In the huge shadow of the coming Nazism, the 1936th Olympic Games were held in Berlin in XNUMX.
The International Olympic Committee entrusted the Germans with the organization of the world's largest sports event back in 1931 - while the Nazis were not in power - as compensation because the VI Games were not held in Berlin due to the First World War.
However, when they decided to give Berlin an advantage over Barcelona, the IOC did not know that in 1933, just one year before the start of the Games, Hitler would take power in Germany.
The rest is history - although they are remembered as the best organized up to that time, the Olympic Games in Berlin remain a "black spot" of the Olympic movement to this day.
The entire competition was used for propaganda purposes, every success of their athletes was used by German Nazi officials to affirm the theory of the superiority of the Aryan race.
Even before the start of the Games, when you could feel what was coming, the public tried to put pressure on the IOC, in order to deprive Berlin of the organization. After much controversy, the words of the president of the Olympic Committee of the United States of America, Avery Brandidge, ruled:
- Politics and sports should not be mixed!
Berlin was ready - the Games could begin...
What did the Germans, that is, Hitler, build?
A super-modern granite stadium with a capacity of 100 seats, several smaller arenas, new, never-before-seen, audio and visual equipment was installed as a kind of propaganda material, for the first time in history the competitions were broadcast live, and sports fans could watch the Games on 25 huge screens spread across city squares in Berlin and Potsdam.
Leni Riefenstahl, a famous German film director, made the first documentary about the Olympic Games on the orders of the Nazi leaders. The film, which was initially disputed, and later celebrated as a real little masterpiece, affirmed the aesthetics of the body in a way that was unusual until then.
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Franco's Spain did not participate in Berlin, neither did the USSR, but Hitler did not care - the opening ceremony was the most spectacular ever seen.
The German public was very interested in this event, as evidenced by the fact that four million tickets were sold.
The central figure of the Games, however, was not German - the glory went to the dark-skinned American athlete Jesse Owens, one of the most mentioned figures in the history of the Olympics.
In Berlin, Owens won gold medals in the most attractive disciplines - 100, 200 meter races, 4x100 meter relay and long jump, which was later repeated only by his compatriot Karl Lewis, in Los Angeles in 1984.
His success totally drove Adolf Hitler crazy, and by extension the vast majority of Germans - the Führer's displeasure was even caught on camera. Hitler, who propagated the theory of Aryan dominance and racial inferiority of dark-skinned people, did not even congratulate Owens.
Despite the brilliantly organized Games, there were controversies. In the soccer tournament, for example, Peru beat Austria 4:2 in the quarterfinals, but the last two goals were scored from crowds when fans attacked an Austrian soccer player.
At the very request of Hitler, the match was cancelled, but the Peruvians refused to play - Austria advanced to the semi-finals, then to the finals, where they were defeated by the powerful Italians, world champions at the time.
Despite Jesse Owens' brilliant flash, the most medals were collected by the German competitors (33 gold, 26 silver medals, 30 bronze), who overthrew the long-standing dominance of the United States of America (24 - 20 - 12).
The Germans had a particularly great performance in gymnastics, and Konrad Frej and Alfred Schwartzman won a total of 11 medals.
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