Olympia Stadium Berlin
written by wil6ka
on May 9th, 2008
(1 vote)
The Olympia stadium in Berlin is the most beautiful stadium in the world… in the eyes of all fans of the local football club Hertha BSC. And so is my opinion. It was built for the Olympic Games in 1936 and therefore it was built majestically to serve Hitler’s delight in eternal propaganda for the German Reich.
The architect Werner March surely has built a sport-temple, which didn’t lose its modern appeal over almost 80 years. And because the Nazis really thought they would last over thousand years they really built stuff that was made to last. Actually there haven’t been many reconstructions until 2004, where it was adjusted fort he 2006 World Cup final. I remember very well seeing it he first time. It was in the mid-nineties, when Hertha was still playing in the second division.
The Berlin audience is really picky and demanding, so they felt really ashamed being one of the few European capitals, that didn’t have a first division team. Therefore not so many spectators came to this game, it must have been 8000 in a Football-Temple that could hold up to 78.000 people.
Well, it was a Friday evening game and the whole stadium was illuminated. We went up the huge stairs to the third level or so. Then I stepped onto the seats and saw the illuminated field and the ground. It was really striking me like if god was speaking to me. I had never seen anything so impressive. It was the start of a huge love affair. The other circumstance haven’t been so great this day. The toilets were in bad shape and the stands were kind of cold. I think Hertha achieved a draw and it was so fantastic. But still I really liked it all.
Nowadays Hertha is playing first league and I tried to go there as often to the games as possible, but I must admit that I haven’t gone for maybe two years. The Stadium is now really one of the prettiest and most convenient ones around. There are only sitting chairs and it has a glass-roof all way around, which is a novelty, hence it was just half-sheltered before. The Berlin audience is coming now in capacities of about 40-50.000 a game. And sometimes it is even sold out.
The stadium has a blue tartan court for athletic games like the ISTAF, which is branding the colors of Hertha worldwide, and everybody knows about them. Every year in May the German Cup Final is held in Berlin, too. And I wait for the day that the cup is coming home, to Hertha BSC. You best get there by S-Bahn and U-Bahn, which Stop at Olympia stadium.
http://www.olympiastadion-berlin.de/
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