Cruising the past: 1936 Nazi Color Film-Berlin in the Year of the Olympic Games.

CLICK ABOVE TO PLAY THE COLOR 1936 FILM:

Nazi propaganda complete color film from 1936. An outstanding portrait of daily life in Berlin in this rare, well preserved film, with the magical feeling of the pastel colors of Agfachrome.  Strangely, it appears that parts of this documentary were filmed in 1939, after the Siegessäule was moved to it’s new location.

A New Way to Look at World War 2:

The second World War has usually been seen in black and white, but after endless research a new film outlet has unearthed an abundance of superb color film that shows what it really looked like to those who were there. “Unknown World War 2 in Color” is a stunning and vivid new account of the epic conflict. Visit their website by clicking here.

THE 1936 OLYMPICS

Portrait of a Women’s United States Olympic Team Arriving Home: The fairer of Uncle Sam’s Olympic stars who competed in Berlin, are pictured upon their return to America’s shore on the SS President Roosevelt. They arrived in New York City on August 28, 1936.

American teams heading for the Olympics aboard ships including the Bremen.

(Left: Hitler with American Olympic athlete.  Right:  German athletes who played in the 1936 Games.  One of them was gay and sent to a concentration camp where he was killed in 1943.)

The 1936 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event which was held in 1936 in Berlin, Germany. Berlin won the bid to host the Games over Barcelona, Spain on April 26, 1931, at the 29th IOC Session in Barcelona (two years before the Nazis came to power).

American Olympic cycling team aboard the Bremen.

It marked the second and final time that the International Olympic Committee would gather to vote in a city which was bidding to host those Games. The only other time this occurred was at the inaugural IOC Session in Paris, France, on April 24, 1894. Then, Athens, Greece, and Paris were chosen to host the 1896 and 1900 Games, respectively.

American skating team aboard the Bremen.

Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, a favorite of Hitler’s, was commissioned by the IOC to film the Games. Her film, entitled Olympia, introduced many of the techniques now common to the filming of sports.

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