Cricket, in Germany?

Cricket was known about in Germany from the end of the eighteenth century, but it is from the middle of the nineteenth century that the game became wider known.  There is mention of games being played in various parts of Germany after this period, but it was Berlin that came to be associated with a rapid rise of teams in the last quarter of that century.  There is no doubt that the impetus came from British students, business people and teachers and to some degree Americans living in Berlin, but it was not long before German sportsmen had taken to the sports which the British had introduced: cricket, association football, rugby football, rowing  and light athletics.

In the Berlin sporting world of that period, Cricket and association football were strongly linked together and it is no coincidence that the first major sporting body in Germany involved with the two sports was called the German Football and Cricket Federation (1891).  The early Berlin clubs were very often called football and cricket clubs.  It has to be said, however, that football fairly quickly came to dominate and while cricket was offered by many of the Berlin clubs well into the early twentieth century, a good number abandoned their attachment to cricket.

After the Second World war cricket in Germany was mainly kept alive by British troops.  There were only four teams left in Berlin at this stage, but a combined team  became integrated into the British military league.

It was mainly immigration from Commonwealth countries which brought in a new era of cricket in Germany.  From the 1960s cricket began to be played in parks by these expats in many of Germany’s major cities – ‘just for fun’ – whether the players were from the UK, Asia, the West Indies or other cricket-playing countries.