Bayern Munich are Germany's most successful football club. Thirty-three Bundesliga titles along with 20 German Cup trophies and six Champions League (formerly known as European Champions Clubs' Cup) wins are unmatched. The Bavarian club's trophy cabinet also includes the European Cup Winners' Cup and the UEFA Cup, now known as the Europa League. There are also two Intercontinental Cups and two FIFA Club World Cup trophies, just to name a few of Bayern's achievements.

The club however started out very small 125 years ago, when a group of young men met at Cafe Gisela near the Hofgarten in Munich's city center on February 27, 1900. The club colors were initially blue and white, representing the colors of the Bavarian flag.

Kurt Landauer - football visionary 

It took 24 years for the club to get its first taste of success. In 1924, Bayern won the southern German championship, followed by the German championship eight years later in 1932. Kurt Landauer, a Jew, had been club president since 1919 and was responsible for the club's rise during the Weimar Republic. He focused on youth work, organized friendlies against international teams and brought foreign players – often Jews – from Czechia or Hungary to Munich. 

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, Landauer resigned from his position. The Nazis hated Bayern, which in their eyes was a "Jewish club." Landauer was briefly imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp and fled to Switzerland after his release in 1939. He survived the Second World War while many of his family members died in the Holocaust. After the war, Landauer had a second tenure as Bayern president from 1947 to 1951. After that, it seems as if the club forgot its Jewish heritage. It wasn't until 2009 that the memory of Landauer was revived because a fan group campaigned for it. Landauer has been an honorary president of Bayern Munich since 2013.

Golden generation: Beckenbauer, Maier and Müller

Things didn't initially go all too well for the club after the war. Bayern were in the second tier for some time and therefore weren't included in the newly founded Bundesliga in 1963. It wasn't until 1965 that they won promotion to Germany's top flight. At that time, an exceptional young talent by the name of Franz Beckenbauer was part of their squad, as well as goalkeeper Sepp Maier and striker Gerd Müller. They led Bayern to their first Bundesliga title in 1969 and three consecutive European Cup titles from 1974 to 1976.

"We had a team that was capable of winning everything," said Beckenbauer, who passed away in January 2024. "Gerd Müller was our goalscorer, Sepp Maier our wall in the goal. It was a special time."

Mastermind Uli Hoeness

The next period of dominance followed from 1983 onwards under coaches Udo Lattek and Jupp Heynckes. The mastermind behind the success though was Bayern's former player Uli Hoeness, who had to end his playing career due to injury in 1979 and became Bayern's manager shortly after. Within a short amount of time, he turned the then-indebted club into one of the most solvent and best outfits in the world.

"Our innovative strength has always set standards. Uli Hoeness practically invented merchandising in football", said Bayern's current club president, Herbert Hainer, at the club's 125th anniversary celebration. One of Hoeness' preferred strategies was to poach the best players from his fiercest rivals and lure them to Munich with the prospect of titles. In this way, he strengthened his own team while also weakening his opponents.

Total dominance in the Bundesliga

In 1987, Bayern became Germany's record champions with their 10th title, replacing Nuremberg, who had previously held the most. Since then, they have won 23 more, including 11 in a row from 2013 to 2023. Just last year Leverkusen managed to break Bayern's title streak with an unbeaten Bundesliga season.

"Leverkusen are stronger than I'd expected", Hoeness – now honorary president of Bayern –recently admitted to public broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk. "They are the only ones who are really annoying us and will continue to do so. All the others – Dortmund, Leipzig – are finished."

Nevertheless, Bayern, who lead the Bundesliga table by eight points after two thirds of this season, are poised to become German champions for a 34th time.

Fight for international success

The club's ambitions however go far beyond Germany. Since 2017, Bayern have opened offices in New York, Shanghai and Bangkok. Winning the Bundesliga title and the German Cup is the obvious goal every year. The ultimate aim, however, is to compete with Europe's best teams and to win the Champions League.

The Bavarians have somewhat fallen behind other clubs like Manchester City and Real Madrid in recent years. Both of them have significantly more money available and can pay their players higher salaries, which makes it increasingly difficult for Munich to sign top international stars.

"England spends astronomical sums in an unintelligent, irrational way”, complained former Bayern CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere dello Sport in February 2023. He called for a strengthening of financial fair play and said: "Wealth must be better distributed. The globalization of the market has created incredible inequality.”

Inequality is also on display in the Bundesliga, only this time in favor of Bayern. The club has the most money, the best players and has benefited the most from the distribution of TV money for years. The gap between Bayern Munich and the rest of the Bundesliga is getting bigger and bigger. At this rate, the Bavarians are bound to be Germany's No. 1 club when they celebrate their 150th anniversary.

This article was originally published in German.