Olympiastadion

I don’t check very often to see who’s been reading my writings here, because I have a fairly good idea of who does. But the other day, I took a look, and noticed that in the last few weeks that someone from Chile spent about eight minutes looking at my pages, and someone from Indonesia visited as well, spending about four minutes. This makes me glad, even though I’m sure they came to my site via the “next blog” function on Blogger -- i.e., at random -- and that they’ll never come back.

Still, in case they do, I want to extend the hand of international friendship and hey-nonny-nonny to my readers in Chile and Indonesia, who may only think they know us here in the United States, since they’ve surely seen a lot of our movies. It might be more informative to read more of our blogs instead. But they’re probably busy following the World Cup these days, rather than random web logs.

Like with the Olympics, I’m more interested in the venues of the World Cup, and the circumstances surrounding the events, than the actual sport itself. I looked around at the FIFA web site recently, and discovered that the Olympiastadion in Berlin is not only being used for some of the matches, but that the finals will be played there on July 9. Also, the stadium was renovated recently with the World Cup in mind (from FIFA):

“Reconstruction had to be carried out with the greatest of care due to the listed status of the structure, originally designed by architect Werner March and built between 1934-36 for around 42 million Reichsmark.

“The new stadium incorporates VIP and Sky executive boxes, Business Seats, a Hertha BSC megastore, underground warm-up facility (including a 110m running track and long-jump pit) and an underground car park. The rebuilding project was primarily aimed at optimising functionality and spectator comfort. For example, practically all the 74,200 seats are covered, whereas previously only 27,000 seats were protected from the elements.”

Sure, the Germans can spend 242 million euros putting on a roof and adding VIP and Sky boxes, but it’ll always be the stadium of the Nazi Olympics, though of course the Olympic Committee had originally awarded the games to Weimar Germany, shaky as it was. Or, if you prefer, it was the Olympics in which Jesse Owens seemed to have been the only competitor, considering how often his participation is highlighted in ten-second spots mentioning those games. In any case, I hope the new boxes are nice, full of amenities far beyond the twisted dreams of the Führer.

In July 1983, drawn by the place’s historic associations, I took the U-bahn out to see the stadium and the Olympic pools nearby, famous from Leni Riefenstahl’s Festival of Beauty, which I’d seen in film class a few months earlier. Nothing was going on that day, so the place was almost empty but open anyway, so I wandered around. What I remember most were the large statues here and there on the grounds, a sort of stern German interpretation of the archaic Greek style, probably meant to evoke heroic Aryan youth. They had weathered the war and perhaps caused mild embarrassment to the Germans of the Federal Republic, but they weren’t overtly Nazi, so they stayed. The FIFA site doesn’t mention them, but I assume that since the stadium has “listed status” (it’s on a list!), they’re still around.