The story of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and how Nazi Germany took advantage of the event for propaganda purposes.

In 1930, Germany was awarded the privilege of hosting the 1936 Olympic Games. However, that gesture to bring Germany back into the world community became problematic when the Nazis took over the nation in 1933, both domestically and internationally. However, a reticent Hitler was persuaded to let the event proceed for his own purposes even as the international sporting world wrestled with the moral choice of attending. What followed from those moral struggles was a tournament originally intended to foster international brotherhood being twisted into a nationalistic celebration of supposed German Aryan superiority that even the legendary athletic triumphs of African-American Olympic great Jesse Owens could not puncture completely.—Kenneth Chisholm ([email protected])

In 1931, the Olympics were awarded to Berlin. However the Germany hosting the event five years later would be a very different place. Adolf Hitler had come to power in the meantime and the Nazis Eagerly grasped the propaganda opportunity the Olympics presented. The scale of the 1936 games would amaze the world and begin Olympic traditions that remain to this day.—3DD Productions