Berlin 1936. Sixteen Days in August

This short book takes us through the sixteen days in August 1936 when the Olympic Games were staged in Berlin. With a chapter dedicated to each day, it describes the events in the German capital through the eyes of a select cast of characters - Nazi leaders and foreign diplomats, athletes and journalists, writers and actors, nightclub owners and socialites. While the competition inside the Olympic Stadium provides the focus and much of the drama - from the triumph of Jesse Owens to the scandal when an American tourist breaks through security and kisses Hitler - Oliver Hilmes also takes us behind the scenes and into the lives of ordinary Berliners: the woman with a dark secret who steps in front of a train, the transsexual waiting for the Gestapo`s knock on the door, and the Jewish boy hoping that Germany may lose in the sporting arena.

During the Games Nazi oppression was temporarily lifted and the book offers us a last glimpse of the vibrant and diverse life in the German capital in the 1920 and early 1930s which the Nazis set out to destroy: it evokes the novels of Christopher Isherwood and Fassbinder`s Berlin Alexanderplatz - but we are already entering the dark world of Fallada`s Alone in Berlin.