Germany was supposed to host the Olympics back in 1916, but they hadn't because of that pesky first world war. And so in 1931 it was decided that the Germans could host the 1936 summer Olympics. This seemed like a good idea. The Germans had suffered a crushing defeat in the war and this was a symbol of them being welcomed back into peaceful relations with everybody. The event was a few years away but what could possibly go wrong in that time?
Well Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933.
Shit.
Slipping into the complex is pretty simplistic, as with all construction sites. And as with most construction sites, there's very little to see apart from the basic shell littered with builder paraphernalia. But this is the main stadium, and it was commissioned by Adolf Hitler himself, along with luxury apartments for around 4000 athletes.
It wasn't just a stadium that was being made, but a small village, and Hitler named it the Village of Peace.
I know right? Who's this cuddly, sports-loving version of Hitler? Wheres the little angry tyrant that we're familiar with?
Are the rumours true that someone just misheard him ask for a glass of juice?
Well, Hitler had ulterior motives. His eventual plans for the stadium were for it to serve as a military barracks once the olympics were done. That was always the plan- construct a barracks but disguise it as an olympic arena. In the meantime, the olympics gave him the perfect platform to spread Nazi propaganda. These were the first olympics to ever be televised. Everyone would be watching.
The rest of the world, having a long and celebrated history of embracing diversity of race, sexuality, religion and gender (except that is, on the days of the week that ended in Y) were pretty contemptuous of the anti-semitic values held by the Nazis, and considered boycotting the olympics altogether.
The chap in charge of the Nazi propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, was aware of this and gave strict orders to the press to not mention race at all. They wanted to paint Germany as a fun, amazing place. The anti-Jew signs were taken down and in an eerie prelude of things to come, all of the gypsies were arrested and kept in a "special camp" for the duration of the event, to make Berlin look cleaner. Ultimately the head of the American Olympic Committee insisted that the games were for athletes, not politicians, and that anyone who thought otherwise was an "un-American agitator."
The Americans were in.
The UK, France, Czechoslovakia, Sweden and the Netherlands also considered boycotting. Spain actually made plans to host their own counter-Olympics so that the countries who didnt want to play with the Germans could go play in Barcelona instead. However just as thousands of athletes arrived, the Spanish civil war took off and put an end to that. Most of the countries who had been due to participate in the Spanish Olympics ended up in the German ones, with a few exceptions such as Russia who just went home. But that's okay, because they'd make it to Germanys stadium in a decades time, albeit to use it as a barracks.
The event went ahead, and Hitlers precious myth of Aryan supremacy was singlehandedly crushed by an African-American athlete named Jesse Owens who managed to earn himself four gold medals, even setting a new world record. Hitler wasn't just disappointed. He was Führerious.
He didnt show it though. He even gave Jesse Owens a friendly little wave when they happened to make eye contact. Albert Speer later told that Hitler was privately fuming, saying that black people had an unfair advantage over civilised humans because they were closer to the jungle, but this was not the attitude that he presented with the media watching.
Heres the main arena, where all the magic happened. Here is where Jesse Owens earned those gold medals! Now its just a big mess of builder stuff but even so, I can't quite believe I'm here.
Defending Hitler is outside mein kampfort zone, but I try to report history objectively. In this case, the mainstream media did what the mainstream media does, which is lie, as if Hitler wasn't about to give them plenty of scandalous material to sell rags with in the years to come. They immortalised the myth that Hitler publically refused to shake hands with Jesse Owens. The truth of the matter was that Hitler only shook hands with athletes on the first day, but didn't show up for the rest of the event, due to having a tight schedule.
Allegedly there is an element of racism to this. He had been told to shake every gold medalists hand or none at all, and faced with either having to look like a hypocrite to his own silly ideals or to look like massive racist on a global platform, he just made excuses so that he didn't have to be there. The media called it a public snub, but it really wasn't.
