Paul Scraton explores Elstal’s 1936 Olympic Village and the legacy of Jesse Owens…
What do you do with a building when it symbolises some of the darkest days of your country’s history? It’s a common question in Berlin and elsewhere in Germany, and one which was certainly asked of the various venues built for the 1936 Olympics.
Germany was awarded the Olympics before Hitler and his National Socialist cronies took power, and many of the designs were already in place. But the Olympic Stadium and its surroundings still symbolise a games where Hitler was determined to show to the world the power and the glory of his three-year-old Thousand Year Reich.
When one thinks of what was to follow over the next decade, it is not much consolation that the games were less the “Hitler Olympics” than the “Jesse Owens Show”. But the African-American athlete Owens’ exploits on the track were a triumphant and glorious counterpoint to even the best of Leni Riefenstahl’s cinematic propaganda; and perhaps it is this history that has allowed the Olympic venues to shake off the taint of their history.
Which begs the question: if the city’s Olympic Stadium was renovated and restored for the 2006 World Cup and thereby granted the opportunity to write a new history on its football pitch and track—and who can forget Usain Bolt’s victories during the 2009 World Championships—what of these other venues built for the 1936 games?
The Olympic Village lies fourteen kilometres west of the stadium and the main Olympic park, beyond the city limits, in the village of Elstal in the Brandenburg countryside.
This was the home of the athletes for the duration of the games, and a place where, despite Nazi conceptions of race and segregation, 4,000 sportsmen (the women were housed elsewhere) from over 50 nations slept, trained and ate together in the massive Dining Hall of Nations canteen.
The complex lay in ruins for decades, though over the last few years, investment has meant that parts have been rebuilt. We visited these renovations happened, on an early summer’s day, and paid a bored-looking security guard a nominal entry fee to allow us to walk around the grounds pretty much alone. Apart from the larger buildings, such as the old swimming pool and the gymnasium, the site was dotted with smaller barracks-like buildings in which athletes were housed.
Some were crumbling, some no longer standing, whilst on others the paint is only slightly peeling. Only one of the athlete residences, which housed a Jesse Owens exhibition, had been properly fixed up, and we could even take a look inside.
It remained a somewhat spooky place. During the long years of socialism, when Elstal and the surrounding countryside was part of the German Democratic Republic, the village was used by the Soviet Army until their withdrawal from German soil in 1992.
They built a series of Plattenbauen—those classically communist pre-fabricated housing blocks—for their soldiers, which loom amongst the trees with an air of ghostly abandonment. One has the feeling, as you walk around the complex, of being in a place that is lost in its various histories, discarded now that the regimes that built and maintained these grounds are long gone.
The village compley has most recently been renamed “Gartenstadt Olympisches Dorf” (Olympic Village Garden City,, or G.O.L.D). The Dining Hall of Nations” has been made new again, and apartment buildings have been constructed in a radial pattern on the sites where the athletes’ lodgings once stood.
Since 2023, a total of 485 new residential units have been occupied, and renovation and conversion work is currently underway on the apartment blocks built in the 1970s. Upon completion of the entire project, new housing will be available for approximately 3,000 people. with apartments and offices.
What remains is a heritage-protected site featuring the Hindenburg House, the Commandant’s House, the indoor pool, the sports field, the gymnasium, and eight former athletes’ lodgings—including the Jesse Owens House. Hopefully these will be opened again soon to the public, since there is so much power in the memory of this American man and his achievements—enough, in fact, to rehabilitate these buildings so symbolic of a murderous regime.
This, after all, was a man who took home four gold medals—setting individual Olympic records in each event, plus another as a member of the 400-meter relay—but who, due to segregation back home, had to ride in the service elevator at the New York Astoria Hotel in order to attend a reception in his honour. A man whose prowess upset the Nazis so much that Albert Speer allegedly wanted to ban black athletes from future games.
Owens’ role in this history allows us, almost a hundred years later, to find something positive amidst the dark history. As Berlin once again pitches to host the Olympics in 2036, let’s hope that these remaining buildings in the Olympic Village can be somehow used to celebrate Owens’ life and his incredible sporting achievements.
Visitor Information
The Olympic Village can be reached by regional train from Berlin to Elstal (followed by a 2km walk). No tours are currently provided but check here for future updates.