Hertha Zehlendorf

A club named Germania when it started out in the Zehlendorf district in 1903 does not keep that name by accident of history alone: two world wars and a forced merger under the Nazis reshaped it more than once before it settled back into its traditional identity in 1948.

The ground at Ernst-Reuter-Sportfeld has housed the club since 1913, longer than any of its names have lasted. What has stayed constant is the standing in Berlin amateur football: Regionalliga Berlin titles in 1969 and 1970, back to back, then an Oberliga Berlin championship in 1979, the same year the club reached the final of the German Amateur Championship and lost to ESV Ingolstadt. The Berlin Cup came three times, in 1977, 1982 and 1989.

The academy is the part of the club that reaches furthest beyond it. Pierre Littbarski passed through it on his way to the 1990 World Cup, and Niko Kovač did too before he went on to manage at the top level himself. A German U-19 title in 1970 and a U-17 title in 1988 mark the two points where that production line peaked domestically.

The club's more recent path has run in both directions: relegation to the fifth tier in 2001, a climb back to the NOFV-Oberliga by 2014, promotion to the Regionalliga Nordost in 2024, and a drop back down to the Oberliga NOFV-Nord in 2026.

Sharing a name with Hertha BSC has never made the two clubs rivals in any formal sense — nor do the meetings with Tasmania Berlin or BFC Dynamo. It is the shorthand "Kleine Hertha" that does the work of separating the two, a reminder handed out with every mention that this is Zehlendorf's Hertha, not the one that plays in the Bundesliga.