As attention turns to the legacy of the London Games, there is one surviving Olympic site that forms a remarkable canvas of 20th Century history. Adolf Hitler attempted to turn the 1936 Berlin Games into a piece of Nazi propaganda. Seventy-six years after athletes first set foot on its soil, the Olympic Village still survives. The 1936 Berlin Olympics gave Adolf Hitler an ideal showcase for Nazi propaganda. Director Leni Riefenstahl’s famous film of the Games, Olympia, illustrated the sporting prowess and political context of the tournament. On the outskirts of Berlin, conservationists are attempting to restore a remarkable physical remnant of the Games. The Village where 3,878 athletes lived and trained still survives, but only just. Jens Becker is from the Deutsche Kredit Bank Foundation which is funding much of the work. He took VOA on a behind-the-scenes tour, including the swimming pool, where the external renovations alone cost $2.7 million. “I think the Village is not very well-known in Germany," said Becker. "We’re quite secret. This is a nice situation because when the people get in here, they are sometimes very surprised about all the things which are here standing over 75 years now.” One building has been fully restored: the accommodation block that was home to American sprinter Jesse Owens. Displays tell how the man from Alabama won four gold medals, destroying Adolf Hitler’s hopes that the Games would demonstrate the supposed superiority of the Aryan race. |