World War Two · Season 9 · Episode 15

How to Make Nazi Germany Look Normal - Q3 1936

Saturday, May 9 · 17 min

Berlin, September 30, 1936. Under the Olympic flame, Nazi Germany staged one of the most successful propaganda spectacles of the twentieth century. Foreign visitors saw order, ceremony, technology, pageantry, and athletic triumph. But behind the facade, the regime hid antisemitic persecution, rounded up Sinti and Roma, intensified police repression, intervened in the Spanish Civil War, and moved toward a massive new war economy. In this episode, Spartacus Olsson looks back at the third quarter of 1936: the Berlin Olympics, Jesse Owens’ victories, Hitler’s secret war memorandum, the Four-Year Plan, Nazi propaganda, Germany’s growing involvement in Spain, and the dictatorship’s attempt to sell peace to the world while preparing for conquest. The Olympics gave Hitler international validation. The Four-Year Plan revealed what he truly intended.