Jesse Owens, meanwhile, was actually a fan of Hitler. At least up until the war, and the holocaust and all that messy stuff. He had been apprehensive about going to Germany, and all his friends back home had warned him not to go. The gestapo even intercepted a letter from a fan urging him to not shake Hitlers hand. But while he was in Germany, Jesse Owens had accommodation in one of the luxury apartments built for the event, alongside the white athletes. For the duration of the games they were all treated as equal. In America, racial segregation was still a thing, so for an African-American this was a pretty big deal. Upon his return to America, the new president Franklin Roosevelt refused to meet with the black athletes, being newly elected and not wanting to look, in his own words, "soft on the negro issue." Adding to this insult, Jesse Owens had to access his own celebratory event via the freight elevator because he wasn't allowed through the main entrance of the venue.
So while the media was jumping on Hitler for a public snub that didn't happen, Jesse Owens came to his defence, telling the media "Hitler didn't snub me, my own president did." But nobody wanted to hear that story. The irony is delicious. The mainstream media reporting on a racism scandal but ignoring the victims testimony, because he's black.
Many myths and versions of events have circulated. A photo went around the internet for a bit, showing Hitler and Jesse together, posing for photos. It's a photoshop.
(Pictures not mine, obviously)
You can rest assured that the fact the media lied about Hitler in the past fuelled his sympathisers and supporters during his later attrocities. There would have been people who said "Well you lied about him once, why should we believe you now?"
It would be a lot easier if the media just didnt lie. Like I said, it's not as if Hitler wasnt going to deliver them some actual material to work with. Give a maniac enough time to do their own thing and they'll shoot themselves in the foot. But lie about it first, you're only casting doubt on whether or not it genuinely happens when it does. The same logic can be applied to... just about every politician today. How have we not learned anything? If you think someones a maniac, don't try to prove it through lies. Just sit back and let them be a maniac.
There's an old, faded mural on this wall. It's impossible to make out now, but it looks like it might have depicted a field, and a river or lake, and some trees.
Struggling to continue his athletic career once he returned to America, Jesse Owens ended up working menial jobs, falling out of the media spotlight and eventually declaring bankruptcy. His fall from grace came in 1966 when he was prosecuted for tax evasion, which led to his smoking habit and consequential death in 1980. Once he was dead, the world finally decided to give him some recognition. It's a sad end to his tale.
As for Hitler, we know what happened to him.
He went to space.
(Picture not mine, but totally 100% real)
Regarding the 1936 Olympics, Germany did win the most medals, and more crucially, the games served as a powerful means of propaganda, showing Nazi Germany as welcoming and organised, even as it prepared to launch another world war and exterminate millions for the crime of being somehow different. In spite of the successes of Jesse Owens initially putting a downer on Hitlers day, it was Roosevelts attitude and Jesse's retorts that best served the propaganda machine.
Sadly the stadiums more interesting days are behind it, but someday soon someone will have this view from the balcony of their apartment. Will they even know the history?
One curious aspect that we found was this weird little nook, by climbing through a hole in the wall.
At first glance it seems we found nothing more than a little crawl space between two walls, but the fact that it's got a grate above us, as well as metal grates along one side, which would indicate some sort of practical purpose. The cobwebs indicate that the developers haven't got to this bit yet.
On the surface it looks like we're in a drain, but it's actually quite high up the side of the arena. Whatever practical purpose it had is lost on me, but given the places use when the Soviets came to power, one does wonder if there's a darker story here.
It's madness to think that once, Jesse Owens and Adolf Hitler both walked in this very building that I'm now scurrying around. High-profile Nazi Julius Streicher was here too. He's basically what Adolf Hitler would look like if he was played by Vinnie Jones. He got rich by making childrens books that warned kids about Jews.
Also attached to this place is Wolfgang Fürstner, who had fought for Germany in World War One, and was the manager here during the olympics. His grandfather was a Jew who had converted to Christianity, and he learned during the course of the olympic games that under the new laws, this meant he too was considered a Jew by descent. Three days after the games were finished, he shot himself in the head, rather than face the upcoming consequences that came with his new label.
The Nazis told the press that he'd died in a car accident, to avoid unwelcome attention, as if they weren't about to get plenty of attention soon enough.
Check it out! Russian graffiti from the 1980s! I haven't been able to make out what the text says. The bit on the right seems to be using the letters in their cursive form, and I struggle there because I only know Russian in its typed form. DMB 89 is probably someones initials.
