Hosting 2036 Olympics would be historically problematic, says German president

Three German cities and the Rhine-Ruhr region have already expressed interest in hosting the Olympic Games, but Steinmeier says the move would be historically problematic.

Steinmeier disapproves of 2036 Olympics in Germany

Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has said that it would be inappropriate for Germany to host the 2036 Olympics 100 years after the Games were hosted by Nazi Germany.

In the first-ever Games to be televised, the Nazi Party used the 1936 tournament as an opportunity to broadcast its antisemitic, racist and nationalistic ideology to the world. 

Nazi propaganda filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl was commissioned to produce Olympia, and Lithuania was barred from competing in retaliation for trying Nazi leaders in the early 1930s, namely Theodor von Sass and Ernst Neumann.

Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and the Rhine-Ruhr region have already expressed interest in hosting the Games in 2036, 2040 or 2044. And in October 2025, 66 percent of Munich residents voted in favour of submitting an official bid to host one of the coming tournaments.

On April 19, 2026, residents in 17 cities across the Rhine-Ruhr region will have their say on whether to submit an official bid. Hamburgers will do the same on May 31. At the end of September, the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) will decide which location to nominate.

Berlin politicians claim dropping out of bid is too expensive

Steinmeier’s statement comes at the same time as claims from the Berlin Senate that dropping out of an official bid for the Games would be too expensive.

According to the Senate Interior Administration, the plan to hold a referendum under the slogan “For Berlin – against the Olympics. We say no to a bid for the Olympic Games in 2036, 2040 and 2044” would cost “up to 1 million euros”.

Gabriele Hiller, a representative of the referendum initiation group “NOlympia”, called the Senate’s estimation a “political smokescreen” and accused local politicians of making a naive calculation designed to “convince Berliners that it is more expensive not to host the Games than to host them”. 

While the International Olympic Committee (IOC) often advertises hosting as an opportunity for a national economic boost, a 2016 study published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives found that “in most cases, the Olympics are a money-losing proposition for host cities”.

The study found that hosting the Games “result[s] in positive net benefits only under very specific and unusual circumstances” and can be considered an “increasingly poor investment decision”.