1936 Berlin Olympic Games Flag – Cotton

This 1936 Berlin Olympic Games Flag reproduces one of the flags displayed during the Games of the XI Olympiad, held in Berlin from 1 to 16 August 1936. The event brought together 49 nations and more than 4,000 athletes, making it one of the largest international sporting competitions of the interwar period.

Manufactured from cotton, this version preserves the distinctive square format used on many of the original flags produced for the event. Contemporary newsreels and surviving photographs clearly show that numerous flags displayed along Berlin’s streets, sports venues and public buildings were made in square proportions rather than the more familiar rectangular shape, giving the Olympic decorations their characteristic appearance.

The design faithfully reproduces the historical layout, colours and proportions of the original flag. The use of cotton also recreates the texture and natural appearance of period textiles, closely reflecting the materials commonly employed during the 1930s.

The 1936 Olympic Games introduced several innovations that later became standard features of the modern Olympics. They included some of the first experimental television broadcasts of sporting events, the extensive filming later released as Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia, and the first Olympic torch relay from Olympia in Greece to the host city, a tradition that has continued ever since.

Today, the Berlin Games remain one of the most extensively studied Olympic events of the twentieth century, both for their organisational innovations and for the historical context in which they took place.