Deutsche Sporthochschule Köln
Germany's only sports university and, by institutes, disciplines and student numbers, the largest of its kind worldwide, at Müngersdorf Sports Park.
since 1947
The Deutsche Sporthochschule Köln (DSHS, or "Spoho") has been Germany's sole sports university since the closure of the DHfK in Leipzig. It sits in the Müngersdorf district, directly next to the sports park that is also home to the RheinEnergieStadion (formerly Müngersdorfer Stadion).
At a glance
- Type
- Sports university with the right to award doctorates and habilitations
- Location
- Müngersdorf district, right by the sports park
- Founded
- 1947, as legal successor to the Deutsche Hochschule für Leibesübungen founded in Berlin in 1920
- Campus
- 187,000 m², including 61,000 m² of sports facilities and over 1,600 trees
- Library
- ZB Sport, the world's largest specialist library for sport and sports science
- Distinction
- by number of institutes, disciplines and students, the largest sports university in the world
Things to do here
Age comparison
Age compared with other places in Cologne.
History
Teaching began in the summer of 1947 with 35 women and 65 men; the Allies formally approved the founding on 22 November of that year. Founding rector Carl Diem held the post until his death in 1962. The university took on its present name in 1965 and was recognised as a full university in 1970. Since 2000 it has also carried the additional title "European Sports University."
Campus and facilities
The campus provides 23 sports halls, 22 outdoor pitches, a swimming centre with a 50-metre competition pool, and a diving hall with platforms from one to ten metres high. The swimming centre and the hockey-judo centre house national performance centres for swimming, judo and hockey. The campus is also home to the Zentralbibliothek der Sportwissenschaften (ZB Sport), which serves as the university library and receives special funding from the German Research Foundation as a designated subject-collection library.
Study and admission
Research and teaching take place across 19 academic institutes, spanning fields from education, humanities and social sciences to medicine and natural sciences. Anyone wishing to enrol in a sports science bachelor's or teaching degree must first pass an aptitude test assessing sporting-motor performance in five different sports.
Good to know
The university's emblem depicts a Greek temple with four columns, representing strength, truth, goodness and beauty. The office of the European College of Sport Science, founded in Nice in 1995, is affiliated with the university. The Carl-Diem-Weg on campus, which existed until 2007, was renamed "Am Sportpark Müngersdorf" following a controversial debate over Diem's role during National Socialism.
Gallery
Map
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Address
Am Sportpark Müngersdorf 6
50933 Köln
Contact
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Sources & links
- Official website
- Official website (retrieved 2026-07-17)
- Wikidata (retrieved 2026-06-30)
- Wikipedia (retrieved 2026-06-30, rev 263088738)
Auto-generated, last verified: 2026-06-30
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