A nation using the Olympics to demonstrate its resurgent economic might, an impressively modern stadium commissioned specifically for the games, allegations of human rights violations and calls for an international boycott—the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin witnessed similar controversies as those dogging this year’s games in Beijing. Tragically, history proved the world’s worst suspicions correct, and the games that have come to be known as the “Nazi Olympics” still cast a shadow over the world’s most famous sporting event.
The sheer pageantry of the occasion was overwhelming…And the thing that made it seem ominous was that it so evidently went beyond what the games themselves demanded…as if the games had been chosen as a symbol of the new collective might, a means of showing to the world in concrete terms what this new power had come to be.
–Thomas Wolfe, “You Can’t Go Home Again”
The decision to hold the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin was made five years earlier, while Berlin was still the capital of Germany’s Weimar Republic. In the intervening years much had changed in Germany, however, and by the time the games opened on August 1, 1936 the Nationalist Socialists had ruthlessly cemented their control over the nation’s political and economic machinery. Seeing the games as the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the supposed superiority of their fascist system, the Nazi leadership spared no expense in the preparations. A new Olympic Stadium was commissioned (replacing that built for the 1916 Olympics, which had been canceled due to the First World War), new swimming and entertainment facilities were laid out, and an entire village was built in the countryside to house the international athletic teams.
The sportive, knightly battle awakens the best human characteristics. It doesn’t separate, but unites the combatants in understanding and respect. It also helps to connect the countries in the spirit of peace. That’s why the Olympic Flame should never die.
–Adolf Hitler
The extensive propaganda efforts of the National Socialists resulted in a number of memorable Olympic firsts; as runner Fritz Schilgen carried the sacred flame into the stadium to open the XI Olympiad it ended the final leg of the first ever Olympic Torch Relay, and the Berlin games marked the first broadcast of the competitions on live television. Basketball appeared in the games for the first time and Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler’s favorite film-maker, produced her classic meditation on sport, Olympia, at the request of the International Olympic Committee. Recent biographers have also noted that she took the opportunity to engage in a more intimate sort of ‘athletics’ with American athlete Glen Morris, who appears in the film.
As well as attempting to awe international audiences with cutting edge athletic facilities and mass spectacle, the Nazi dictatorship tried to defuse the controversies regarding its despicable racial and social policies by hiding their most visible manifestations. Propaganda Minister Goebbels ordered all signs targeting Jews to be removed from public locations and specified that anti-homosexual laws not be applied to foreign visitors during the games. But behind the scenes the racial discrimination continued as before. Jewish athletes were forbidden from competing on the German teams and on July 16, just two weeks before the start of the games, some 800 Sinti and Roma in Berlin were arrested and interned in a concentration camp in the eastern suburb of Marzahn, where they would be imprisoned until their deportation to Auschwitz.
I’m afraid the Nazis have succeeded with their propaganda. First, the Nazis have run the Games on a lavish scale never before experienced, and this has appealed to the athletes. Second, the Nazis have put up a very good front for the general visitors, especially the big businessmen.
—Foreign correspondent William Shirer, August 16, 1936
Despite early calls for an international boycott, more than 49 nations participated in the XI Olympiad, making it the most well attended in history. With 348 members, Germany’s team was the largest, followed by the United States team with 312 members. These numbers were reflected in the awarding of Olympic medals—the German athletes took home a total of 89 compared to only 56 for the Americans. Tens of thousands of fans crowded into the Olympic grounds to welcome the athletes from around the world, and the Berliners were praised in the international press for their hospitality and organization.
Frustrating the Nazi’s propaganda aims and claims of Aryan racial superiority, however, the greatest star of the summer games turned out to be African-American Jesse Owens, who collected four gold medals in the track and field events. But despite his international achievements, Owens, a sharecropper’s son from Alabama, faced continued discrimination upon his return to a pre-civil rights era America. Pleased with the results of their propaganda efforts, Hitler and his henchmen began planning to host the 1940 Winter Olympics. But all talk of peace and international cooperation, however, fell silent when, only three years later, Germany invaded Poland triggering history’s deadliest war.
Olympic Stadium
The sport of history
Built by brothers Werner and Walter March on the site of a stadium designed by their father, the Olympic Stadium was the centerpiece of the Nazi’s architectural propaganda. Its triumphal motif complemented the surrounding sport fields and their towers, as well as by sculptures from Arno Breker and Karl Albiker, two artists favored by the Nazi leadership.
Olympic Village
On the trail of history
Over 4,000 athletes were housed in this 55 acre village built specifically for the Olympics. A short distance outside the city, the village was equipped with central heating and a modern kitchen facility to keep the athletes’ calorie counts high. Occupied by the Soviets until Re-unification, the site has been renovated and is now open as a tourist attraction, offering visitation of the cottage occupied by four-time gold medal winner Jesse Owens.
Parkfriedhof Marzahn
Buried history
In preparation for the Olympic Games in August, on July 16, 1936 the German authorities rounded up Berlin’s Sinti and Roma population, interning them in a concentration camp on the northern edge of this cemetery. Over 800 men, women and children were interned in the camp, the first created exclusively to house victims of Nazi racial policies. Most would later be deported to Auschwitz, only a handful surviving their ordeal. Their suffering is remembered by a memorial erected in the cemetery.
Waldbühne
Stage beneath the stars
The Waldbühne was built in preparation for the XIth Olympiad and was used for the gymnastics competition as well as operas and musical performances staged for the Olympic audiences. Based on the amphitheater in the ancient Greek city of Epidaurus, the theater seats 22,000 in leafy comfort and remains one of Berlin’s favorite open air concert venues.
Sportmuseum Berlin
Race against history
Located in facilities constructed for the 1936 games, the Sportmuseum contains Olympic memorabilia such as one of the torches used in the torch relay (the first time runners had brought the flame overland the entire distance from Greece) and a starting pistol used in the track and field events. Sculptures celebrating the glory of sport are scattered around the grounds, as is the bell which announced the games opening—now cracked due to its use for target practice by British occupation troops.
About
Wandering between the blossoms and broken buildings, beneath the full moon of Faust’s metropolis, William Thirteen chased the silvered ghosts of Anita Berber and Gottfried Benn down Berlin’s back alleys, only to wake days later unwashed and somewhat slightly dazed in a grassy lot on the wrong side of the Ringbahn.
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