sport aid - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1991 - 140 Pfennig

Basketball is the most popular team game in the world. More than 330 million people play basketball in more than 178 countries. In December 1891, today's basketball game was created in Springfield (USA). James Naismith, at the request of Dr. Luther Gulick, Director of the International Sports Academy of the YMCA in Springfield, Mass. / USA, was looking for a new training experience for his students. They were tired of the monotonous gymnastics exercises in winter. They wanted to be fully active - even in the hall. Naismith attached two old disused peach baskets at a height of 3.05 meters at the upper hall gallery. So the young people should be prevented from pounding the ball with full force against the wall, but force them to conduct the ball sentimentally to this goal. Right from the start, this new training activity found great interest. The Springfield-trained students carried this game idea around the world. As early as 1898, the first professional league was born in the USA. In 1896, basketball was played in Germany for the first time. The initiative came from the gymnastic and grass sports club 1895 Braunschweig, at the gym teacher August Hermann was active. Hermann's son Ernst, who had emigrated to the United States years earlier and had made a career there, recommended this game to his father. In 1902, the basketball rules even appeared in German. In 1930, the first international championships were held. In 1950 there was the first World Cup. On June 18, 1932, FIBA, the International Basketball Federation, was founded in Geneva, to which today 178 nations belong (only 159 nations are members of the UN). Since 1956, FIBA ​​has been based in Munich. Germany has been a member of FIBA ​​since 1 September 1934. Together with the USA, Austria, Poland, Estonia and Egypt, Germany was admitted to the World Union in Stockholm, which had seventeen members.