Vorwärts Leipzig

Football department

After World War II, East Germany formed its own top football league, the DDR-Oberliga, starting in 1949–50. SV Vorwärts Leipzig joined that league for the 1951–52 season. In December 1952, the club changed its name to Sportvereinigung Vorwärts der Kasernierten Volkspolizei Leipzig, but just a few months later, in April 1953, its entire first team was moved to Berlin, becoming Sportvereinigung Vorwärts der KVP Berlin and staying in the top division. The players left behind kept the original club name going. On 1 January 1955, this remnant took over the spot of SC DHfK Leipzig II in the second-tier DDR-Liga. Then, in July 1955, the whole first team was shifted again, this time to SV Vorwärts Cottbus, and the Leipzig side dropped into lower leagues. On 1 October 1956, the team switched from a police to an army club, renamed Armee-Sportgemeinschaft Vorwärts Leipzig. They climbed back to the third-tier 2.DDR-Liga by 1960, and after winning their division in 1962, returned to the DDR-Liga, where they stayed through the 1960s. A last-place finish in 1970 sent them down, but they bounced back by winning the Bezirksliga Leipzig title in 1970–71. Two seasons after returning to the second tier, they won their division in 1973 but failed in the promotion playoff for the Oberliga. They played one more year in Leipzig before the squad was transferred to Dessau in 1974, becoming ASG Vorwärts Dessau. The club regularly entered the FDGB-Pokal from 1957 onward, missing only 1961 and 1972 between 1960 and 1974. Their best run came in 1959, reaching the quarterfinals, where SC Turbine Erfurt beat them 3–0. This unusual history created a web of linked clubs: current sides Vorwärts Dessau and 1. FC Frankfurt, plus defunct ones like Vorwärts Berlin, Vorwärts Cottbus, and Vorwärts Kamenz.