History of the IfS 1925 - 2025

In 2025, the Institute of Sports Science at the University of Münster will be 100 years old. Here is a brief look at the first years.

The following information on the history of the Institute comes from two sources and does not yet fully reflect the history of the Institute:

Krüger, M. (2012): Sports in the German University from about 1900 until the Early Years of the Federal Republic of Germany: The Example of Muenster and the ‘Westfaelische Wilhelms-University’. In: The International Journal of the History of Sport 29 (14), S. 1981–1997. DOI: 10.1080/09523367.2012.694072.
Prange, K.; Akademischer Oberrat i.R. am IfS Münster (2011): Zur Geschichte des Sports und der Sportwissenschaft an der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster. In: Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster - Institut für Sportwissenschaft (Hg.): Sportwissenschaft in Münster. Fachbereich 07 - Psychologie und Sportwissenschaft. Unter Mitarbeit von Nils Eden und Michael Krüger. 3. Auflage, S. 31–33.

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Even before the First World War, ‘university sports’ in Münster offered a limited range of different sporting activities. Fencing and gymnastics were the main traditional sports offered by the fraternities. In 1903, one year after the Akademische Lehranstalt Münster was recognised as a university, a gymnastics and fencing teacher was employed for the first time. Wilhelm Becker, who came from the TG Münster, also gave gymnastics courses for future teachers at secondary schools. However, the university did not yet have its own sports facilities, as was the case in England in particular.

It was only gradually that enthusiasm for sport spread at the university and in the city. In 1910, an Academic Committee for Physical Exercise (chaired by Prof Otto Hoffmann) was established and in 1912 a Student Committee for Physical Exercise. The latter was an early form of student co-determination. Under Hoffmann's leadership, the first university sports festival was organised in 1913.

After the First World War, participation in sport was seen as an alternative to military service, as the Versailles Peace Treaty limited the German army to a maximum of 100,000 men. Sport was therefore strongly promoted by civilian elites with militaristic tendencies during this period. At the universities, the growing enthusiasm for sport in Germany was also fuelled by student demands for compulsory courses.