The 2. Bundesliga ( ; ) is the second division of professional football in Germany. It was implemented 11 years after the founding of the Fußball-Bundesliga as the new second division for professional football. The 2. Bundesliga is ranked below the Bundesliga and above the 3. Liga in the German football league system. All of the 2. Bundesliga clubs take part in the DFB-Pokal, the annual German Cup competition. A total of 127 clubs have competed in the 2. Bundesliga since its foundation.
The decision to establish the league as the second level of football in West Germany was made in May 1973. The league started operating in August 1974, then with two divisions of 20 clubs. It was reduced to a single division in 1981. From the 1991–92 season onwards clubs from the former East Germany started participating in the league, briefly expanding it to two divisions again. It returned to a single division format again at the end of that season and has had 18 clubs since 1994. Two clubs from the 2. Bundesliga are directly promoted to the Bundesliga, while a third promoted club is determined through the play-offs, from 1974 to 1991 and again since 2008. Between 1991 and 2008 the third-placed club in the league was directly promoted. The bottom clubs in the league are relegated to the third division; from 1974 to 1994, the Oberliga, from 1994 to 2008, the Regionalliga and since 2008, the 3. Liga. The number of relegated clubs has fluctuated over the years. Since 2008 two clubs have been directly relegated while the third-last team has the opportunity to defend its league play in the play-offs against the third placed team of the 3. Liga.
1. FC Köln hold the record number of championships in the league having won their 5th on 18 May 2025. Arminia Bielefeld holds the record for number of promotions from the 2. Bundesliga to the Bundesliga, with eight.
For the 2024–25 season an average of 30,830 spectators watched 2. Bundesliga matches, the highest of any non-top flight football league in the world, and higher than the average attendance in many top flight leagues.
History Background With the implementation of the Bundesliga in 1963, five Regionalliga were also founded as the 2nd highest playing level, South, Southwest, West, North and Berlin. The two top ranking teams from each Regionalliga at the end of a season were placed into groups to play against the relegation teams from the Bundesliga. With the transition from the former Oberliga to the newly created Bundesliga and Regionalliga, however, it became clear that the substructure of the Bundesliga was both sportingly and economically problematic and that relegation from the Bundesliga could easily ruin a club economically.
This situation was partly responsible for the Bundesliga scandal in 1971, in which, due to manipulations in point games in the relegation battle, Rot-Weiß Oberhausen and Arminia Bielefeld managed to remain in the Bundesliga. As a consequence of the scandal, the DFB-Bundestag in Frankfurt decided on 30 June 1973 to introduce a 2. Bundesliga, divided into a north and a south season, for the 1974–75 season, which should close the gap between professional and amateur areas.
Formation
The decision to establish the 2. Bundesliga as a fully professional league below the Bundesliga was made at the annual convention of the German Football Association, the DFB, in Frankfurt on 30 June 1973. The league replaced the five Regionalligas that were at this level from 1963 to 1974. Each Regionalliga had a set quota of clubs that could qualify for the new league with the Regionalliga Süd receiving thirteen spots, the Regionalliga West twelve, the Regionalliga Nord and Regionalliga Südwest seven and the Regionalliga Berlin one. The qualified teams were established through a ranking that took the last five seasons of the Regionalliga into account.DSFS Liga-Chronik seit 1945 publisher: DSFS, published: 2005, pages C 3 & 4
The new 2. Bundesliga was split into a northern and a southern division with 20 clubs each. Each division had its champion directly promoted to the Bundesliga while the two runners-up would contest a two-leg play-off to determine the third promoted team. The bottom four clubs in each league were relegated, however, as the number of clubs relegated from the Bundesliga to each division could vary, so could the number of clubs in the league and therefore the number of teams relegated.
2. Bundesliga North and South 1974 to 1981 The first-ever game of the league was played on Friday, 2 August 1974 between 1. FC Saarbrücken and Darmstadt 98 and ended in a 1–0 win for Saarbrücken, with Nikolaus Semlitsch scoring the first-ever goal of the new league in the 18th minute of the game. The inaugural champions of the league were Hannover 96 in the north and Karlsruher SC in the south, both former Bundesliga clubs. The play-offs for the third Bundesliga spot were contested by FK Pirmasens and Bayer Uerdingen, with Uerdingen winning 6–0 at home after a four-all draw in the first leg. The three promoted teams however proved uncompetitive in the Bundesliga with Hannover and Uerdingen being relegated straight away again while Karlsruhe lasted for only two seasons.
