On 1 August 1936 the Games of the 11th Olympiad opened in Berlin, just six months after the success of the Winter Olympics hosted in Garmish-Partenkirchen. Adolf Hitler greatly admired classical images of Greek gods and goddesses, and regarded Greco-Roman civilization as providing the seeds of Germanic culture. The Olympics were viewed as a means to promote his idea of the supremacy of the Aryan race and the German nation. When the International Olympic Committee had decided to award Germany the games in 1931, their intention was to give the country a post-World War I boost and speed its return to the international community. Less than two years later, the Weimar Republic had fallen, and Hitler turned the 1936 summer games into a significant propagandistic success.

“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, commenting on the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.

The Reichssportfeld (State Sports Ground) in Berlin was designed for the Olympic Games in 1936, but it was conceptualized by Adolf Hitler as a venue that would still be used hundreds of years after his death. It was built from the finest materials on the best piece of land available in Reichshauptstadt Berlin, the capital of Nazi Germany, and was so important to the Führer that it had its own subway station. It is an important historical note that this subway station was not called “Olympic Stadium”, but rather S-Bahnhof Reichssportfeld. Adolf Hitler manifested his vision for the Reichssportfeld with the support of Dr. Frick, his Minister of the Interior, over the course of 3 years.

The Olympic torch relay tradition actually started at Adolf Hitler’s 1936 Berlin Olympics and was the brainchild of Carl Diem, who was the Secretary General of the Organizing Committee. The Olympic Flame was run from Greece to Germany over the course of 12 days, ending with the lighting of a “colossal brazier in the Berlin stadium before the Führer’s approving gaze.” The torch meandered through Greece, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany with each runner covering a kilometer. The International Olympic Committee gave its approval to the idea of transporting a flame from Greece to Berlin in May of 1934. The route passed through the capitals of each of the countries visited.

Adolf Hitler opened the Olympic summer games in front of 100,000 spectators at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin on 1 August 1936. Musical fanfare directed by the famous composer Richard Strauss announced the Führer’s arrival to the largely German crowd. A flourish of pomp and ceremony involved the release of 25,000 pigeons, 3,000 singers and a flyover by the German airship Hindenburg. Nazi leaders pulled out all the stops to wow visiting foreign notables, journalists and tourists, and to glorify Hitler. More than three years had elapsed since Hitler gained power, and this was the moment to show the new and thriving Germany to the world. The Third Reich would be presented as powerful, peaceful and modern. Writer Thomas Wolfe described the opening as an “almost religious event, the crowd screaming, swaying in unison and begging for Hitler. There was something scary about it; his cult of personality.”

Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels had immediately recognized the potential symbolic value of the Hindenburg as a showcase for German strength and technology. Goebbels offered Hugo Eckener 2 million marks to accelerate the completion of LZ-129, which launched on 4 March 1936. Hindenburg made 17 round trips across the Atlantic in 1936, with ten trips to the United States and seven to Brazil. Shortly before the arrival of Adolf Hitler to declare the Games open, the airship crossed low over the packed stadium while trailing the Olympic flag on a long weighted line suspended from its gondola. On September 14, the ship flew over the annual Nuremberg Rally. The airship only flew for a total of 14 months until it was destroyed by fire on 6 May 1937.

Apparently not all went exactly according to plan during the course of the opening ceremony. U.S. distance runner Louis Zamperini, one of the athletes present, related an incident that occurred immediately after Adolf Hitler declared the Games open. “They released 25,000 pigeons, the sky was clouded with pigeons, the pigeons circled overhead, and then they shot a cannon, and they scared the poop out of the pigeons, and we had straw hats, flat straw hats, and you could heard the pitter-patter on our straw hats, but we felt sorry for the women, for they got it in their hair, but I mean there were a mass of droppings, and I say it was so funny…”

Hitler’s ability to take nostalgic imagery and turn it into something fresh and modern, as well as his mastery of theatrical production, shaped the ceremonies and rituals that define the Olympics to this day.

Jesse Owens’ gold-medal winning feats at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin struck a powerful propaganda blow to Adolf Hitler. The Nazi leader had planned to use the German games as a showcase of supposed Aryan superiority. Instead there was a Black American athlete on the podium being photographed by Hitler’s personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann. Owens also figures prominently in the groundbreaking film “Olympia” by Hitler’s favorite director Leni Riefenstahl.

Adolf Hitler watches a football game from the stands of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. The 1936 Berlin Olympic Games under Adolf Hitler’s Nazi dictatorship were more than just a global sporting event; they were also a showcase of Nazi propaganda.

The Impromptu Kiss 💋

Carla De Vries was an American tourist vacationing in Europe in 1936. The Norwalk, California dairy farmer had seized on the upcoming Summer Olympic Games as the perfect opportunity to see the Continent. She decided to spontaneously plant a kiss on the official host, Adolf Hitler, while attending the men’s 1500 meters free-style swimming competition on 15 August 1936. “Hitler was leaning forward, smiling, and he seemed so friendly that I just stepped up and asked for his autograph, which he wrote on my swimming ticket. He kept on smiling and so I kissed him”.

Propaganda Publications

“One and all feel that they posses a personal link with their Führer. He addresses workers in their own factories, and chats with farm hands during harvest time. An informal and frequent scene during road building operations when the Führer chats to road workers!”