Die Olympischen Spiele ("The Olympic Games") 1936: In Berlin und Garmisch-Partenkirchen (2 Vol. Set)

First Edition (1936). In 2 Volumes, complete. Just about fine two-volume set in original decorated blue cloth and near fine pictorial dust jackets, with a few small chips and a bit worn along the edges. Text in German. An amazing set!

Official account of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Profusely illustrated with maps, illustrations, and tipped in photographs. Folding color map at the end of Volume I. Complete with all photoprints mounted in place. 'In the medals table the Germans won, followed by the Americans and Hungarians. National Socialist leaders interpreted this success as a sign of Aryan superiority. However, the star of the games was the African American athlete Jesse Owens. Owens set a series of world records, among them the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes, then another one in the long jump, and together with his team in the 400-meter relay. Berlin 1936 was a landmark in the history of the modern Olympic Games. It had become obvious that sport, as it was presented and celebrated in Berlin, had become an undeniably integral element of modern culture and civilization' (Findling & Pelle, p. 111). The photoprints employed here were available in packs of cigarettes or via mail order, and proved an enormously successful propaganda tool, given full expression by the Nazis. Cigaretten-Bilderdienst were one of the leading manufacturers of Zigarettenbilder, issuing some seven different series, in some cases, as here, utilizing the work of Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler's personal photographer. Photoprints played 'a significant part in the ideological education of Germany's youth. The young men who went to war for Hitler had spent all their formative years in the very heyday of cigarette-card collecting.' Quarto. 24.5 x 31.5 cm. 128; 168 pp.