Rise to dominance

The popular club built a new stadium, the Glückauf-Kampfbahn, in 1928, and acknowledged the city's support by re-naming themselves FC Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04. They won their first Western German championship in 1929, but the following year were sanctioned for exceeding salary levels set by the league and, in an era that considered professionalism in sport anathema, found themselves banned from play for nearly half a year. However, the ban had little impact on the team's popularity: in their first game after the ban against Fortuna Düsseldorf in June 1931, the team drew 70,000 to its home ground. The club's fortunes begun to rise from 1931, making a semi-final appearance in the 1932 German championship, losing 1–2 to Eintracht Frankfurt. The year after, the club went all the way to the final where Fortuna Düsseldorf proved the better side, winning 3–0.

With the re-organization of German football in 1933 under Nazi Germany, Schalke found themselves in the Gauliga Westfalen, one of sixteen top-flight divisions established to replace the innumerable regional and local leagues all claiming top status. This league saw Schalke's most successful decade in their history: from 1933 to 1942 the club would appear in 14 of 18 national finals — 10 in the German championship and 8 in the Tschammerpokal, the predecessor to today's German Cup and win their league in every one of its eleven seasons. The club never lost a home game in this league in all these eleven seasons and only six away games, remaining completely unbeaten in the Gauliga Westfalen in the 1935–36, 36–37, 37–38, 38–39, 40–41 and 42–43 seasons; a clear sign of the club's dominance.