Berlin prepares for the Olympics
From our Berlin reporter
July 27, 1936
This Olympic visitor to Germany will be forced to not be able to see the great preparations he made before his retirement, which is a pity, because he will be very grateful.It’s large scale and excited Berliners. They are told about it every day in the newspapers, radio stations and movie theaters, and thousands of people go there. Empire Stadium He hurriedly walked around with a team of a hundred people, one side stepped on the other’s heel, and the whole person looked far away.
European sports are in another state of transition, and the crowd and their emotions are part of the new phase. The turn of the 19th century and the first few decades of the 20th century witnessed the development of sports brought about by the impact of professionalism. The new shock is initiated by an authoritarian government that has realized the political and national uses of sports, and the final changes may be even more profound.exist Germany Sports vocabulary has been expanded by agglomeration of adjectives, such as “air sports”, “national defense sports”, “terrain sports”, and a set of new concepts that are unfamiliar to today’s Anglo-Saxon athletes. His previous generations.
Light up the street
Visitors will soon be persuaded of the propaganda value of German government agencies and the almost unlimited resources used to promote sports.Not only has a gorgeous stadium The Olympic Games were built on a good site, but the capital itself has been transformed by engineers, architects, masons and house painters. If there were empty hands in Berlin’s construction industry in the past year, it could only be Sunday. The dilapidation of Friedrichstrasse has given it a unique and slightly sinister character. At its junction with Unter den Linden, it has given way to dazzling white stones and considerable vitreous intelligence. It itself has been changed by the new lighting scheme. Especially at night.
playground
The Imperial Stadium, where the Olympics were held, was built on the site of the original racecourse-an oasis in the Brandenburg Desert, bringing in a lot of extra turf from elsewhere. It was built for this year’s Olympics, and it will form a political demonstration field and a cultural and sports center after the Olympics. Its largest unit is the May Field or Parade Field, adjacent to the west side of the stadium. The parade ground will hold a meeting of 250,000 people, and the stadium and outbuildings will be arranged for lighting and sound reinforcement.
In the bungalow paradise known as the Olympic Village, athletes from about fifty countries live. The village is surrounded by steel fences and controlled by the commander of the German Wehrmacht. The public is strongly excluded. The army is stationed throughout the village, closely monitoring the tourists entering. Even in the quietest place, visitors will suddenly encounter a Wehrmacht man who salutes us informally with silent questioning eyes. The explanation given to keen observation is fear of bombing or arson plots by Jews or Jewish agents.
Editorial: Olympic Games
August 1, 1936
Today, the Olympic Games has begun a new phase. Over the years, it has become clear that because of the money spent by competitors and tourists, they are profitable for the host country. In Berlin this year, we will see them frankly used not for world peace or even for the pride of a country, but as an advertisement for a political party. The hosting and setting of the Olympic Games will demonstrate the excellence of Nazism. Houses in Germany have been painted, and there are other paintings.German Jews did not have the opportunity to fit themselves to represent Germany, but Selected Jews For the sake of appearance, it has been included in the German team.
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Mr. Hitler opened the Olympic Games
go through EA Montague
August 3, 1936
The 11th Opening Ceremony Olympic Games This afternoon it was held at the stadium of the Empire Stadium. This may be the longest lasting ceremony heralding the opening of the Olympic Games. It was arranged and executed by the German organizing committee in a mathematically precise manner. In the process, there were some unforgettable beautiful and important moments.
There are others-not many people-when people feel that the power of German national sentiment is a bit outdated, but this is an unforgettable ceremony, greatly enhanced by the nobility of the big stadium where it is held.
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In December 1935, the Manchester Guardian questioned whether Britain should participate in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The editorial concluded that “the Nazi Party injected its anti-Semitism political poison into the principles of human equality based on the Olympics”. Published two articles, the first one, The Olympic Games in New Germany: Reasons Against Participation (Continued here), while the second one looked Treatment of Jewish athletes in Germany (and here).
