Top 10 clubs with most Bundesliga titles in history

These clubs are giants of German football

The Bundesliga is one of the top European leagues, and several of its teams have won national and European championships. Which German clubs are the top Bundesliga title winners, or which clubs have won the most Bundesliga championships? We'll see.

You may also be wondering which player has won the most Bundesliga championships. Thomas Muller lead the ranking of most Bundesliga championships won with 11 victories.

David Alaba has won the most titles as a foreign player. He has added ten titles to his name. Manuel Neuer joins him with his tenth title win.

The German league is one of the top five in Europe so today we are going to see which team has won the most Bundesliga from the bottom.

10. Eintracht Braunschweig (1 Title)

They have only won one Bundesliga championship, in the 1966–1967 season. However, they have been demoted numerous times, particularly in the last ten years, to Bundesliga 2 and even below. Since the 2014–15 season, they have been unable to gain promotion to the Bundesliga and are presently participating in Liga 3. They actually only played in the Bundesliga for one season (2013–2014), and if you look back to the years before 2013, you can notice that their last season in the league was the 1986–1987 one.

Despite this, they have one Bundesliga title under their belts, which puts them ahead of stronger teams like Bayer Leverkusen and Schalke 04 on the list of clubs with the most titles won in the Bundesliga. Paul Breitner, who played for the team in the 1970s when they competed in the Bundesliga, stands out as one of the greatest players to have ever played for Eintracht Braunschweig.

9. VfL Wolfsburg (1 Title)

Like 1860 Munich, VfL Wolfsburg have won one Bundesliga championship and finished second once. They did, in fact, win the Bundesliga champions in the 2008–09 season, and in the 2014–15 season, they came in second place in the top German league. They also won the DFB-Pokal and DFL Super cups during the same season (2014–15). The distinction between 1860 Munich and VfL Wolfsburg is that the latter is now playing in the Bundesliga, whilst 1860 Munich have been doing so since the 1997–98 season; prior to that, they played in the Oberliga Nord and Bundesliga 2.

Since they began playing in the Bundesliga, they have never seen demotion, frequently finishing higher than a tenth at the league's conclusion. You might find it interesting that the top Belgian footballer, Kevin De Bruyne, was a member of the VfL Wolfsburg squad during the 2014–15 season when they won the DFB–Pokal Cup and the DFL Super Cup.

8. FC Kaiserslautern (2 Titles)

The second last club on the list to have won more than one Bundesliga championship is FC Kaiserslautern, according to Bundesliga records and statistics as of this writing They actually ended as runners-up in the top German league once, in the 1993–94 season, and won two Bundesliga championships in 1990–91 and 1997–98. In addition, they won one DFB Super cup in 1991 as well as two DFB Pokal cups in the seasons 1989–1990 and 1995–1996.

FC Kaiserslautern are currently playing in Liga 3 - the third tier of the German football league system below Bundesliga 2. It seems from 2005 on they couldn't keep up with Bundesliga standards and remained most of the time after 2005 in Bundesliga 2 and from 2018 on in Liga 3. Some great footballers like Mario Basler, Andreas Brehme, and Michael Ballack have all played for the club.

7. FC Koln (2 Titles)

The next club on our list of teams with the most Bundesliga titles won is FC Koln, They won two titles in their history, in the 1963–1964 and 1977–1978 seasons. FC Koln were runner-ups in the top German league five times, from 1964–1965 to 1989–1990, the last two of which were consecutive.FC Koln has been a member of the Bundesliga since the top German league's inception in 1963. From 1967 to 1982, they won four DFB-Pokal championships. They have had some excellent football players play for them, including Bodo Illgner, Jurgen Kohler, Harald Schumacher, and Lukas Podolski.

6. VfB Stuttgart (3 Titles)

Stuttgart may share the fifth spot on the list of clubs with the most Bundesliga titles won with Hamburger SV if they had finished second in the top German league five times as opposed to twice after winning three Bundesliga titles. VfB Stuttgart, like Werder Bremen, has never won consecutive championships. They won the Bundesliga championship in the 1983–84, 1991–92, and 2006–07 seasons. In the 1978–79 and 2002–03 seasons, they placed second in the top German division. In the 1949–50 and 1951–52 seasons, they also won two championships in the Oberliga Sud, one of the top leagues in the German football league system prior to the creation of the Bundesliga.

Although VfB Stuttgart has been a member of the Bundesliga since the league's inception in 1963, they have been demoted three times, with two of those relegations occurring fairly recently. The last two occasions they were demoted to Bundesliga 2 were in 2015–16 and 2018–19, but in both cases, they were immediately promoted back the following year.

5. Hamburger SV (3 Titles)

Even though Hamburger SV has only won three Bundesliga championships, two of them—the championships they won in the 1981–82 and 1982–83 seasons—have been consecutive. In addition, from 1975 to 1987, Hamburger SV finished second in five different Bundesliga seasons, none of which were consecutive.

