DAY 246—CHRISTMAS IN BERLIN—PART 2

2378 miles–5,101,001 steps

After the visit to the Holocaust Memorial, I took the U2 line up to the Olympic Stadium. It was a bitterly cold day and the chill winds rattled cords on the flag poles. The visitor centre was very quiet, but the reception was warm and welcoming. We explained the story of the ‘Walk for Truce’ to Cindy Baumann and she immediately understood the significance of the Berlin Olympic Stadium of 1936, but urged us to look at the hope that the stadium represents too. She was right. I would be walking literally in the footsteps of Adolf Hitler, but also in the footsteps of Jesse Owens.

The Olympics of 1936 were to be a showcase for the ‘superior Aryan race,’ which always brings a smile to the face since someone pointed out that ‘Aryan’ is a Sanskrit word of Indo-Pakistani origin. Still education was never the Nazi’s strong point.  So Hitler commissioned this vast stadium and theme park to celebrate the ‘superiority’ of German people with blond hair and blue eyes, although he of course, was Austrian had brown hair and brown eyes—not that anyone was going to mention that important those little details to him.  And upon that stage the star that shone brightest was a black athlete from the United States.

I got my first glimpse of the ‘hope’ that Cindy had asked us to look out for and I pondered again how evil constantly over-plays its hand. Jesse Owens won four Gold Medals in the Berlin Olympics and was cheered by the crowds in the stadium more loudly than the Fuhrer himself.  Now before we get too morally superior, it is worth noting that Owens was significant as he was the first African American athlete, in racially segregated America, allowed to represent his country at the Olympic Games. Moreover, Owen’s achievements of 1936 were never formally recognised by the US government until 1955.   He later said, ‘Hitler didn’t snub me—it was FDR (US president Franklin D Roosevelt) who snubbed me.’ Indeed at his homecoming in New York, he was required to use the freight elevator in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel to reach the private reception area where he was the guest of honour, because the guest elevators were ‘Whites only’.

After a tour of the stadium and the grounds, we came back into the stadium from the cold and visited the Chapel which is directly under the VIP seating area from where Hitler viewed the Games – it is deliberately there as a centre for ecumenical prayer. The stunning gold gilded freeze which surrounds the walls carries extracts from the Lord’s Prayer in fifteen languages—one phrase leapt of the wall, ‘Forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ I reflected that if it was possible to offer forgiveness in Berlin, then it should be possible for forgiveness to triumph anywhere. Why should forgiveness be important?  Because I sense that in the measure in which we offer it, we may also receive it and in so doing we also recognise that we are need of it.

My mind was too full of reflection to return to Potsdamer Platz to search out the Hansa Studios where U2 recorded their classic song ‘One’ and instead we went off to the movies to watch ‘Mission Impossible—Ghost Protocol.’ That turned out to be a choice rich in irony, given that the cinema at the Sony Centre is built over the former Berlin Wall.

I set off on this day to see the Olympic Stadium, the Holocaust Memorial and Hansa Studios—I managed two out of three and I pondered at the end of it whether, as Cindy had asked, I had caught a glimpse of the Hope of these sites. I think I did and it is this:

Hitler set out to create a platform for the Olympic Games to be exploited to showcase his doctrine of racial superiority, but the Games shot a giant whole through his prejudice.  Today there is no record of the name of the Adolf Hitler to be found anywhere in the stadium of the Olympic Park, but the entire edifice is approached through the wide boulevard called Jesse Owen’s Alley.

Hitler and the Third Reich set out to destroy the Jewish race and yet gave rise to the creation of the State of Israel, as the international community came together in revulsion and horror at what had been done to the Jewish people. The Third Reich lasted only twelve years, the State of Israel has been established for over sixty years and is stronger than ever.

Today there is a permanent memorial to the victims of the Holocaust just a short distance from the bunker of Hitler, which is buried in ignominy and shame without trace. Today Hannukah lights are lit proudly in from of the Brandenburg Gates.

Today the Berlin Wall which stood as a front line of hatred and intolerance for fifty years and one time adversaries in the Warsaw Pact, are now partners in NATO and in Europe and the Cold War confrontations are limited to plot lines for Hollywood movies.

“Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was civis Romanus sum ["I am a Roman citizen"]. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is “Ich bin ein Berliner!”… All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner!“  President John F. Kennedy, Speech in West Berlin June 1963.

And…

Today the United States not only has legions of African American Olympians whose triumphs are a source of pride and glory, but it has an African American president too.

Take it away Bono…

One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should
One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers
One life

(‘One’ by U2, recorded at Hansa Studios in Berlin)