Six Minutes in Berlin

Michael J. Socolow tells the story of the University of Washington's eight-oared shell's victory in the two-thousand-meter final race at the 1936 Olympics rowing regatta—an achievement that the CBS reporter Bill Henry hyped as the “outstanding victory” of the Berlin games (p. 5). Socolow's rowing story is contextualized within two other stories: the still-controversial “Nazi Olympics” and the revolution in modern radio sportscasting that occurred during the 1936 games. Based mostly on a limited number of English-language sources, Socolow's broad account of the games is a disappointment. His statement that the Olympic torch relay began at Mount Olympus and his suggestion that the port city Kiel is a part of greater Berlin are both glaring blunders (pp. 7, 105). His occasional translation of German terms tends to muddy rather than clarify the narrative waters. (Völkisch is about as far from “democratic” as can be imagined [p. 164]). Conversely, the detailed account of the Reichsrundfunkgesellschaft's highly organized and technologically advanced shortwave broadcast facilities is excellent. That the Berlin games marked a transition from catch-as-catch-can to highly sophisticated modern communications (in television and radio) is undeniable. Additionally, Socolow provides biographical sketches of the most important American and German sportscasters of the games. Quite plausible is the claim that Harold Abraham's emotional outburst cheering his friend Jack Lovelock to victory in the 1500-meter race was a transformational moment in the evolution of radio sportscasting from calmly neutral to passionately partisan. Much less plausible are the many assertions (à la Marshall McLuhan) about radio as a medium. “Radio ... is alive, experiential, participatory, and ephemeral” (p. 8

Art · Art history · German · Literature · Media studies · Narrative · Nazism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Spectacle · Victory · Cinema and Media Studies · European history and politics · History · Law · Media Studies and Communication