BERLIN (AP) — An imposing stadium with a dark history will host the European Championship final between Spain and England on Sunday.
Built for the 1936 Olympic Games, Berlin's Olympic stadium still bears the scars of World War II and contains relics from its Nazi past.
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FILE - In this Aug. 11, 1936, file photo, America's Jesse Owens, center, salutes during the presentation of his gold medal for the long jump, alongside silver medalist Luz Long, right, of Germany, and bronze medalist Naoto Tajima, of Japan, during the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. Scars of World War II and relics from its Nazi past are preserved at Berlin's Olympiastadion. When Spain plays England in the European Championship final, they will be playing in a stadium that doesn't hide it was built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympic Games. (AP Photo/File)
The rainbow-illuminated Olympic Stadium is pictured in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, June 23, 2021. Scars of World War II and relics from its Nazi past are preserved at Berlin's Olympiastadion. When Spain plays England in the European Championship final, they will be playing in a stadium that doesn't hide it was built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympic Games. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)
The Olympic sports school building on the grounds of the former Reich Sports Field constructed for the 1936 Olympics is pictured in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. Scars of World War II and relics from its Nazi past are preserved at Berlin's Olympiastadion. When Spain plays England in the European Championship final, they will be playing in a stadium that doesn't hide it was built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympic Games. (AP Photo/Ciaran Fahey)
FILE - The Aug. 23, 2009 file photo shows the Olympic stadium pictured in Berlin. Scars of World War II and relics from its Nazi past are preserved at Berlin's Olympiastadion. When Spain plays England in the European Championship final, they will be playing in a stadium that doesn't hide it was built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympic Games. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)
FILE - In this Aug. 11, 1936, file photo, America's Jesse Owens, center, salutes during the presentation of his gold medal for the long jump, alongside silver medalist Luz Long, right, of Germany, and bronze medalist Naoto Tajima, of Japan, during the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. Scars of World War II and relics from its Nazi past are preserved at Berlin's Olympiastadion. When Spain plays England in the European Championship final, they will be playing in a stadium that doesn't hide it was built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympic Games. (AP Photo/File)
FILE - In this Aug. 4, 1936, file photo, American athlete Jesse Owens, left, breaks the tape in a record time of 21.1 seconds in the elimination heats of the men's 200-meter race at the Olympic Games race in Berlin, Germany. Scars of World War II and relics from its Nazi past are preserved at Berlin's Olympiastadion. When Spain plays England in the European Championship final, they will be playing in a stadium that doesn't hide it was built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympic Games. (AP Photo/File)
FILE - In this is Aug. 14, 1936 file photo, Jesse Owens competes in one of the heats of the 200-meter run at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Scars of World War II and relics from its Nazi past are preserved at Berlin's Olympiastadion. When Spain plays England in the European Championship final, they will be playing in a stadium that doesn't hide it was built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympic Games. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - In this Aug. 2, 1936 file photo Adolf Hitler and Colonel General Hermann Goering are on the grand stand in the stadium watching the events on the field at the Olympics in Berlin. Scars of World War II and relics from its Nazi past are preserved at Berlin's Olympiastadion. When Spain plays England in the European Championship final, they will be playing in a stadium that doesn't hide it was built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympic Games. (AP Photo, file)
A Nazi eagle with its swastika removed on a pillar outside Berlin's Olympiastadion, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. Scars of World War II and relics from its Nazi past are preserved at Berlin's Olympiastadion. When Spain plays England in the European Championship final, they will be playing in a stadium that doesn't hide it was built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympic Games. (AP Photo/Ciaran Fahey)
FILE - In this Feb. 21, 2021 file photo, the Olympic Stadium is illuminated as the sun sets after the German Bundesliga soccer match between Hertha BSC Berlin and RB Leipzig in Berlin, Germany. Scars of World War II and relics from its Nazi past are preserved at Berlin's Olympiastadion. When Spain plays England in the European Championship final, they will be playing in a stadium that doesn't hide it was built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympic Games. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, File)
But the Olympiastadion, as it's known in German, is also associated with the rebirth of a democratic Germany after the war. It hosted matches during the 1974 World Cup in what was then West Germany and again at the 2006 World Cup, 16 years after German reunification.