They won Bundesliga in 1978–79, 1981–82, and 1982–83 seasos.

Hamburger SV are playing in the Bundesliga without facing demotion for 55 years, from 1963 to 2018, although they haven't been very good lately. They were demoted to Bundesliga 2 in the 2017–18 season and have remained there ever since, despite finishing fourth in each of their three seasons there. With the exception of the 1953–54 season, when they finished 11th, Hamburger SV consistently won the Oberliga Nord—the top division of the German football league system at the time—during the period between 1947 and 1963. That means they have won the Oberliga Nord 15 times, which is an accomplishment in their history. Finally, numerous elite football players have made appearances for the Red Shorts over the course of their careers, including Kevin Keegan, Vincent Kompany, Franz Beckenbauer, Jerome Boateng, and Uwe Seeler.

4. Werder Bremen (4 Titles)

They have seven runners-up finishes in the Bundesliga, yet they are only one title behind Borussia Dortmund and Borussia Monchengladbach. If they had won only one more trophy, they would have replaced Borussia Monchengladbach as the club with the most Bundesliga titles won. Anyway, it hasn't happened, at least not yet, as Werder Bremen is currently ranked fourth.

Werder Bremen should be noted for the fact that none of their four championships has ever come after another; if the Bundesliga winners are arranged by year, Werder Bremen will never win the league twice in a row. They did, in fact, win the Bundesliga championships in the seasons 1964–1965; 1987–1988; 1992–1993; and 2003–2004. As you can see, there is a difference of about 20 years between their first and second titles and a difference of about 10 years between their third and fourth titles.

3. Borussia Monchengladbach (5 Titles)

Borussia Monchengladbach should share third place on the list of clubs with the most Bundesliga titles won with Borussia Dortmund given the number of titles they have won (5 vs. 7 for Borussia Dortmund). Still, because they have finished second less frequently than Borussia Dortmund (2 vs. 7), they are placed third.

Titles won in 1969–70, 1970–71, 1974–75, 1975–76, and 1976–77 seasons.

As we already mentioned, Borussia Monchengladbach has won the most consecutive Bundesliga championships, putting them closest to Bayern Munich. Three of their five Bundesliga championships—which they obtained between 1974 and 1977—were consecutive. Their two other championships came in consecutive years from 1969 to 1971. They also placed second twice in the Bundesliga, in the 1973–74 and 1977–78 seasons, as we already said.

Borussia Monchengladbach has only ever been demoted to Bundesliga 2 twice, in 1999 and 2007. For the remainder of their history, which dates back to 1965, they have played in the Bundesliga. Some of the best German footballers, like Lothar Matthaus, Berti Vogts, Stefan Effenberg, and Allan Simonsen (a Danish player), have played for the Prussians at some point in their careers.

2. Borussia Dortmund (5 Titles)

Borussia Dortmund, a 111-year-old Dortmund-based club, is second on the list of clubs with the most Bundesliga titles won. After Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund has won the most Bundesliga titles and has also placed second the most times in the top German league. In the history of their club, they have actually won 5 Bundesliga championships and placed second in the top German league seven times.

Borussia Dortmund won the Bundesliga championship in the following years: 1994–1995; 1995–1996; 2001–2002; 2010–11; and 2011–12. As you can see, they have won one title, and two crowns in a row, and were runners-up in two other seasons. They are, in fact, the years 1965–1966, 1991–1992, 2012–2013, 2014–2015, 2018–2019, and 2019–2020. Again, as you can see, they placed second in each of the seasons from 2012 to 2014 and from 2018 to 2020. A number of prominent players, like Stephane Chapuisat, Karl-Heinz Riedle, Andreas Moller, Jurgen Kohler, and Matthias Sammer, have played for the top German club at some point in their careers. They have also won five DFB-Pokal championships and six DFB/DFL super cups during their history.

1. Bayern Munich (32 Titles)

Bayern Munich, a 121-year-old Munich-based club that ranks top among all-time Bundesliga title winners and also holds that position for 9 straight years between 2012 and 2021 if we sort Bundesliga winners by year, is the club with the most titles won. They won the 2022-23 season dramatically on the final day of the competition.

1968-69, 1971–72, 1972–73, 1973–74, 1979–80, 1980–81, 1984–85, 1985–86, 1986–87, 1988–89, 1989–90, 1993–94, 1996–97, 1998–99, 1999–2000, 2000–01, 2002–03, 2004–05, 2005–06, 2007–08, 2009–10, 2012–13, 2013–14, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21,2021-22, 2022-23. (Record 32 Titles).

Bayern Munich also hold the record for most second-place finishes in the top German league, having done so ten times between 1969 and 2012, which puts them at the top of the list even if we were to order the list by the number of times a club has placed second in the Bundesliga. Additionally, they hold the record for the most DFB-Pokal trophies (20) and DFB/DFL super trophies (9), both among German clubs. The football kings of Germany.

This article was last updated on 27 May 2023.