FC Bayern München was founded on 27 February 1900 by eleven members of a Munich gymnastics club, MTV 1879, who wanted to play football. The club spent its early decades in regional southern German competition, where the local rival was not Borussia Dortmund but TSV 1860 München.
The first German championship came in 1932, beating Eintracht Frankfurt 2–0 in the final in Nuremberg. The side was led by president Kurt Landauer and coach Richard Dombi, both Jewish. After 1933 Landauer was forced out and later imprisoned in Dachau before escaping to Switzerland; he returned after the war and served as president again. The club's willingness to tell that part of its history openly is unusual in German football and is central to how it understands itself.
When the Bundesliga launched in 1963, Bayern were not invited: only one Munich club could go, and 1860 München were the better side at the time. Bayern won promotion in 1965 with a squad that already contained Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Müller and Sepp Maier — three teenagers who would define the next fifteen years.