Night performances in the Olympic Stadium, Berlin 1937

From high in the stands the field lies in floodlight like a stage in the dark. Rows of figures in white stand as on a chessboard, run forward, halt and together trace a giant eagle on a swastika that glows against the black ground. Dozens of small rings of children turn in round dances and join into a long spiral, a star and finally one dense ring, while the heads of spectators appear in silhouette in the foreground. Performers hurry round tall lit scaffolds, a rectangle of white figures frames riders and acrobats, and hundreds crowd under two glaring lamps.

Werner March built the stadium for the 1936 Olympic Games; afterwards the regime used it as a stage for its own festivals and sports displays. The occasion of these evenings is not recorded, though it was not the Olympics. Like the Cathedral of Light at Nuremberg, such spectacles turned thousands of individuals into a single emblem of the state.