Olympic Stadium - Berlin

The clue of when it was built lays in the name of the stadium Dave, The Olympic Stadium ~ so it was built for the 1936 Olympic Games taken over so nororiously for Nazi propaganda by Goebells. It's modern interior and roof are the legacy of improvements made for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, althougfh it was used in it's original form (un roofed and bench seats) for a few games of the 1974 World Cup.

It's built like many classical old European stadiums constructed under the Fascists and Communists i.e. in the style of the Roman Colliseum and the walkway too which you refer is in fact on ground level so that one walks straight onto it on entering the stadium and then the main arena is some twelve to fifteen metres below natural ground. This means that on first site from close up, the stadium appears to be rather smaller than one would imagine a seventy five thousand capacity arena to be.

The first time I saw it was when West Berlin was segregated into British, American and Russian sectors; and the British Military HQ was in the Olympic Park buildings just outside it. The last time I set eyes on it was from the window of our plane that had just taken off from Schoenfeld Airport (Berlin) and the plane banked so steeply on take off I had a perfect window view right down into the stadium, so good I could make out the individual seats and running track lane numbers!

Anyone who holds scepticism of "what to do" with London's Olympic Park post games should take a trip to either Berlin or Munich where they will enjoy the shere space and beauty of the old Olympic Parks....................Berlin's is beautifully set out some distance to the ~West of the city near the old Grunewald Forest and is planned in "linear" fashion so that it only takes up part of the whole "Reischssportfeld" (People's Sports Park)

Not the geatest of football venues though due to the running track, though the German propensity for being VERY noisy rescues the atmosphere somewhat.

This is actually the second stadium on the site. The first stadium was built on land that was used for horse racing. The first stadium was built for the 1916 Olympic games which were then cancelled because of the small matter of the First World War. When it was announced that the Berlin was chosen they were gonna to renovate Otto March's 1916 Stadium but Hitler chose to enlist Otto's son Werner to design a new sport's complex, assisted by his brother Walter. The 1936 stadium was built on the foundations of the old statdium but after extensive excavation the floor was dropped by 12 metres.

During the latest renovation the floor was dropped by another 3 metres and the bottom tier was demolished and rebuilt.

Its still a bone of contention in Berlin as the stadium is seen as symbol of Nazi power. Berlin, historically, never showed the same level of support for Hitler as he enjoyed in Bavaria and most people I think would rather let this stadium go to ruin. In a city where there are so many buildings that remind you of the history of the city I think it should be preserved as a fantastically atmospheric stadium. After all there are still so many reminders to the DDR such as the showpiece 2km long boulevard of the Karl Marx Allee, the Fernsehturm (television tower) now complete with a Fitness First and the old Stasi headquarters in Lichtenberg which has now been completely taken over by Deutsche Bahn apart from the main building, plus of course the old airport at Tempelhof which has more reminders to Zeppelins and air lifts! Add to that the Soviet War memorial, Cafe Moskau, the Reichtag, the Brandenburg Gate and the new Holocaust memorial then you have possibly the most interesting city in the world.