Grunewald Forest is the ancient woodland west of Berlin that helps situate the inspection of the old Deutsches Stadion before the 1936 Olympics. From an elevated spot near the stadium, it formed one side of a landscape whose other horizon was the city: a place where princely hunting grounds had become a public setting for hiking, picnicking, and gathering mushrooms.

Setting and Past Uses

The forest lay west of the inspection site, which stood about a hundred feet above the heart of Berlin. Sixteenth-century German princes had hunted stags and wild boars there. By the 1930s, Berliners of all classes used the woodland for hiking, picnicking, and foraging for mushrooms. The change in use places a history of aristocratic recreation beside a more broadly shared present-day landscape.

The Stadium Inspection

A few days before the account turns to the Washington crew’s autumn training, Werner March and Adolf Hitler arrived by armored Mercedes-Benz to inspect the old Deutsches Stadion, then being renovated for the 1936 Olympics. The forest occupied the western view from the slightly raised site; to the east, Berlin’s church spires and peaked rooftops rose above trees colored red and gold. Grunewald Forest is thus part of the scene’s geographic orientation, not the inspection’s destination: the view sets woodland, city, and Olympic construction in relation to one another.

Narrative Significance

The forest’s presence links the stadium to a landscape older than the Olympic project. Its recreational use by Berliners of all classes also makes the setting broader than the political officials and architect gathered to inspect the building. In the scene, the woodland and the city establish the surroundings against which the stadium’s renovation—and Germany’s preparations to host the Games—unfold.