The 1916 Summer Olympics (german: Olympische Sommerspiele 1916), officially known as the Games of the VI Olympiad, were scheduled to be held in Berlin,

German Empire The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...

, but were eventually cancelled for the first time in its 20-year history due to the outbreak of World War I. Berlin was selected as the host city during the 14th IOC Session in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

on 4 July 1912, defeating bids from Alexandria, Amsterdam, Brussels, Budapest and Cleveland. After the 1916 Games were cancelled, Berlin would eventually host the

1936 Summer Olympics The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: ''Olympische Sommerspiele 1936''), officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad (German: ''Spiele der XI. Olympiade'') and commonly known as Berlin 1936 or the Nazi Olympics, were an international multi-sp ...

, twenty years later.

History

Work on the stadium, the Deutsches Stadion ("German Stadium"), began in 1912 at what was the

Grunewald Race Course The 1916 Summer Olympics (german: Olympische Sommerspiele 1916), officially known as the Games of the VI Olympiad, were scheduled to be held in Berlin, German Empire, but were eventually cancelled for the first time in its 20-year history due t ...

. It was planned to seat more than 18,000 spectators. On 8 June 1913, the stadium was dedicated with the release of 10,000 pigeons. 60,000 people were in attendance. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, organization continued as it was not expected that the war would continue for several years. Eventually, though, the Games were cancelled. A winter sports week with speed skating, figure skating, ice hockey and

Nordic skiing Nordic skiing encompasses the various types of skiing in which the toe of the ski boot is fixed to the Ski binding, binding in a manner that allows the heel to rise off the ski, unlike alpine skiing, where the boot is attached to the ski from toe ...

was planned; the concept of this week eventually gave rise to the first Winter Olympic Games. The central venue was to have been the Deutsches Stadion. If the games had been played, Finland would not have been allowed to take part by Russia, which revoked the autonomy of Finnish sport in 1914.finland100
/ref> Berlin returned to Olympic bidding in 1931, when it beat Barcelona, Spain, for the right to host the

, the last Olympics before the outbreak of World War II.

References

Cancelled events in Germany Cancelled Olympic Games Events cancelled due to World War I 1916 in multi-sport events Summer Olympics by year {{Summer-Olympic-stub

History

See also

References