Here's an old pool, likely soon to be completely destroyed by the
But with the arena undergoing its redesign, and with the place very much, we turned our attention to the apartments and bungalows.
While crumbling away, there's still a lot left that gives an idea of what these places would have looked like in their glory days, but the wallpaper and decor likely isn't from the 1930s. Following the Olympics, the Nazis put this place to its original intended purpose as a military hospital and barracks, and after the war this place was claimed by the Soviets.
This hatch has been bricked up for some reason, but the hinges still work.
Apparently the residential buildings still had public-style urinals. But it's the cubicle that looks truly ghastly.
Hows this for a place to drop your load?
It's still in better condition than the toilets in some modern day night clubs.
Apparently this yellow building was the central community house of the olympic village, and was dedicated to the memory of Paul von Hindenburg, who was president of Germany before Hitler came to power. Basically this building would have had the arenas admin offices, and also a television room so that the games could be watched live from within. At the time, live transmissions were an incredibly new technological feat, so it no doubt attracted quite the crowd.
Upstairs was a celebratory hall too. Sadly this building wasn't accessible, so we moved on to even more of the apartments.
The further from the arena, and the builders, the more preserved things were, but what was preserved was also severely decayed. The mailboxes still hang from the wall, and torn wallpaper still decorates the rooms.
Allegedly, when the Soviets took this place, in addition to using them as accomodation for Russian soldiers, the pools and saunas were used as their leisure facilities, but in a darker twist, some of the buildings were used by the KGB for their rather brutal interrogations. It's strange to think that while some folk were relaxing in a pool, people were getting tortured only a few rooms away.
Here's some reasonably fun graffiti, much better than the genitalia that grace the walls of abandoned things in England.
Some of the wallpaper was particularly curious. Was this a childs room? Did the Soviet accomodation extend to the red armies family too? Imagine growing up only a few doors down from KGB interrogations.
Some leftover shoes.
There's a picture of a woman on a toilet cistern. What an odd form of decoration.
And lending itself to my grizzly imagination are the remains of gated-off areas in the cellars. The gates remain attached on hinges, but whatever boundaries they once set are long gone. Perhaps the cellars of a block of apartments were compartmentalised so that different residents had their own individual places to store stuff. I don't know.
Apparently the German murals that decorated the olympic village were defaced by the Soviets. A wall depicting marching German soldiers was changed into the Red Army, and added the Soviet flag being planted on German parliament. But as proud as they were, like many Russian military bases in Germany, it was abandoned after the end of the Soviet Union. The apartment that Jesse Owens occupied was, for a while, a small museum dedicated to him, and tours of some of the buildings were occasionally done, but until now nobody really knew what to do with the place.
Soon the arena will be gone, and with it a historic relic of Nazi propaganda. But if one wants to see the absurdity of Hitlers ambitions, more relics do exist, and since this is a short blog post, I thought I'd add this little location to it- It's a giant cylindrical block tucked away in Berlin...
It doesn't look like much. I think some people might walk past and never even stop to wonder what it could be.It has a fairly intriguing story though.
Hitler had this wacky idea that once he'd won the war, conquered the world, killed the Jews, and figured out how to properly shave, Germany would emerge as the new undisputed capital of the world, and Berlin would be transformed into a massive symbol of power that he would call "Germania." He and Albert Speer, who I've mentioned before, planned a massive urban redesign which involved wiping out a huge chunk of Berlin in the process in favour of a look inspired by the architecture of ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt.
Germania was to be the centrepiece of the new empire, consisting of an enormous central cross-shaped boulevard, on which all the important government buildings would be. The North-South axis of the boulevard was to be 5km long. At one end was to be the triumphal arch, very similar in design to the one in Paris, except the one in Paris would be able to fit inside it. At the other end of the boulevard was to be a dome so collossal that St Pauls Basilica could easily fit within. In fact scientists believe that the dome would have been big enough to have its own indoor weather, including indoor rain. Had it been built, it would have been the largest enclosed space in the world. It's far too big to easily envision, and diagrams do exist that show how it would be placed in relation to modern-day Berlin. It's quite frankly so big it's crazy.
