Qualla: Olympiastadion (Berlin)

Olympiastadion (Berlin): Introduction

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rostock1234, CC BY-SA 4.0. On 4 August 1936, in front of 110,000 spectators and the Fuhrer of Nazi Germany, an African-American sprinter from Cleveland named Jesse Owens won the 100 metres in 10.3 seconds. He went on to take the long jump, the 200 metres, and a leg of the 4x100 metres relay — four gold medals at a Games staged to demonstrate Aryan supremacy, by an athlete the regime considered subhuman. Owens later said the snub he remembered was not from Hitler but from his own president: Franklin Roosevelt never invited him to the White House. The Olympiastadion still stands. It still has a permanent capacity of 73,856 — slightly reduced from the original by the lowering of the playing surface in 2004 — and it still has the limestone walls that the Soviet army shot up in April 1945. Walk to the Marathon Gate and you can put your hand on a building that has watched a great deal of the twentieth century happen.

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Image: Rostock1234 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Olympiastadion (Berlin): What the Architect Was Asked to Build

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit A.Savin, FAL. The IOC awarded the 1936 Games to Berlin in 1931, before the Nazis came to power. The original commission was modest — restore the Deutsches Stadion of 1916, which Werner March's father Otto had built into the same site. After 1933 the brief changed. Hitler personally ordered a c...

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Image: A.Savin | FAL

Olympiastadion (Berlin): 1936

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Times, CC BY-SA 3.0. The 1936 Games were the first Olympics with television transmission — twenty-five viewing rooms scattered around Berlin and Potsdam — and the first with a full torch relay, an idea from Carl Diem, an advisor to Joseph Goebbels. The torch travelled 3,000 kilometres from Olympia in...

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Image: Times | CC BY-SA 3.0

Olympiastadion (Berlin): April 1945, and After

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daniel from Glasgow, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0. When the Soviet 5th Shock Army fought through Charlottenburg in late April 1945, the Olympiastadion saw close combat. The Bell Tower had been used by the SS to store film archives; the Soviets accidentally set the contents on fire and the tower burned out as a chimney. The Britis...

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Image: Daniel from Glasgow, United Kingdom | CC BY 2.0

Olympiastadion (Berlin): The Building That Refuses to Resolve

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rambo Ramon Rainer, CC BY-SA 4.0. After reunification Berliners argued openly about whether to demolish the stadium. Some wanted it gone. Others wanted to let it crumble like the Colosseum, a deliberate ruin. Neither side won. The decision in 2000 was to renovate it for the 2006 World Cup, lower the pitch by 2.65...

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Image: Rambo Ramon Rainer | CC BY-SA 4.0