The league was formed in 1923, after a league reform which was decided upon in
Darmstadt,
Hesse. It replaced the
Kreisliga Odenwald and the
Kreisliga Pfalz as the highest leagues in the region. The
Bezirksliga Rhein, named after the river
Rhine (German:
Rhein), started out with eight teams, playing each other in a home-and-away round with the league winner advancing to the
Southern German championship, which in turn was a qualification tournament for the
German championship. The league modus remained unchanged for its first three seasons, 1923–24, 1924–25 and 1925-26. For its last edition however, it expanded to ten clubs. Additionally, the leagues runners-up also qualified for a "consolidation" round with the other runners-up of the southern
Bezirksligas. The winner of this round was awarded the third entry spot for the south to the German finals. In an attempt to bring all Southern German leagues to a similar system, the
Bezirksligas were reorganised in 1927. For the
Bezirksliga Rhein, this meant, it joined with the southern clubs of the
Bezirksliga Rheinhessen-Saar to form the new
Bezirksliga Rhein-Saar. In practice, this meant little change for the league as the new
Bezirksliga was immediately sub-divided into two independent, regional divisions. Out of the ten clubs in the league, eight went to the new
Bezirksliga Rhein-Saar - Rhein division, only the
FK Pirmasens found itself grouped into the
Saar division of the new league while the
SV Darmstadt 98 went to the new
Bezirksliga Main-Hessen. ==National success==