The Nazi Games: The most controversial Olympiad in history, the 1936 Summer Games were held in Elstal, a small village west of Berlin. The games were awarded to the German capital over Barcelona in April 1931, before Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers Party came to power in 1933. But they quickly became a massive propaganda tool for Hitler. Under the direction of Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, Germany successfully used the games to project an image of a tolerant and peaceful nation, even as Nazi concentration camps were under construction. To reach the largest audience possible, Goebbels saw to it that the games were the first to be broadcast live on television.