The 10 Bundesliga Top Scorers Of All Time

For fans of the Premier League (and Spurs fans in particular), Harry Kane’s summer 2023 move to Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich was a seismic moment. And while his first season in Germany hasn’t exactly gone according to plan — the club have been surpassed at the top of the table by Xabi Alonso’s unexpectedly unstoppable Bayer Leverkusen side, who have won the title at a canter — Kane has still made an outstanding impression on the league, scoring 33 goals and registering 8 assists. 

But the England captain has a long way to go before he’s mentioned in the same breath as the many great forwards to have played in Germany over the years. The Bundesliga has been the home to some unbelievable target men during its 60-year history, and this article will guide you through the very best.

We’ll offer you a list of every single top goalscorer in the league’s history before marking its 10 highest scorers ever. But before we get into that, let’s spend some time explaining how the German top flight works. 

A Brief Guide To The Bundesliga

The Bundesliga was formed in 1962, with the inaugural season taking place the following year in 1963/64. Consisting of 18 teams, it’s slightly smaller than the Premier League or La Liga, but is still considered one of Europe’s Big 5 leagues. 

Bayern Munich, based in the historic southern region of Bavaria, are the most successful team in the division’s history by some distance, having won 32 of the 61 titles secured since the current professional league system was formed. Because of Germany’s unique history, with the country divided in two following the Second World War, in its early years the Bundesliga was contested only by West German teams, with clubs in East Germany competing in the separate DS-Oberliga system. But the reunification of Germany after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall changed things, leading to the integration of all German teams in the same system from 1991/92, when clubs like Dynamo Dresden and FC Hansa Rostock joined the Bundesliga.

The Best Bundesliga Forwards In 2024

Germany is a country that has produced some top strikers over the years. From Miroslav Klose, the leading scorer in World Cup history, to Gerd Muller, the legendary Bayern striker who bagged goals for fun during the 1960s and 70s, the Bundesliga has been the playground of some legendary German finishers over the years. 

But these days, it’s a globally-watched league with players from every corner of the world, and scouting networks stretching out far and wide. Some of the top strikers in the division are from overseas, from England captain Harry Kane to Nigerian international Victor Boniface, who has been a revelation for Bayer Leverkusen during the 2023/24 campaign.

Other dominant Bundesliga forwards in 2024 include Stuttgart’s Serhou Guirassy, Leipzig’s Lois Openda and Frankfurt’s Omar Marmoush. And if we cast our minds back over the history of the German top flight, there have been even more world-class stars that have made their name in this prestigious league. 

Bundesliga Top Scorers By Season

Since the Bundesliga was formed in 1963, dozens of players have topped the scoring charts of the German top tier. Below is a list of every single person who's got their hands on the Torjagerkanone Award (the German equivalent of the Golden Boot).

As you'll have seen, Robert Lewandowski has dominated the Bundesliga scoring charts over the last decade. Along with Gerd Müller, he's joint-top when it comes to Torjagerkanone Trophy wins, with both these prolific strikers having collected a remarkable 7 Golden Boots each. But which of them has the most Bundesliga goals in total?

The 10 Bundesliga Top Scorers Of All Time

#9. Klaus Allofs (177 goals)

A two-time Bundesliga top scorer with two different clubs, Fortuna Dusseldorf and FC Koln (the first player to accomplish this feat), Klaus Allofs had a long and storied career in the German top flight, scoring 177 goals over almost two decades.

#9. Dieter Müller (177 goals)

Joint in 9th-place is Dieter Müller, a Koln legend who also had stints at Stuttgart and Bordeaux in France. He scored a remarkable 34 goals in the 1976/77 season and won the title with Koln the folllowing year, and during that season he became the first (and to this day, only) player to score six goals in a Bundesliga match.

#8. Stefan Kuntz (179 goals)

Kauntz lit up the league with VfL Bochum during the mid-1980s after landing a move from the lower-league club Borussia Neunkirchen. In total, he registered 179 goals in the Bundesliga.

#7. Ulf Kirtsen (182 goals)

Kirsten completed all 13 of his Bundesliga seasons with one club (Bayer Leverkusen), and is the only player on this list to have notched all of their goals for the same team. The three-time Bundesliga top scorer starred for Leverkusen during a period of success where they reached the Champions League Final (2001-02) and won the German Cup (1992-93).

#6. Claudio Pizarro (197 goals)

Benjamin Radzun, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The only non-European on this leaderboard, Peru-born Pizarro enjoyed multiple spells at both Werder Bremen and Bayern Munich, finally retiring at 41 in 2019, after scoring in the Bundesliga during every single calendar year since 1999.

#5. Manni Burgsmüller (213 goals)

A seriously underrated player who scored a whopping 213 Bundesliga goals but is little-known outside the borders of Germany, Manfred Burgsmüller remains Dortmund's top scorer in Bundesliga history, despite the exploits of the prolific Robert Lewandowski under Jurgen Klopp.

#4. Jupp Heynckes (220 goals)

For many supporters, Heynckes is best known as a coach; between 1978 and 2018, he managed five Bundesliga clubs (including four spells at Bayern) and also coached overseas at Real Madrid, Benfica and Athletic Bilbao. But before all that, Heynckes was a prolific Borussia Monchengladbach striker who racked up four league titles and 220 goals in Germany’s top division. 

#3. Klaus Fischer (268 goals)

A certified FC Schalke 04 legend who also banged in goals for 1860 Munich, FC Koln and VfL Bochum, Klaus Fischer is a Bundesliga icon who is remembered fondly by fans of many different clubs. His goals per game ratio isn’t as great as some other strikers on this list, but it’s still phenomenal; with 268 in 535, he averaged a goal every 173 minutes during his outstanding 20-year Bundesliga career. 

#2. Robert Lewandowski (312 goals)

Polish talisman Robert Lewandowski’s move from Borussia Dortmund to Bayern Munich in 2014 may have broken many BVB fans’ hearts, but it allowed the red-hot finisher to take his game to the next level and begin racking up trophies as well as goals. In total, Lewandowski has scored 312 goals in 384 games, and he also currently has the record for the most goals in a single season, scoring an astonishing 41 in the 2020/21 campaign. 

#1. Gerd Müller (365 goals)

Nicknamed ‘Der Bomber’ by his legions of fans, Gerd Müller was a legend of German football with an unbelievable goal record, so it’s no surprise to see his name at the top of the leaderboard. As well as bagging 365 in 427 Bundesliga appearances, he also scored 34 in 35 European Cup games, giving him a goal per game ratio of 0.97 in the competition (a record that still stands today).

If you’d like to find out more about the famous old German stadiums that these iconic players have graced over the decades, check out our guide to the 10 stadiums staging matches at Euro 2024 in Germany.