Hitler’s Games: Berlin 1936 in Colour

In 1931, Germany was chosen to host the Olympic Games, a move intended to integrate the nation into the international community and to promote world peace through sport. Across two weeks in August 1936, cameras captured the world’s greatest sporting spectacle, including Jesse Owens’ record-breaking gold medal performances. The Berlin Games were a turning point in Olympic history, with innovations introduced in 1936 such as television coverage and the torch relay which would become fixtures of every subsequent Games. Hitler’s Games in Colour chronicles the remarkable amateurs who excelled, while also revealing how Hitler exploited the event as propaganda for his brutal regime, presenting the Nazis as benevolent and their military ambitions as modest. Using black-and-white archive, revitalized through cutting-edge restoration and colourisation, this is the story of 16 days that fooled the world...