The 1944 German football championship, the 37th edition of the competition, was won by Dresdner SC, the club defending its 1943 title by defeating Luftwaffe team LSV Hamburg in the final.(West) Germany -List of champions rsssf.org, accessed: 22 December 2015Dresdner SC » Steckbrief Weltfussball.de – Dresdner SC honours, accessed: 22 December 2015
The final years of the German Championship during the war saw many military teams compete in the championship, Luftwaffe teams, Luftwaffensportvereine, short LSV, and, Wehrmacht teams, Wehrmachtssportvereine, short WSV, became very competitive.Als Wien deutscher Meister wurde Augsburger Allgemeine – When Vienna became German champions, published: 3 September 2015, accessed: 26 December 2015
Dresden's Helmut Schön, who would later coach Germany to the 1974 FIFA World Cup, became the top scorer of the 1944 championship with 14 goals, the second-highest individual amount of any player in the history of the competition from 1903 to 1963.
It was the last edition of the tournament during the Second World War, with the competition not being held again until 1948. The thirty-one 1943–44 Gauliga champions, two more than in the previous season,kicker Allmanach 1990, page: 243-245 competed in a single-leg knock out competition to determine the national champion.German championship 1944 rsssf.org, accessed: 25 December 2015
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.POKALE AUF REISEN: VIKTORIA UND CO. WANDERN INS FUSSBALLMUSEUM DFB website, accessed: 27 December 2015
Qualified teams The teams qualified through the 1943–44 Gauliga season: Club Qualified from VfR Mannheim Gauliga Baden MSV Brünn Gauliga Böhmen und Mähren Hertha BSC Gauliga Berlin-Brandenburg LSV Danzig Gauliga Danzig-Westpreußen FC Mühlhausen 93 Gauliga Elsaß LSV Mölders Krakau Gauliga Generalgouvernement LSV Hamburg Gauliga HamburgKickers Offenbach Gauliga Hessen-Nassau KSG VfL 99 Köln/SpVgg Sülz 07 Gauliga Köln-Aachen Borussia Fulda Gauliga Kurhessen LSV Rerick Gauliga Mecklenburg SV Dessau 05 Gauliga Mitte TuS Neuendorf Gauliga MosellandKSG Duisburg Gauliga Niederrhein STC Hirschberg Gauliga Niederschlesien 1. FC Nürnberg Gauliga Nordbayern Germania Königshütte Gauliga Oberschlesien WSV Celle Gauliga Osthannover First Vienna Gauliga Ostmark VfB Königsberg Gauliga Ostpreußen HSV Groß-Born Gauliga Pommern Dresdner SC Gauliga SachsenHolstein Kiel Gauliga Schleswig-HolsteinFC Bayern Munich Gauliga Südbayern NSTG Brux Gauliga Sudetenland Eintracht Braunschweig Gauliga Südhannover-Braunschweig SDW Posen Gauliga Wartheland SpVgg Wilhelmshaven Gauliga Weser-EmsSchalke 04 Gauliga WestfalenKSG Saarbrücken Gauliga WestmarkSV Göppingen Gauliga Württemberg
Competition
First round Borussia Fulda received a bye for the first round.
|align="center" style="background:#ddffdd" colspan=3|16 April 1944German championship 1944 – First round Weltfussball.de, accessed: 25 December 2015
Replay
|align="center" style="background:#ddffdd" colspan=3|23 April 1944
Round of 16
|align="center" style="background:#ddffdd" colspan=3|7 May 1944German championship 1944 – Round of sixteen Weltfussball.de, accessed: 25 December 2015
Replay
|align="center" style="background:#ddffdd" colspan=3|14 May 1944
Quarter-finals
|align="center" style="background:#ddffdd" colspan=3|21 May 1944German championship 1944 – Quarter finals Weltfussball.de, accessed: 25 December 2015
Semi-finals
Third place play-off
Final
DRESDNER SC Willibald Kreß Heinz Hempel Fritz Belger Helmut Schubert Walter Dzur Rudi Voigtmann Helmut Schön Heinrich Schaffer Herbert Pohl Fritz Machate Richard HofmannManager: Georg KöhlerLSV HAMBURG Willy Jürissen Reinhold Münzenberg Karl Miller Heinrich Gärtner Walter Ochs Heinz Mühle Robert Gebhardt Fritz Zahn Jakob Lotz Ludwig Janda Willi GornickManager: Karl Höger
References
Sources kicker Allmanach 1990, by kicker, page 164 & 177 - German championship
External links German Championship 1943–44 at weltfussball.de German Championship 1944 at RSSSF