Adolf Hitler was personally involved in the design and construction of the 100,000-seat track-and-field stadium after the Nazis assumed power in 1933, two years after Germany had been awarded the 1936 Games.
Initially unenthused by the idea of hosting the Games, the Nazi dictator changed his mind after being convinced of their potential for propaganda.
Plans to remodel the existing national stadium were quickly scrapped in favor of constructing a whole new sports complex, the Reich Sports Field, on the same site. Werner March is credited as the architect of Olympiastadion.
Drawing inspiration from the Colosseum in Rome, the stadium was designed to impress. The Olympic Square in front of the main entrance is tapered, with flagpoles and lines of trees on either side heightening the sense of perspective. The idea was to increase the dramatic effect, raising visitors’ expectations and making them feel part of the event.
Up to 2,600 workers toiled on the Reich Sports Field at one stage to have it ready in time for the Games, which started Aug. 1, 1936. The Nazi regime's racist ideology deeply influenced the project as construction companies were told to only hire “complying, non-union workers of German citizenship and Aryan race.”
Hitler watched from his stadium balcony as Jesse Owens, the Black American athlete, won four gold medals to become the star of the Games, dealing a blow to Hitler's notions of racial superiority.
However, the Games also delivered a propaganda victory for Nazi Germany. It won more medals than any other country and presented to the world a carefully crafted image of peace and tolerance that Hitler and his associates wanted. It was arguably the world’s first major case of sportswashing.
Olympiastadion was decked with hundreds of Nazi flags for the Games, and a swastika adorned one of the two towers holding the Olympic rings above the entrance. The swastika was removed in 1945.
Members of the Nazi paramilitary SA, commonly known as the Brownshirts, were ordered to stop their attacks against Jews during July and August 1936.
The Nazis were already pushing Jewish athletes out of German sports and there were only two whom the Nazis considered half-Jewish who were allowed compete on the German team — fencer Helene Mayer and hockey player Rudi Ball.
“It was done to try and silence the critics a little bit,” said Ryan Balmer, a tour guide with degrees in modern history and literature who has lived in Berlin since 2008.
The Nazis also used he Reich Sports Field complex after the Olympics. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini visited in 1937, when he was welcomed by thousands of torch-carrying Nazis on the May Field behind the stadium. Up to 800,000 people reportedly took part.
Olympiastadion and the Reich Sports Field were damaged in the war, though the stadium escaped relatively unscathed compared to the devastation wrought by Allied bombers in more central areas of Berlin. Many surviving buildings were reused with their Nazi iconography removed.
Olympiastadion fell in the British sector after the city was divided between the four victorious powers — the Soviet Union, the U.S., France and Britain. The British reopened the stadium in 1946 and maintained their military headquarters in the former Reich Sports Field until 1994.
Little was done to Olympiastadion after the war. It and the former Reich Sports Field were given protected status in 1966, when Hitler's balcony was shortened by one meter. The biggest renovations were made before Germany's 2006 World Cup, when the stadium was crowned with a roof.
There are no attempts to hide the stadium’s Nazi past — modern-day Germany is adamant that the atrocities of the Nazi era should not be forgotten. Information signs in English and German are placed around the stadium to inform visitors about the site’s history.
While the swastikas have been removed, some Nazi relics remain. An eagle adorns a pillar beside what is now the training ground of Hertha Berlin, which plays its home games in the stadium. The old bell from the Bell Tower still displays a Nazi eagle and Olympic rings, but the swastika has been partially covered.
In a sign of Germany's post-war rehabilitation, a large conference room in the stadium and a road running along the sports field's southern perimeter have been named after Owens.
Visitors have mixed feelings about the stadium, which has a capacity of 71,000 during the European Championship. Many fans who attend matches at Olympiastadion are preoccupied with their respective teams' fortunes and pay little attention to the information signs.
Balmer said the stadium could use "a more prominent reminder of how and why places like this were built.”
