Professor Christopher Young (University of Cambridge)

Do we need a new history of the 1936 Olympics? 

1. Februar 2023, D2127

The 1936 Olympics are the most written about event in sports history. They are also arguably the most misunderstood. This talk, based on an ongoing book project, sets out how and why the Games have been interpreted in different scholarly traditions (Anglo-American, German) and proposes a different approach, spanning the three decades before the Berlin event and the years directly after it. It will also consider Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia – the most written about film in sports history – and map out its connection to the main event itself. Central to a proposed new interpretation of the Berlin Olympics is an emphasis on process and the complexity of process operating simultaneously on different levels.