XI OLYMPIADE, BERLIN - 1936: Olympic Photo Album with Signatures of Swimmers from the Olympic Pool

Ninety two photographs documenting the experience of an ordinary German family that attended the Berlin Olympics of 1936 with American swimmers in the pool, athletics in the newly built stadium and adoring crowds giving Hitler the Nazi salute. The photographs feature the opening ceremony and athletics events such as the hurdles as well as dressage which took place at the Olympiade in Berlin. The latter part of the album documents the swimming and diving competitions and water polo with close-ups of athletes, bystanders and officials and tipped in, two sheets of signatures gathered at the pool, among them Dorothy Poynton-Hill (Diving Gold medallist), Adolph Kiefer (longest surviving gold medallist from the games) Jack Medica (gold medallist), George Athans etc.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Bound in a brown textured buckram photo album; binding cocked,white sticker residue to front cover and lower spine (20x25cm); tissue guards, a couple torn; a few photographs, possibly of Nazi officials, removed from the final leaves; a tear to the final leaf close to the gutter.

HISTORY: The Berlin Games are best remembered for Adolf Hitler’s failed attempt to use them to prove his theories of Aryan racial superiority. As it turned out, the most popular hero of the Games was the African-American sprinter and long jumper Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals in the 100m, 200m, 4x100m relay and long jump. This album records the experience of an ordinary family attending the spectacle.