How the Nazi leader made use of sports for his own ends, from his utilization of the 1936 Olympics to showcase the Nazi state, to the political importance given to the Joe Louis and Max Schmeling matches Adolf Hitler understood the importance of sports, and this book outlines how he exercised his malign and dangerous influence to try to coopt them for the Nazi cause. He intended to own the Olympic movement, housing it permanently in Berlin from 1940 in a stadium seating 450,000 people, while his hijack of the 1936 Games remains one of the sports world's most controversial events. Austria was forced to withdraw from the 1938 soccer World Cup just days before it started because the country no longer existed. The boxing matches between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling in 1936 and 1938 came to represent democracy versus fascism. German technology crushed all comers in Grand Prix racing, as well as the Isle of Man TT. Hitler even set up a government ministry to use physical fitness to prepare the population for war.