A German technician checks his equipment in the Olympic Stadium on August 1, 1936. The Olympic Games were telecast live for the first time

KEY FACTS

• Dates: August 1-16

• Other candidate cities: Barcelona, Alexandria, Budapest, Buenos Aires, Cologne, Dublin, Frankfurt, Helsinki, Lausanne, Nuremberg, Rio de Janeiro, Rome

• Participants: 3,963 (331 women)

• Participating nations: 49

• Disciplines: 19

• Events: 129

• Medals given out: 385

• IOC president: Henri de Baillet-Latour (Belgium)

• Games declared open by: Adolf Hitler (German chancellor)

• Olympic oath read by: Rudolf Ismayr (weightlifting)

• Last relay bearer of the Olympic torch: Fritz Schilgen (athletics)

• Olympic flame lit by: Fritz Schilgen (athletics)

• Journalists: 1710

ANECDOTES

Flowing

At the end of the women’s 4x100m relay swimming race, the coach of the Dutch team was so overjoyed at having won that she jumped into the water to congratulate her swimmers: the only problem was that she had to be helped as she began to slip under the surface.

Friendship

During the qualification heats in the long jump, Jesse Owens, who had missed all his previous attempts was offered some advice from German rival Lutz Long. Owens went on to defeat Long in a tense encounter and the two men developed a strong friendship following the Games.

March

The Hitler Youth opened the procession of the opening of the Games, marching to the rhythm of the Tannhauser. The German hymn was soon followed by Horst Wessel Lied, the war song of the National Socialist party which would be played 480 times during the Games.

Television premiere

These Games were televised live for the first time and were beamed into the homes of 160,000 Berlin residents.

Laws

A short time before the Games, Hitler’s government publicly announced a series of laws demonstrating its xenophobia and anti-semitism right up to the first day of the Games.

Gestapo

The Gestapo were ever present in Berlin and the Olympic village. A pamphlet was distributed explaining that the heavy deployment of troops was necessary to provide security for the Berlin Games and also promote the new image of Germany to its foreign guests.

Rule

The president of the IOC reprimanded Hitler for his obvious breaching of Olympic protocol when the Führer failed to resist from congratulating the German shot putter Hans Woellke, the Olympic champion. Before his event Woellke was simply a soldier, but following his win the German colossus was promoted to lieutenant.

Witness

In order to leave an indelible memory of the grandeur of the propaganda machine present at the Games, a famous film-maker was commissioned to produce a film of the whole spectacle. The resultant documentary was called “Gods of the Stadium”.

SUMMARY

To the eternal chagrin of Adolf Hitler and his cronies, the 1936 Berlin Olympics demonstrated the nonsense of the Nazi theory of Aryan superiority when Jesse Owens, the grandson of an American slave, became the star of the show with his four titles in athletics.

Since his rise to power in Germany in 1933, the dictator had viewed the Games as an extravagant propaganda opportunity.

The Nazi’s built venues of colossal proportions with the 100,000 seater Olympic stadium at Berlin (which now houses local football outfit Hertha) as well as a 20,000-seater stadium with a state of the art pool and a superb Olympic village to show the world that Germany was back in busines.

They gave splendid receptions to the athletes and festooned the country with Nazi swastika flags flying side-by-side with the Olympic flag in an attempt to garner support for their movement and convince the world of their peaceful intentions.

The USA had been close to boycotting the event because of anti-semitical worries but were eventually convinced, as were the IOC due to Hitler’s assurances.

In fact the world was still unsure who Hitler was but when he entered the Olympic stadium during the opening ceremony virtually the entire 100,000 crowd raised their arm to him in Nazi salute.

Germany did show its technological advancement by organising a closed circuit television facility connecting observation halls with a capacity of 160,000 more spectators.

On the sportsfield the German athletes excelled in numerous disciplines with six gymnastics gold, six equestrian and five in the rowing they easily topped the table with their 33 titles.

However, when America’s Jesse Owens beat German Lutz Long in the long-jump play-off a furious Hitler, unable to stand the vision of a black man beating a blue eyed blond, quit the stadium in a huff, his lie of Aryan superiority exposed to the ridicule it deserved.

Owens had also won the 100m, 200m, the 4x100m relay and built a friendship with Lutz Long, who died during the subsequent Second World War.