Located in the former German Sport Forum on the grounds of the Olympic Stadium and constructed in preparation for Berlin’s XIth Olympiad in 1936, the Sportmuseum Berlin offers exhibitions and seminars on the history of German athletics. While its collections are the result of the merging of the former East German and West German sports museums, the museum likes to consider itself the descendant of the Museum for Body Exercise—the world’s first museum of sport—which was opened in 1924, only to be closed ten years later when the Nazis seized power.
The exterior of the museum offers as much history as the materials inside, as the building and its environs are home to architecture and artworks commissioned by the Nazi authorities for their Olympics, including sculptures by party-approved artists such as Arno Breker and Georg Kolbe. After the Nazi’s defeat the entire area served as headquarters for the British military authorities and was only returned to German control in the mid 1990s, after Berlin’s reunification.
- Hanns-Braun-Straße
- 14053 Berlin
- Mon-Fri, 10:00-14:00
- +49303058300
- www.stadtmuseum.de/...
- sportmuseum.berlin@t-online.de
at Olympiastadion- Download vCard
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Olympic Memories The XIth Olympiad in Berlin
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.
