Spain and England to contest Euro 2024 final in a former Nazi stadium where Jesse Owens won gold

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.

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)

MIAMI (AP) — Tropical storm conditions were expected along a stretch of the southeastern U.S. coast with a system bringing gusty winds, heavy rain and potential flooding, forecasters said Monday.

The storm system was expected to reach the South Carolina coast Monday afternoon and then move inland across the Carolinas from Monday night through Wednesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Strong winds were approaching the coast Monday morning and were expected to spread onshore.

The system didn't have an official name yet, and forecasters weren't sure if Potential Tropical Cyclone No. 8 would ever organize enough to be named Helene.

But no matter its classification, the storm prompted school closings, including Coastal Carolina University, and flooded the streets south of Wilmington, North Carolina, with more than a foot (30 centimeters) of rain while nearby Wrightsville Beach had a wind gust of 65 mph (105 kph).

A tropical storm warning was in effect from the South Santee River north of Charleston, South Carolina, northward to Ocracoke Inlet, near the southernmost extreme of North Carolina's Outer Banks.

Late Monday morning, the low-pressure system was centered about 95 miles (150 kilometers) east of Charleston and about 70 miles (115 kilometers) south of Cape Fear, North Carolina. It had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph) and was moving to the north-northwest at 5 mph (7 kph), forecasters said.

The system still had a chance of becoming a tropical or subtropical storm, but forecasters said those chances are decreasing because it was becoming less organized.

That means the strongest winds in the storm are in outer rain bands instead of near the center, said Carl Morgan, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's office in Wilmington.

“There are still strong winds out there. They just not concentrating near a center,” Morgan said.

Areas along the coast are already experiencing higher water levels thanks to King Tides this week while the moon is the closest to Earth in its orbit. Charleston was not predicting major flooding, but officials warned residents to be ready in case heavy rain came at high tide.

In an updated hurricane outlook last month the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was still predicting a highly active Atlantic hurricane season thanks to near-record sea surface temperatures and the possibility of La Nina. Emergency management officials have urged people to stay prepared.

Maximum winds were expected to decrease as the low approached the coast, but tropical storm-force winds were still expected within the warning areas. The system will likely dissipate over the Carolinas by late Wednesday, forecasters said.

The storm was expected to dump 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) of rain in northeast South Carolina into southeast North Carolina and up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) in isolated spots, with smaller amounts expected across the remainder of North Carolina through Tuesday, according to forecasters.

Over much of Virginia, 1 to 3 inches (2.5 to 8 centimeters) of rainfall, with locally higher amounts, were expected from Monday night through Wednesday. The hurricane center predicted the rainfall could lead to isolated and scattered flash and urban flooding, as well as minor river flooding.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Gordon weakened to a depression as it swirls through open ocean waters. Gordon could either dissolve in upcoming days or strengthen back into a tropical storm, forecasters said.

This image provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows tropical storm conditions along a stretch of the U.S. Southeast seacoast, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (NOAA via AP)