National Stadia

Unlike countries like England that favour one particular national stadium, the Nationalmannschaft has played home matches in 40 cities since 1908. This section focusses on the grounds that have hosted DFB home matches in the post-war period from the first competitive fixture against Switzerland which was played at Stuttgart’s Neckarstadion in November 1950.

Stadium Names

The table below lists all of the grounds that have been used as home venues by the German national side since 1950: a number of grounds have either been rebuilt or renovated, and in these cases both the name of the ground when the first international fixture was played as well as the current one have been included. On account of the new-fangled fetish for giving stadiums silly-sounding sponsor names, many grounds have seen a number of name changes: for example, Hamburger SV’s ground was called the Volksparkstadion when it hosted its first international in 1953, but after renovation was called first the AOL-Arena and then the HSH Nordbank-Arena and Imtech Arena before reverting back to its original name.

I have included the modern names in the data so that the grounds can be easily identified; like many ground name traditionalists however, I am not the biggest fan of stadiums named after travel companies, banks or toilet bowl manufacturers. I have always believed that traditional names should be preserved, and if a ground is to be rebranded it should take the name of a footballing legend: for example while many fans of 1. FC Kaiserlautern may have been initially disappointed at the old name Betzenbergstadion being consigned to history, they would have been happy at the ground being renamed as the Fritz-Walter-Stadion after one of the city’s – and German football’s – most famous sons.

I hope one day that the stadium in München can one day be called the Franz-Beckenbauer-Stadion, Karl-Heinz-Rummenigge-Stadion or even the Philipp-Lahm-Stadion. As things currently stand, Allianz Arena is not that bad – especially when there are some horrors such as Dortmund’s Signal Iduna Park and – my personal favourites – VfL Bochum’s rewirpowerSTADION and 1. FC Nürnberg’s EasyCredit-Stadion.

Stadium Capacities

Recent regulations concerning ground seating have meant that the ground capacity figures are not always consistent; in many cases, German grounds have specially-created terraced areas used during domestic fixtures that cannot be utilised during internationals or UEFA-sanctioned club competitions. München’s Allianz Arena for example has a capacity of 75,024 for domestic fixtures that includes a small standing area, but for fixtures that require all spectators to be seated this is reduced to 70,000.

To keep things simple, I have cited the higher figure for each ground.

The DFB has a rule, or a regulation or maybe it’s just a guideline, that says the national team’s home games can only be played in grounds that hold at least 40,000 people – but in some cases this has been worked around by classifying the match as a charity game. This is how some of the smaller grounds such as the New Tivoli in Aachen, Rhein-Neckar-Arena in Sinsheim and more recently the Coface-Arena in Mainz have been able to make their way onto this list. (Thanks to Uli Hesse for this information).

Renovations, Refurbishments, Rebuilds and Relocations

The vast majority of the stadiums in this list have been renovated, refurbished and in some instances completely rebuilt – meaning that the original plot has remained the home ground of a particular club side in some shape or form. However some older grounds have seen the club relocate to a completely new development, while they themselves were either reused for other purposes or demolished altogether. In these cases, the name of the club side is in italics.

In May 2016, the WWK-Arena in Augsburg became the 35th ground to join this “club”. Having hosted four games at the old Rosenaustadion, the city of Augsburg joined Dortmund, Gelsenkirchen and München as the only cities to have hosted international matches at two different grounds.

