Still, in 1936 I'm sure the wide boulevard street that runs from the Heer Straße (the western end of the main arterial route through Berlin that becomes Unter den Linden and eventually runs under the Brandenburg Gate) up to the Olympic Stadium, with its broad pavements (side-walks) and expansive central median (now used for the typically 'Berlin' herring-bone parking) would have been lined with little kiosks selling tourist trinkets and memorabilia of the 1936 Olympic Games.
Others stands would have been selling 'Bratties mitt pommes-frits und mayo'...but that's another story!
This was just the sort of little inexpensive item you could carry away on the day, send back to relatives elsewhere or abroad and which with the odd glueing over the years and the acquisition of a fine layer of nicotine has lasted to this day.
8 comments:
Odd but interesting item, and with its fair share of charm - well sort of.
Don't know why, but recently every thing being german and old makes me crave for some bratwurst and weissbier. That's the way nostalgia works for me!
Funnily enough - after publishing the post I re-read it to check for mistakes I'd missed in edit (funny how you can look at something 15 times and then spot two mistakes as soon as you change the colour of the background!), and reading that line made me hungry too!
So I went and had a sugary coffee, not a meal, but you can convince yourself for a few minutes that you've had something substantial!
Hugh
Me too had to do without bratwurst, but bread and truffle isn't bad either so I'm happy enough - even if I won't be able to talk to anyone for a few hours, since my breath now stinks like hell!
That is really interesting and just the kind of thing that any collector would love to have. I think it is charming too.
Thanks Anne. 'interesting' it is...the charm is more in the naivety of the folk art, although; at the time ('36) Nazism was yet to fulfil it's terrible potential, and while - yes - on one level the SA were very much like the modern uniformed BNP or the NF of the '70's, on another level they saw themselves as a 'Germanic' boys scouts or boys brigade, and one has to bear that in mind when looking at them...or deciding whether or not to put them on the blog!!
They're just marching along, playing some of that awful music you get on Radio Tuttlingen, welcoming people to 'their' Games.
Like the Queen not jumping out of a helicopter; but in brown shorts!
Hugh
Bread and Truffle? You casually run bread and truffle past us as an acceptable mid-afternoon snack and expect us to remain friends!!!
You cruel man...
H
Funny, after ten years in Germany how many of these little souvenirs I DIDN'T see :-) I wasn't a toy collector back then though and would probably have passed it up even if one did come my way.
Hi Ed
I've been on and off in Germany from the 70's to the 2010's and I've never seen them there either (watch this space for the 'them'), but a German would be very unlikely to admit to such a thing, although I'm sure there are a few in attics and basements, and in Austria as well - I'll bet!
But this and some other stuff turned-up in the UK where it's easier to pass it off as a 'curio' Granddad brought back from the Olympics - or the war?
Hugh
Post a Comment