The league was contested by fourteen teams. BSG Chemie Leipzig won the championship, the club's sole national East German championship.[3][4] Football in Leipzig had been reorganised after the 1962–63 season with the two Oberliga clubs from the city, SC Lokomotive Leipzig and SC Rotation Leipzig, seeing their playing squads merged and then divided up again. The nominally best players were allocated to the new SC Leipzig club, later to become 1. FC Lok Leipzig. The nominally weaker players were allocated to BSG Chemie Leipzig which had its Oberliga place returned it had lost to SC Lokomotive in 1954. The fact that the nominally weaker Chemie squad won the league while SC Leipzig only came third is considered to be one of the greatest upsets in the history of East German football.[5]
Football in Karl-Marx-Stadt, now Chemnitz, was reorganised, too with the football department of SC Wismut Karl-Marx-Stadt returning to Aue where it had played despite its name and joining BSG Wismut Aue again. SC Wismut Karl-Marx-Stadt then merged with SC Motor Karl-Marz-Stadt to form SC Karl-Marx-Stadt, now Chemnitzer FC.[6]
Source: [citation needed] Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win. Notes:
^The match between Motor Zwickau and Dynamo Berlin (originally 3–0) was scored 0–0 and Dynamo won because Zwickau used the player Eberhard Franz without permission.