Day 8: Run, Run As Fast As You Can! I Will Catch You I’m The Olympian Man

Today we went to the Olympic Stadium in Berlin! We learned about the history of the structure as well as the history of the prejudice that was associated with it. The building was used for the Germany hosted Olympics that took place in 1936. The building was a very quick build that was made to house over 100,000 people. The Nazi’s were in power at this time and Hitler was running the show. The Olympics are a very special event, and Germany almost lost the privilege to host as so many were unsure of their new form of government, especially because of all of the rumors that had been floating through the press. Germany at this point, before the Olympics began, removed all of the Jewish contestants from the German teams. Eventually this caused an uproar and America convinced Germany to allow a Jewish contestant to compete.

The building was transformed in the time of the Nazi’s and therefore the prejudice and the negativity from that time stays with the structure. However, when visiting the stadium, it now does not seem to have anything that stands out to be tied to the Nazi past. The bell that is located to the left of the stadium does have a swastika located on it, with one of the areas that would have previously held a negative space, had seemingly been filled in. Other than that small detail, the stadium seems to have washed itself of characteristics of its Nazi past. However, while it has been attempted before, to erase pieces of the past, it is clear that it will forever haunt the stadium. As future visitors come to see it and when future students learn of the events that occurred leading up to and after the Olympics, they will know of its Nazi background.