberliga Berlin-Brandenburg. The team played its way to the German championship final in six consecutive seasons from 1926 to 1931, but was only able to win the title in 1930 and 1931, with BSC leaving to become an independent club again after the combined side's first championship. Hertha was the Germany's second most successful team during the inter-war years, after FC Nürnberg.

Play under the Third Reich

German football was re-organized under the Third Reich in 1933 into 16 top-flight divisions, which saw Hertha playing in the Gauliga Berlin-Brandenburg. The club continued to enjoy success within their division, regularly finishing in the upper half of the table and winning the divisional title in 1935, 1937 and 1944. It faded from prominence, however, due to its inability to advance out of the early rounds of the national championship rounds. Politically, the club was overhauled under Hitler, with Hans Pfeifer, a Nazi party member, being installed as president.

Postwar play

Tensions between the western Allies and the Soviets occupying various sectors of the city, and the developing Cold War, led to chaotic conditions for football in the capital. Hertha was banned from playing against East German teams in the 1949–50 season after taking on several players and a coach who had fled the Dresden club SG Friedrichstadt for West Berlin. A number of sides from the eastern half of the city were forced from the Oberliga Berlin to the newly established DDR-Liga beginning with the 1950–51 season.

Through the 1950s, an intense rivalry developed with Tennis Borussia Berlin. A proposal for a merger between the two clubs in 1958 was rejected, with only three of the 266 members voting in favour.

Being a major Berlin side, Hertha had fans in the entirety of Berlin, but following the division of the city, supporters in East Berlin found it both difficult and dangerous to follow the team. In interviews with long-time supporter Helmut Klopfleisch, he described his difficulties as a supporter in East Berlin. Klopfleisch came from the district of Pankow, and, attending his first home match as a young boy in 1954, he became an instant supporter. He continued to attend home matches at the stadium, but with the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, this became impossible. Despite this, he did not give up. By this time, Hertha played at the Stadion am Gesundbrunnen, nicknamed Die Plumpe. The stadium was located close enough to the Berlin wall for the sounds from the stadium to be heard over the wall. Thus, Klopfleisch and other supporters gathered behind the wall to listen to the home matches. When the crowd at the stadium cheered, Klopfleisch and the others cheered as well. Klopfleisch later came under suspicion from the Stasi, the East German secret police. He was arrested and interrogated on numerous occasions. He also had his passport confiscated and eventually lost his job as an electrician.

Entry to the Bundesliga

At the time of the formation of the Bundesliga in 1963, Hertha was Berlin's reigning champion, and so became an inaugural member of the new professional national league. In spite of finishing clear of the relegation zone, the team was demoted after the 1964–65 season following attempts to bribe players to play in the city under what had become decidedly unpleasant circumstances after the erection of the Berlin Wall. This caused something of a crisis for the Bundesliga which wanted, for political reasons, to continue to have a team in its ranks representing the former capital. Through various machinations, this led to the promotion of SC Tasmania 1900 Berlin, which then delivered the worst-ever performance in Bundesliga history. Hertha managed a return to the premier German league in 1968–69 and developed a solid following, making it Berlin's favourite side.

Hertha, however, was again soon touched by scandal through its involvement with several other clubs in the Bundesliga matchfixing scandal of 1971. In the course of an investigation of Hertha's role, it was also revealed that the club was 6 million DM in debt. Financial disaster was averted through the sale of the team's former home ground.

In spite of this, the team found success on the field through the 1970s with a second place Bundesliga finish behind Borussia Mönchengladbach in 1974–75, a semi-final appearance in the 1978–79 UEFA Cup, and two appearances in the final of the DFB-Pokal (1977 and 1979). The following season saw the fortunes of the team take a turn for the worse as it was relegated to the 2. Bundesliga, where it would spend 13 of the next 17 seasons.

Plans in 1982 for a merger with Tennis Borussia Berlin, SpVgg Blau-Weiß 1890 Berlin and SCC Berlin to form a side derisively referred to as "FC Utopia" never came to fruition. Hertha slipped as low as the third tier Amateur Oberliga Berlin, where it spent two seasons (1986–87 and 1987–88). Two turns in the Bundesliga (1982–83 and 1990–91) saw the team immediately relegated after poor performances. Hertha's amateur side enjoyed a greater measure of success, advancing to the final of the DFB-Pokal in 1993, where its run ended in a close 0–1 defeat to Bundesliga club Bayer Leverkusen.