Named a Best Book of the Year by The Guardian,The TelegraphDaily Mailand Financial Times A lively account of the 1936 Olympics told through the voices and stories of those who witnessed itfrom an award-winning historian and biographer Berlin 1936 takes the reader through the sixteen days of the Olympiaddescribing the events in the German capital through the eyes of a select cast of characters–Nazi leaders and foreign diplomatssportsmen and journalistswriters and socialitesnightclub owners and jazz musicians. While the events in the Olympic stadiumsuch as when an American tourist breaks through the security and manages to kiss Hitlerprovide the focus and much of the dramait also considers the lives of ordinary Berliners–the woman with a dark secret who steps in front of a trainthe transsexual waiting for the Gestapo’s knock on the doorand the Jewish boy fearing for his future and hoping that Germany loses on the playing field. During the games the Nazi dictatorship was in many ways put on holdand Berlin 1936 offers a last glimpse of the vibrant and diverse life in the German capital in the 1920s and 30s that the Nazis wanted to destroy.