Vergangenheitsbewaltigung. In Germany, it literally means coping with the past, but really describes the struggle to come to terms with history and the work required to do so. It is based around the idea that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.
While there are also elements of comprehending the impact of communism and partition weaved within the modern concept of Vergangenheitsbewaltigung, it almost entirely focusses on how Germany should remember and rationalise the legacy of National Socialism.
And so, it is no great surprise that even 88 years after its construction, debate continues around what to do with Berlin’s Olympiastadion and the 132-hectare Olympiapark which surrounds it.
Nestled on the edge of Grunewald forest, about as far from central Berlin as Wembley is from central London, the Olympiastadion remains a remarkable feat of neoclassical architecture, now seating just shy of 75,000 people.
Hertha Berlin have played their football at the Olympiastadion since 1963, bar a two-year break in the mid-80s. Union Berlin played their Champions League matches there last season. It has hosted the Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Beyonce, AC/DC, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Coldplay, the 2006 World Cup final and the 2015 Champions League final.
It is also where England will play Spain on Sunday evening in the Euro 2024 final. In a footballing age of blood-soaked cash perforating the fabric of the game, there is something darkly ironic about Europe’s showpiece match returning to the cradle of sportswashing.
There has been a stadium in the Olympiapark since 1916, but it was rebuilt from scratch ahead of the 1936 Olympics at the behest of Adolf Hitler. Hitler initially had little interest in hosting the Olympics organised by the Weimar Republic government. Principles of international collaboration and inclusivity didn’t really align with the dream of an Aryan master race.
But propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels convinced Hitler that the soft power possibilities would do wonders for legitimising his regime on a global stage. So, draped in thousands of swastikas and scrubbed of the dirtier edges of the Nazi ideal – vocal anti-Semitic publications were briefly banned and one German Jewish athlete was allowed to compete – Berlin and the Olympiastadion welcomed the world.
New York Times sportswriter Arthur J Daley had discussed a possible boycott before the Games, yet would go on to call the Berlin Olympics “the greatest sports event of all time”. The Games is remembered in many ways for Black US athlete Jesse Owens winning four gold medals, yet its great legacy is indubitably the proliferation of Nazi soft power through sportswashing.
The historian Magnus Brechtken has said the Nazis “carved their racial ideology in stone” in the Olympiastadion. The wider modern Olympiapark still includes the Maifeld, a large green space designed for mass Nazi parades and marches, alongside six towers around the stadium which designate what the Nazis called “great German tribes”.
Inspired by Rome’s Colosseum, the Olympiastadion has been in almost constant use since 1936, almost seamlessly changing function after the fall of Nazism while maintaining all its hallmarks, as was the case with much of Germany at the time. And in 1998, when Germany was awarded the 2006 World Cup, there was a decision to be made – should the Olympiastadion be involved, or does Berlin need a stadium with a cleaner past?
The answer was resounding – a £204m renovation and remodelling to add a roof to the great concrete base, leading to the stadium being awarded five-star status by Fifa and Uefa. Yet, almost everywhere else in the Olympiapark remained fundamentally untouched, a conscious decision to preserve the site as a reminder of its history.
There are an array of sculptures by what Hitler called “God-favoured artists”, such as one of boxer Josef Thorak. The main avenue in the complex is still called Friedrich-Friesen-Allee, named after nationalist zealot and Nazi idol Karl Friedrich Friesen.
It is perhaps this dichotomy between modern functionality and historical monument which makes the Olympiapark such an unusual venue.
When Hitler’s bunker was filled with concrete to avoid it becoming a pilgrimage site and the Spandau prison which housed prominent Nazi Rudolf Hess after the war was destroyed, it remains uncomfortable to some that a venue with such significant Nazi heritage is still a Berlin landmark. Locals call it “Olly”.
There is an array of suggestions for how to best integrate the Olympiastadion into the present – debates about memory and legacy, of what monuments mean. Many locals – certainly Hertha Berlin fans – would not necessarily associate the stadium with its past.
Most modern debate centres more on the surrounding furniture than the stadium itself. As part of the wider global discussion on such memorials in 2020, Social Democrat politician Peter Strieder wrote an op-ed in newspaper Die Zeit titled “Away with these Sculptures” about removing the Nazi-related statues and towers throughout the park and renaming the surrounding streets.
There has also been contention around what to do with the Maifeld, 112,000 square metres of pristine grass which often stands untouched. Turning this into a green space for public use has been advocated for, as has been successfully achieved with former Nazi airfield and now popular public park Tempelhofer Feld.
On Sunday, more than 300 million viewers are expected to turn their gaze to the Olympiastadion, a concrete leviathan built at Hitler’s behest. Appreciating the history of where England could lift the Henri Delaunay trophy helps everyone to better understand its dual function as both grim memorial and sporting mecca.