Pic	City	Stadium	Open	Debut	Opponent	Mat.	Cap.	Home Club
	Stuttgart	Neckarstadion/Mercedes-Benz Arena	1933	1950.11.22	Switzerland	28	60,449	VfB Stuttgart
	Berlin	Olympiastadion	1936	1951.06.17	Turkey	26	74,649	Hertha BSC Berlin
	Essen	Georg-Melches-Stadion	1939	1951.12.23	Luxembourg	2	15,000	Rot-Weiss Essen
	Köln	Müngersdorferstadion/Rhein-Energie-Stadion	1923	1952.04.20	Luxembourg	24	49,968	1. FC Köln
	Augsburg	Rosenaustadion	1951	1952.11.09	Switzerland	4	28,000	FC Augsburg
	Ludwigshafen	Südweststadion	1940	1952.12.21	Yugoslavia	4	41,383	FSV Oggersheim
	Hamburg	Volksparkstadion	1953	1953.11.22	Norway	31	57,000	Hamburger SV
	Hannover	Niedersachsenstadion/HDI-Arena	1954	1954.10.16	France	25	49,000	Hannover 96
	Karlsruhe	Wildparkstadion	1955	1955.11.16	Norway	6	29,699	Karlsruher SC
	Düsseldorf	Rheinstadion/Esprit Arena	1926	1956.03.14	Netherlands	26	54,600	Fortuna Düsseldorf
	Frankfurt/Main	Waldstadion/Commerzbank-Arena	1925	1956.11.21	Switzerland	20	51,500	Eintracht Frankfurt
	Nürnberg	Städtisches Stadion/Frankenstadion	1928	1965.05.12	England	16	50,000	1. FC Nürnberg
	Dortmund	Stadion Rote Erde	1926	1967.04.08	Albania	1	25,000	BV 09 Borussia Dortmund
	München	Olympiastadion	1972	1972.05.26	Soviet Union	16	69,267	FC Bayern München
	Gelsenkirchen	Parkstadion	1973	1973.10.13	France	9	62,008	FC Schalke 04
	Dortmund	Westfalenstadion/Signal Iduna Park	1974	1974.04.17	Hungary	18	81,359	BV 09 Borussia Dortmund
	Bremen	Weserstadion	1929	1980.02.27	Malta	11	42,358	SV Werder Bremen
	Bochum	Ruhrstadion	1919	1981.09.23	Finland	3	29,448	VfL Bochum
	Saarbrücken	Ludwigsparkstadion	1953	1983.11.20	Albania	2	35,303	FC Saarbrücken
	Kaiserslautern	Betzenbergstadion/Fritz-Walter-Stadion	1920	1988.04.27	Switzerland	9	49,780	1. FC Kaiserslautern
	Leverkusen	Ulrich-Haberland-Stadion/BayArena	1958	1991.12.18	Luxembourg	8	30,210	Bayer 04 Leverkusen
	Dresden	Rudolf-Harbig-Stadion	1923	1992.10.14	Mexico	1	32,066	SG Dynamo Dresden
	Mannheim	Carl-Benz-Stadion	1994	1996.06.04	Liechtenstein	2	26,022	Waldhof Mannheim
	Freiburg	Dreisamstadion/Schwarzwald-Stadion	1953	2000.06.07	Liechtenstein	4	24,000	SC Freiburg
	Gelsenkirchen	Arena AufSchalke/Veltins-Arena	2001	2001.10.06	Finland	11	62,271	FC Schalke 04
	Rostock	Ostseestadion/DKB-Arena	1954	2002.03.27	United States	2	29,000	FC Hansa Rostock
	Wolfsburg	Volkswagen Arena	2002	2003.06.01	Canada	3	30,000	VfL Wolfsburg
	Leipzig	Zentralstadion/Red Bull Arena	1954	2004.11.17	Cameroon	9	44,345	RB Leipzig
	Mönchengladbach	Borussia-Park	2004	2005.06.08	Russia	8	54,067	Bor. Mönchengladbach
	München	Allianz Arena	2005	2006.06.09	Costa Rica	11	75,024	FC Bayern München
	Duisburg	MSV-Arena/Schauinsland-Reisen-Arena	2004	2007.03.28	Denmark	3	31,500	MSV Duisburg
	Aachen	New Tivoli	2009	2010.05.13	Malta	1	32,960	Alemannia Aachen
	Sinsheim	Rhein-Neckar Arena	2009	2011.05.29	Uruguay	3	30,164	1899 Hoffenheim
	Mainz	Mewa Arena	2011	2014.06.06	Armenia	3	34,034	FSV Mainz 05
	Augsburg	WWK-Arena	2009	2016.05.29	Slovakia	1	30,660	FC Augsburg