This block was the first step in building Germania. It was built in 1941, weighing some 12,650 tons, with a diameter of 21 metres, standing 14 metres above ground and eighteen metres below ground. It was designed purely to see if Berlins ground was up for task, and how much weight it was capable of supporting. The idea was that if the concrete block sank less than six centimeters, then Berlins floor would be considered strong enough to sustain such a collossal project. This block was to be buried in an artificial hill, and then serve as part of the foundation for the triumphal arch.
(Germania model. Image not mine)
Many buildings in Berlin were demolished to make way for the new project, and the East-West axis of the central boulevard was established and presented to Hitler on his 50th birthday in 1939. But Germany lost the war, Hitler died, and the project was dropped. Out of curiousity, someone did check on the block in 1948 to see if Germania was indeed feasible, and found that the block had sunk nineteen centimeters, so it's safe to say that even if the Nazis had won the war, Germania would have been a bit of a flop. Today the block sits in a little fenced-off compound, too close to apartments to safely demolish, remaining a silent testimony to the wild ambitions of our favourite mad little munchkin.
It sounds crazy. It is crazy. But Hitler really thought that he would win, and he wanted his dome to be a place of worship. Worship of him, that is. He believed that in the centuries to come his dome would acquire deep religious significance.
Dotted around the complex are a few old doohickeys and contraptions, all likely measuring equipment.
But best of all, there is a door.
My understanding is that the blocks interior, while cleared out of a lot of its former machinery, has had nothing added to it. Every cupboard, desk and device is vintage 1940s interior decor for giant blocks.
This is a wash basin, which implies that people might have actually been stationed here at some point, perhaps to monitor the blocks progress.
It's pretty much all I have on that, and indeed, it's my last blog post in Berlin. Not the last to be in Germany though! On our last day, we saw one more exciting place! To say that all this Nazi stuff is a sensitive topic would be pretty accurate, but much to my surprise, the Germans don't really mind talking about it. They know it's happened. They've accepted it, owned it, and moved forwards, and they're really chilled out. The only times conversations got awkward was when I mentioned the Berlin wall. But that's to be expected. It's still in living memory of many of the cities inhabitants, only coming down in the early 1990s. The Soviet Union fucked Berlin. But the holocaust... I saw some clickbaity shit on Facebook which said that modern Germans don't know anything about the war or the holocaust, and as you'd expect, it had a few grumpy comments from Daily Mail readers about how ignorant the Germans were being, and dodging responsibility.
Of course, those commenters have probably never even left their small British town, nevermind travel to another country and see how it is. Let me tell you, nobody is forgetting anything, and to prove it, I took this picture.
These are dotted around Berlin, and probably other places in Germany too. It's a marker outside a residential property that identifies the homes former Jewish occupant, the date that the Nazis came and whisked them away in the night, and the camp where they were killed. In this case, Trawniki, in Poland. Note the word "Ermordet." That means "Murdered." They specify that she didn't simply "die."
And as far as I'm concerned, this is much more hard hitting than statistics about how many were killed, because "six million" is too big a number to comprehend. But when you give these people an identity, and go so far as to point out where they lived and where they were forcibly removed from, it really drives the reality home. These were ordinary people who just wanted to make it from one day to the next. They had neighbours, and friends, and family, and when they disappeared in the night without any warning, they were missed.
And I only mention it because I do get genuinely pissed off when people blindly believe some clickbaity bullshit. There's really no excuse for ignorance in the internet age, but it's still easier to find a nun wearing a strap-on than it is to go a day without encountering someone who is a complete and utter turd.
It's some pretty deep, serious shit. I do make jokes and puns about Hitler, sure, but to quote Ouija LeMay, for a man so proud it's the best thing for him, to be a figure of ridicule. And shes right. Ouija LeMay is pretty blunt and to the point on most things, and an expert sharpshooter too, having once fired a bullet through a bullet-sized hole in a slightly larger moving bullet. Impressive, but her best shots are always when she aims for your emotions.
Anyway, next blog post will be more positive as I head out into Wales to find some gorgeous ruins, and then I'll be doing another Germany blog. These will probably come out in 2020. In the meantime, share the blog, follow my Instagram, Like my Facebook and Follow my Twitter.
Disclaimer- Hitler probably didn't really go to space. However, given that he was born in 1889, it doesn't really matter. He's dead now anyway.
