1:73Fichte-Sportplatz

Köpenicker Landstraße 186

The workers sports club “Fichte” was the largest club of its kind in Germany.

In the First World War, millions of recruits learned to play football for recreation during breaks from frontline duty, and as a result football became a very popular sport with mass appeal in the years of the Weimar Republic. Previously largely a middle-class game, football then increasingly became a sport for the proletariat. In addition to the competitions and championships organized by the DFB (Deutscher Fußball-Bund, German Football Association), other matches were organised, and soon a regular schedule of games was established for the clubs affiliated with this or that religious denomination and, especially, for the Arbeiter-Turn- und Sportbund (ATSB, Workers‘ Gymnastics and Sports Federation), which counted a large number of active players among its members. Based in Berlin, one of the nation’s centres of workers sports, the ASV Fichte with its more than 10,000 members was the largest club in Germany. The ATSB organised its own football championship and sent its all-star team to international matches and the Arbeiter-Olympiade (Workers’ Olympics); in all, the team won 30 of 47 games.

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