THE OLYMPIC BELL‘S TOUR DE FORCE

On This Day in Berlin: 16 January, 1936

On January 16, 1936 the Olympic Bell made for the 1936 Berlin Olympics began its journey from Bochum where it had been cast to the capital of the Third Reich.

The nearly five-metre tall, 9.6-tonne heavy bell was cast by Bochumer Verein für Gussstahlfabrikation in Alleestraße - the oldest steel bell foundry in Germany. The Nazis, as was their shtick, turned the shipping into a propaganda campaign.

The bell - which also became the games' logo - arrived in Berlin on January 27 after ten days and approximately 600 kilometres of "Triumphzug" (Glory Parade) through German cities: Bochum, Bielefeld, Hannover, Braunschweig, Magdeburg, Potsdam.

In Berlin its arrival was celebrated by holding a big public event, including a speech by the Reichssportführer von Tschammer und Osten.

Today neither the Glockenturm built to install the bell, nor the Olympia Glocke hanging therein are original: the tower replica was built in 1962; this new bell tower, smaller that the first one, was designed - like the Olympia Stadion itself, by Werner March. Today the replica bell bears the Federal Eagle and no swastikas as ornaments.

Mind you, the original bell (avec the Nazi symbolic) was designed by Walter E. Lemcke, still stands on the Olympia Stadion grounds, installed on a plinth. It fell and cracked when the original tower was blown up in 1947.

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