Oliver Hilmes, an acclaimed biographer of Alma Mahler, Cosima Wagner, Franz Liszt and others, turns his sights on the 1936 Berlin Games, the “Nazi Olympics,” in Berlin 1936: Sixteen Days in August (Other Press). Employing an innovative novelistic approach, the author sketches the strange milieu — Nazi officials, diplomats, writers, socialites and locals — gathered for the spectacle in Berlin. Jewish runners Marty Glickman (misspelled as “Glickmann”) and Sam Stoller are replaced in the 4 X 100 relay, by Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe. And Hilmes mentions that Hitler avoids meeting Owens, winner of four gold medals — “I’m not shaking hands with this Negro” — and then skips all of the subsequent medial presentations. — Mordecai Specktor
