Early success Viktoria Berlin was one of the first football clubs in Berlin. The club was established as Berliner Thorball- und Fußballclub Viktoria von 1889 on 6 June 1889. The team enjoyed almost immediate success and claimed the city championship in five consecutive seasons from 1893 to 1897. Viktoria Berlin then went on to become a presence on the
national championship. The team appeared in the German championship final for three years in a row from 1907 to 1909 and became German champions in 1908. Viktoria Berlin captured a second national title in 1911 and continued to enjoy success in city league until the end of
World War I. Viktoria Berlin earned uneven results in the early 1920s before settling firmly into the
Oberliga Berlin-Brandenburg.
Play in the Third Reich The club went on to play as
Berliner FC Viktoria 89 in the
Gauliga Berlin-Brandenburg, one of sixteen premier level divisions formed in the re-organization of German football under the
Third Reich in 1933. The team captured the division title that year and advanced to the national playoffs, going out 1–2 to
1. FC Nürnberg in the semi-finals. Renamed
BFC Viktoria 89 Berlin in 1936, the club played in the top-flight until being relegated in 1938, making a fleeting re-appearance as part of the combined wartime side (Kriegspielgemindeschaft)
KSG Lufthansa/Viktoria 89 Berlin in the abbreviated 1944–45 season. Like most other organizations in Germany, including sports and football clubs, the club was dissolved by
occupying Allied authorities at the end of
World War II as part of the process of
de-Nazification.
Postwar football The club was re-established in late 1945 as
SG Tempelhof and re-claimed their pre-war identity as
BFC Viktoria 89 Berlin on 12 July 1947. They played from the late 1940s, through the 1950s, and into the early 1960s in the
Oberliga Berlin, affiliated with football in the western half of the now divided country. Viktoria claimed the division championship in 1955 and 1956, but were unable to advance in the national playoff rounds in either year. The Oberliga Berlin was relatively weak and generally performed poorly against top-flight teams from other divisions in western Germany. When the
Bundesliga, Germany's new professional league, was formed in 1963, only a single place was held open among the sixteen teams selected to the new circuit for a side from Berlin. While the city's teams were not as competitive as others in the country, it was felt to be an important gesture in the
Cold War era to represent the divided capital in the newly established league: the selection went to
Hertha BSC. Through the 60s, the club suffered through a series of financial problems caused in part by the division and isolation of Berlin after the construction of the
Berlin Wall, and by simple mismanagement. Viktoria survived and later played in the fifth tier
NOFV-Oberliga Nord. In 2013 the club merged with
Lichterfelder FC to form a new club,
FC Viktoria 1889 Berlin. == Cricket ==