1936 Olympic Stadium in Berlin

We had a great day on the Saturday and took ourselves out to see Tempelhof Airport which is no longer used but which was where the Berlin Airlifts took place between 1948 and May 1949.  British and American planes made a total of 212,612 flights, transporting almost 2.3 million tons of goods to West Berlin and were landing every 63 seconds at the height of the airlifts in April 1949.  The iconic terminal buildings weren't open but the runway and all around was full of Berliners flying kites, roller skating, walking dogs etc.  It was great to see.

Then to round off the afternoon, we took the S Bahn out west to see the Olympic Stadium where the 1936 Olympic games took place.  It was fascinating to see the Nazi architectural style inspired by the architecture of ancient Rome.  It was very evocative of that time before the war.  The swimming pool seemed tiny compared with today's 50 metre pools and was completely outdoors, with a diving pool and diving  boards just in front.  Today the stadium is used for football, concerts and shows. It was good to see Jesse Owens' name engraved on the wall of gold medal winners for the 100m and 200m events, the Usain Bolt of his day!