The Judo Club Wiesbaden (JCW) was founded in 1922 by Otto Schmelzeisen as the "Jiu-Jitsu-Club Wiesbaden" and was renamed to its current name in 1950. Alongside the Judo Club Frankfurt am Main and the Berlin Jiu-Jitsu Club, it is one of the oldest judo clubs in Germany.

After the Second World War, founding father Schmelzeisen rebuilt his club a second time. The Allies had initially banned the martial art, but it was not until 1948 that it was allowed to be practiced again. Schmelzeisen ran the judo club until 1954, and since 1975 the JCW has been known as a "specialist club for budo sports".

Judo is the collective term for all Japanese martial arts, self-defense forms and weapons arts. It also includes aikido, karate, kendo and kyudo. All these forms of movement were originally martial arts in the Japanese feudal era and are still practiced today in a sporting form at the JCW. The spiritual basis is Zen Buddhism. Translated, Budo means "the way of the knight". However, you don't have to be a Far Eastern philosopher to practise judo or other Budo sports; after all, the Budo rules known as the "nine commandments" should not be unknown in everyday European life either: respect, politeness, appreciation, self-control, helpfulness, seriousness, honesty, courage and modesty.

In 1951, the JCW organized the first major judo event after the war. The president of the international judo federation, Risei Kano, son of the founder of modern judo, Jigoro Kano, and other world-famous judo champions came to Wiesbaden. The sold-out Kurhaus (Kurhaus, new) provided the glamorous backdrop for the event, which met with a lasting response from the public and secured the social status of judo in Wiesbaden. By the end of the 1950s, the JCW was already taking the "second path" and offering judo and self-defense courses for non-members as well.

In 1970, the JCW men's team qualified for the national judo league, to which it still belongs today. Third places in 1973, 1981, 1982 and 1998 were the team's best placings. For financial reasons, it was decided in 2005 to withdraw the women's team from the Bundesliga, which it had been a member of since 1991. In 2012, the newly formed team secured the championship in the second division and thus managed to return to the Bundesliga.

In the meantime, competition arose in their own city, as judo has also been offered at "Kim-Chi" Wiesbaden since 1999, and with some success: the women have been in the Bundesliga since 2007.

Several German judo champions have come from the ranks of JC Wiesbaden, including the later president Rudi Sanner, Jürgen and Martin Grasmück and Patric Nebhuth, who now trains the national league team. The most outstanding fighter at the moment is Alexander Wieczerzak, who became junior world champion in the 73 kilogram class in 2010.

Werner Ruppert won four German championship titles in the 1960s, coached the Bundesliga team from 1971 to 1994 and also served as national women's coach from 1978 to 1985. Mario Staller even became world champion in Ju-Jutsu in 2008.

In 1973, the club had 1000 members, 70 percent of whom were young people. In 2009, there are still 780 members, 370 of whom belong to the judo department. The second largest division is Ju-Jutsu, ahead of karate. The club is also active in senior sports and has several world and European champions in its ranks. The JCW has been based in the sports hall on Konrad-Adenauer-Ring since 1989. The large training room (dojo) was named after Otto Schmelzeisen in 1997.