Marian Wajselfisz, a Holocaust survivor who co-founded Jewish soccer club Makkabi Berlin in 1970, also rued that fans visiting the stadium — including Sunday’s final — are not made more aware of Nazi atrocities against Jews.
“It's a constant reminder of 1936 and the Olympics,” he said.
AP Euro 2024: https://apnews.com/hub/euro-2024
The rainbow-illuminated Olympic Stadium is pictured in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, June 23, 2021. Scars of World War II and relics from its Nazi past are preserved at Berlin's Olympiastadion. When Spain plays England in the European Championship final, they will be playing in a stadium that doesn't hide it was built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympic Games. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)
The Olympic sports school building on the grounds of the former Reich Sports Field constructed for the 1936 Olympics is pictured in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. Scars of World War II and relics from its Nazi past are preserved at Berlin's Olympiastadion. When Spain plays England in the European Championship final, they will be playing in a stadium that doesn't hide it was built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympic Games. (AP Photo/Ciaran Fahey)
FILE - The Aug. 23, 2009 file photo shows the Olympic stadium pictured in Berlin. Scars of World War II and relics from its Nazi past are preserved at Berlin's Olympiastadion. When Spain plays England in the European Championship final, they will be playing in a stadium that doesn't hide it was built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympic Games. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)
FILE - In this Aug. 11, 1936, file photo, America's Jesse Owens, center, salutes during the presentation of his gold medal for the long jump, alongside silver medalist Luz Long, right, of Germany, and bronze medalist Naoto Tajima, of Japan, during the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. Scars of World War II and relics from its Nazi past are preserved at Berlin's Olympiastadion. When Spain plays England in the European Championship final, they will be playing in a stadium that doesn't hide it was built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympic Games. (AP Photo/File)
FILE - In this Aug. 4, 1936, file photo, American athlete Jesse Owens, left, breaks the tape in a record time of 21.1 seconds in the elimination heats of the men's 200-meter race at the Olympic Games race in Berlin, Germany. Scars of World War II and relics from its Nazi past are preserved at Berlin's Olympiastadion. When Spain plays England in the European Championship final, they will be playing in a stadium that doesn't hide it was built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympic Games. (AP Photo/File)
FILE - In this is Aug. 14, 1936 file photo, Jesse Owens competes in one of the heats of the 200-meter run at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Scars of World War II and relics from its Nazi past are preserved at Berlin's Olympiastadion. When Spain plays England in the European Championship final, they will be playing in a stadium that doesn't hide it was built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympic Games. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - In this Aug. 2, 1936 file photo Adolf Hitler and Colonel General Hermann Goering are on the grand stand in the stadium watching the events on the field at the Olympics in Berlin. Scars of World War II and relics from its Nazi past are preserved at Berlin's Olympiastadion. When Spain plays England in the European Championship final, they will be playing in a stadium that doesn't hide it was built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympic Games. (AP Photo, file)
A Nazi eagle with its swastika removed on a pillar outside Berlin's Olympiastadion, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. Scars of World War II and relics from its Nazi past are preserved at Berlin's Olympiastadion. When Spain plays England in the European Championship final, they will be playing in a stadium that doesn't hide it was built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympic Games. (AP Photo/Ciaran Fahey)
FILE - In this Feb. 21, 2021 file photo, the Olympic Stadium is illuminated as the sun sets after the German Bundesliga soccer match between Hertha BSC Berlin and RB Leipzig in Berlin, Germany. Scars of World War II and relics from its Nazi past are preserved at Berlin's Olympiastadion. When Spain plays England in the European Championship final, they will be playing in a stadium that doesn't hide it was built by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympic Games. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The price of bitcoin surged to over $109,000 early Monday, just hours ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, as a pumped up cryptocurrency industry bets he'll take action soon after returning to the White House.
Once a skeptic who said a few years ago that bitcoin “ seems like a scam,” Trump has embraced digital currencies with a convert’s zeal. He's launched a new cryptocurrency venture and vowed on the campaign trail to take steps early in his presidency to make the U.S. into the “crypto capital” of the world.