The second season saw league championships for Tennis Borussia Berlin and 1. FC Saarbrücken, with Tennis Borussia lasting for only one season and 1. FCS for two. The contest for the third promotion spot pitted two far bigger names of German football against each other, with Borussia Dortmund edging out 1. FC Nürnberg with two wins, ending Dortmund's four-year second division spell. The last round of the season in the south also saw an all-time goal scoring record per round when 55 goals were scored in ten games. The northern division incidentally set the second best mark when it scored 51 goals the day before.Tore pro Spielrunde weltfussball.de, 2. Bundesliga: Goals per round. Retrieved 27 February 2014
In 1976–77 the league champions were FC St. Pauli and VfB Stuttgart while the third promotion spot went to 1860 Munich, having had to play a third game after Arminia Bielefeld and TSV 1860 each won their home games 4–0, with the decider ending 2–0 in favour of the southern team. Ottmar Hitzfeld set an all-time 2. Bundesliga record in May 1977 when he scored 6 goals in a league match for VfB Stuttgart against Jahn Regensburg.2. Bundesliga » Statistik » Die meisten Tore eines Spielers pro Spiel weltfussball.de, 2. Bundesliga players with record number of goals in a game. Retrieved 15 February 2014 Bielefeld won promotion as the champions of the northern division in the following season, as did southern champion SV Darmstadt 98, entering the Bundesliga for the first time in its history. Third place went to 1. FC Nürnberg who overcame Rot-Weiss Essen with a 1–0 home win and a two–all draw away. For Nürnberg it ended a nine-year absence from the Bundesliga. Horst Hrubesch set an all-time record that season for goals in one season, 41 scored for Rot-Weiss Essen.2. Bundesliga » Torschützenkönige weltfussball.de, 2. Bundesliga: Top goal scorers by season. Retrieved 15 February 2014
In 1978–79 direct promotion went to 1860 Munich and Bayer Leverkusen while the play-off was won, once more, by Bayer Uerdingen, which defeated SpVgg Bayreuth 2–1 at home after a draw away. In the north, two clubs were relegated from the league for financial reasons, Westfalia Herne, which had finished fifth and former Bundesliga side FC St. Pauli, which had come sixth. The following seasons saw 1. FC Nürnberg and Arminia Bielefeld clinch another promotion from the 2. Bundesliga, as did Karlsuher SC which overcame Rot-Weiss Essen by winning 5–1 at home after losing 3–1 away. Arminia Bielefeld set an all-time 2. Bundesliga record when it defeated Arminia Hannover 11–0 in May 1980, the biggest-ever win in the league.2. Bundesliga » Statistik » Die höchsten Siege weltfussball.de, 2. Bundesliga: Biggest wins. Retrieved 15 February 2014
The 1980–81 season, the seventh of the league, was also its last in this format. From 1981 it played as a single division of 20 teams after a decision taken on 7 June 1980, when, at a special convention of the DFB, the introduction of the single division 2. Bundesliga was decided upon with a majority of 84 votes to 77.DSFS Liga-Chronik seit 1945 publisher: DSFS, published: 2005, page C 22 The northern division was unusually strong that season, having received all three relegated teams of the 1979–80 Bundesliga season, SV Werder Bremen, Eintracht Braunschweig and Hertha BSC, and playing with 22 teams. Bremen won the league while Braunschweig came second. Hertha missed out despite scoring 123 goals. In the south, the league was won by SV Darmstadt 98 for a second time while runners-up Kickers Offenbach lost out to Braunschweig in the play-offs. The reduction of the league to a single division meant 22 teams were relegated while no team was promoted to the 2. Bundesliga that season.
Single division era 1981 to 1991 The new single division league of 20 teams saw only a small change in modus. The top two in the league were promoted while the third placed team played the sixteenth placed Bundesliga side in a home-and-away play-off for one more spot in the Bundesliga. The bottom four in the league were relegated. The inaugural season saw FC Schalke 04 compete in the 2. Bundesliga for the first time, and win it. Second place went to Hertha BSC while third placed Kickers Offenbach missed out on promotion after losing both play-off games to Bayer Leverkusen. Fourth place went to 1860 Munich, one point behind Offenbach, but the club found itself relegated after the DFB refused it a license for the following season. This decision kept 17th placed SG Wattenscheid 09, the best-placed team on a relegation rank, in the league. The following season finally saw Kickers Offenbach win promotion from the 2. Bundesliga, behind champions SV Waldhof Mannheim who had never played in the Bundesliga before. Bayer Uerdingen, in third place, won promotion through the play-offs for a third time, this time overcoming the previous seasons 2. Bundesliga champions FC Schalke 04.
Schalke bounced back immediately, coming second behind Karlsruher SC in 1983–84. Third place went to MSV Duisburg wo were decisively beaten 0–5 by Bundesliga side Eintracht Frankfurt at home. At the other end, Rot-Weiss Essen, after having failed to win promotion to the Bundesliga through the play-offs twice from the 2. Bundesliga, was relegated to amateur football that season. 1. FC Nürnberg took out the championship of the single division 2. Bundesliga for the first time in 1985, with Hannover 96 coming second. Third placed 1. FC Saarbrücken also won promotion courtesy to a 2–0 home win over Arminia Bielefeld after a draw away. Kickers Offenbach, freshly relegated from the Bundesliga came only 19th in the 2. Bundesliga, suffered another relegation, as did another former Bundesliga side, FC St. Pauli, having returned to the league for the first time after having had its license revoked in 1979.
In 1985–86, three clubs from Berlin competed in the league, but none the following season, with Blau-Weiß 90 Berlin achieving its one and only promotion to the Bundesliga while Hertha BSC and Tennis Borussia were relegated to amateur football. The league champions were FC 08 Homburg, also promoted to the Bundesliga for the first time. Arguably one of the most famous play-off contests in 2. Bundesliga history however were the games between third placed Fortuna Köln and Borussia Dortmund. Köln won 2–0 at home, followed by a 3–1 for Dortmund, making a third game necessary as the away goal rule did not apply to the Bundesliga versus 2. Bundesliga play-offs at the time. This third game was won 8–0 by Borussia Dortmund in front of 50,000 in neutral Düsseldorf. In the relegation zone MSV Duisburg followed the two Berlin clubs into amateur football as a third former Bundesliga side that season.