Jesse Owens rises above the Nazi propaganda

Olympic 1936 in Berlin

The Games of the XIth Olympiad were marked by the black American athlete, Jesse Owens, whose amazing four gold medal tally in the Berlin stadium built to extoll the virtues of Nazi propaganda left Hitler and his deputies speechless.

The leaders of the Third Reich were at pains to make these Games a resounding success and welcomed 4069 athletes from 49 countries to compete in events from August 1 - 16.

Following Pierre de Coubertin's message at his final Games - he would die one year later in 1937 - the grandiose opening ceremony began with the arrival of the olympic flame, lit for the first timne at Olympia and brought to Berlin by more than 3000 relay runners. The official boxes were full whilst Adolf Hitler appears - 120,000 arms were raised towards the Fuhrer in the Nazi salute.

Owens provokes Hitler's anger

Hitler was sure that everything was in place for his propaganda machine to operate smoothly. But nothing could have prepared him for the one obstacle to his white-supremacist policies - the coloured American, Jesse Owens, winner of four gold medals. Owens first wins the 100 m (10.3), then beats the German Luz Long with a long jump of 8.06 m. Incidentally, both men became friends during their contest, a fact Hitler finds hard to swallow.

Owens would go on to win another two gold medals - in the 200 m with a world record time of 20.7 and in the 4x100 m relay, another new world record.

The birth of television

Owens' feats relegated every other achievement at the Games, a huge success (3 million viewers) which coincide with the birth of television.

In order to record the occasion for posterity, the Reich commissioned Leni Riefenstahl to film an official documentary. Named, "Gods of the stadium", to this day it offers an historic insight into the 1936 Berlin Games.