top flight in 1936. Relegated again in 1940, St. Pauli re-appeared in the Gauliga Hamburg in 1942, and played there until the end of World War II. Post-war football After the war, the club resumed play in the Oberliga Nord in 1947. A second-place finish in the 1947–48 season led St. Pauli to its first appearance in the national championship rounds. They advanced as far as the semi-finals, where they were knocked out 2–3 by eventual champions 1. FC Nürnberg. The club continued to play well throughout the early 1950s, but were unable to overtake rivals Hamburger SV, finishing in second place in five of the next seven seasons, and going out in the early rounds in each of their championship-round appearances from 1949 to 1951. In the late 1950s and into the early 1960s, St. Pauli were overtaken by rivals such as Werder Bremen and VfL Osnabrück, but finished fourth a number of times. Promotion to the Bundesliga In 1963, the Bundesliga – West Germany's new top-flight professional league – was formed. Hamburger SV, Werder Bremen, and Eintracht Braunschweig joined the new circuit as the top-finishers from the Oberliga Nord, while FC St. Pauli found themselves in the second-tier Regionalliga Nord. That year, the club signed Guy Acolatse, who became the first Black professional footballer to play in Germany. Nearly a decade-and-a-half of frustration followed. St. Pauli won their division in 1964, but finished bottom of their group in the promotion play-off round. They took their next Regionalliga Nord title in 1966 and, while they performed far better in the play-offs, still failed to advance to the top-flight, losing out to Rot-Weiss Essen on goal difference, having conceded two more goals. Division championships in 1972 and 1973, and runner-up finishes in 1971 and 1974, were each followed by promotion-round play-off disappointment. The success of the Bundesliga, and the growth of professional football in West Germany, led to the formation of the 2. Bundesliga in 1974. St. Pauli was part of the new second-tier professional circuit in the 2. Bundesliga Nord and in 1977, they finally advanced to the top flight as winners of their division. The team survived just one season at the highest level in the Bundesliga. The club's return to the 2. Bundesliga Nord was also short-lived. On the verge on bankruptcy in 1979, they were denied a license for the following season and were sent down