His promises including creating a U.S. crypto stockpile, enacting industry-friendly regulation and event appointing a crypto “czar” for his administration.
“You’re going to be very happy with me,” Trump told crypto-enthusiasts at a bitcoin conference last summer.
Bitcoin is the world’s most popular cryptocurrency and was created in 2009 as a kind of electronic cash uncontrolled by banks or governments. It and newer forms of cryptocurrencies have moved from the financial fringes to the mainstream in wild fits and starts.
The highly volatile nature of cryptocurrencies as well as their use by criminals, scammers and rogue nations, has attracted plenty of critics, who say the digital currencies have limited utility and often are just Ponzi schemes.
But crypto has so far defied naysayers and survived multiple prolonged price drops in its short lifespan. Wealthy players in the crypto industry, which felt unfairly targeted by the Biden administration, spent heavily to help Trump win November’s election. Bitcoin has surged in price since Trump's victory, topping $100,000 for the first time last month before briefly sliding down to about $90,000. On Friday, it rose about 5%. It jumped more than $9,000 early Monday, according to CoinDesk.
Two years ago, bitcoin was trading at about $20,000.
Trump’s picks for key cabinet and regulatory positions are stocked with crypto supporters, including his choice to lead the Treasury and Commerce departments and the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Key industry players held a first ever "Crypto Ball” on Friday to celebrate the first “crypto president." The event was sold out, with tickets costing several thousand dollars.
Here’s a look at some detailed action Trump might take in the early days of his administration:
As a candidate Trump promised that he would create a special advisory council to provide guidance on creating “clear” and “straightforward” regulations on crypto within the first 100 days of his presidency.
Details about the council and its membership are still unclear, but after winning November’s election, Trump named tech executive and venture capitalist David Sacks to be the administration’s crypto “czar.” Trump also announced in late December that former North Carolina congressional candidate Bo Hines will be the executive director of the “Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets.”
At last year’s bitcoin conference, Trump told crypto supporters that new regulations “will be written by people who love your industry, not hate your industry.” Trump's pick to lead the SEC, Paul Atkins, has been a strong advocate for cryptocurrencies.
Crypto investors and companies chafed as what they said was a hostile Biden administration that went overboard in unfair enforcement actions and accounting policies that have stifled innovation in the industry — particularly at the hands of outgoing SEC Chairman Gary Gensler.
“As far as general expectations from the Trump Administration, I think one of the best things to bet on is a tone change at the SEC,” said Peter Van Valkenburgh, the executive director of the advocacy group Coin Center.
Gensler, who is set to leave as Trump takes office, said in a recent interview with Bloomberg that he’s proud of his office’s actions to police the crypto industry, which he said is “rife with bad actors.”
Trump also promised that as president he’ll ensure the U.S. government stockpiles bitcoin, much like it already does with gold. At the bitcoin conference earlier this summer, Trump said it the U.S. government would keep, rather than auction off, the billions of dollars in bitcoin it has seized through law enforcement actions.
Crypto advocates have posted a draft executive order online that would establish a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” as a “permanent national asset” to be administered by the Treasury Department through its Exchange Stabilization Fund. The draft order calls for the Treasury Department to eventually hold at least $21 billion in bitcoin.
Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming has proposed legislation mandating the U.S. government stockpile bitcoin, which advocates said would help diversify government holdings and hedge against financial risks. Critics say bitcoin’s volatility make it a poor choice as a reserve asset.
Creating such a stockpile would also be a “giant step in the direction of bitcoin becoming normalized, becoming legitimatized in the eyes of people who don’t yet see it as legitimate,” said Zack Shapiro, an attorney who is head of policy at the Bitcoin Policy Institute.
At the bitcoin conference earlier this year, Trump received loud cheers when he reiterated a promise to commute the life sentence of Ross Ulbricht, the convicted founder of the drug-selling website Silk Road that used crypto for payments.
Ulbricht’s case has energized some crypto advocates and Libertarian activists, who believe government investigators overreached in building their case against Silk Road.
FILE - Donald Trump speaks at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference July 27, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)