Can you visit Olympiastadion Berlin, and how much does it cost?

Yes. On normal open days you can walk in without booking. A self-guided ticket is 11 EUR for adults, 8 EUR reduced, and 6 EUR for children aged 6 to 14, bought at the visitor centre at Olympischer Platz 3 or online. A 4 EUR multimedia guide adds a GPS audio tour of about 75 to 100 minutes in English.

What are the opening hours of Olympiastadion Berlin?

On open days the self-guided visit usually runs from around 11:00 to 18:00, with last entry about 30 minutes before closing. The hours change often depending on matches and events and can change at short notice, so check olympiastadion.berlin for your exact date before you head out.

Is Olympiastadion open on match days and event days?

Not for walk-ins. On Hertha BSC home games and major events the visitor centre closes and the self-guided route stops. On those days only guided tours run, and they sell out, so book ahead. If your date is an event day, it is often better to see the match or concert itself.

How do you get to Olympiastadion by public transport?

Take S-Bahn line S3 or S9 to S Olympiastadion, or U-Bahn line U2 to Olympia-Stadion. Both stations are a short walk from the gates and both sit inside Berlin's AB fare zone, so a normal Berlin city ticket covers the trip. It is about 20 to 30 minutes from the centre.

What is there to see at Olympiastadion?

The stands and bowl, the running track, and the Marathon Gate with its eternal-flame cauldron and the original cracked 1936 Olympic bell displayed at ground level. This is where Jesse Owens won four gold medals in 1936. A guided tour also reaches the players' tunnel and dressing rooms, and the separate Glockenturm bell tower gives the widest view over the Olympic Park.

Why is Olympiastadion Berlin historically important?

It was built for the 1936 Summer Olympics under the Nazi regime as a showcase of power, with the neighbouring Maifeld used for rallies. Those Games are remembered above all for Jesse Owens, the Black American athlete whose four golds undercut Nazi racial propaganda. The stadium survived the war, was renovated for the 2006 World Cup, and hosted the Euro 2024 final.

Is Olympiastadion worth visiting?

If you have an interest in history or sport, yes. Standing in the bowl where the 1936 Games happened, and reading how the site has been reused since, is genuinely moving. It is out in the west and takes a half-morning, so it suits a slower day rather than a packed first-time itinerary. Seeing a Hertha match is the most memorable way to experience it.

Olympiastadion Berlin: How to Visit the 1936 Olympic Stadium

Yusuf Ucuz
Jul 12
5 min read

Updated: Jul 22

Most Berlin landmarks that carry this much history are ruins, memorials or museums behind glass. The Olympiastadion is different. The stadium the Nazi regime built for the 1936 Summer Olympics is still standing, almost fully intact, and still full of noise most weekends. Hertha BSC play their league games here, the German cup final lands every May, and in the summer the bowl fills for concerts. On a normal day you can buy an 11 EUR ticket and walk straight in.

That mix is exactly what makes it worth the trip out west. You are not looking at a preserved relic. You are standing in a working stadium that happens to be one of the most loaded pieces of architecture in the city.

The Olympic flame cauldron on its pillars at the Marathon Gate inside Berlin's Olympiastadion, framed by the stadium roof opening

Inside the Marathon Gate: the cauldron that held the Olympic flame in 1936, framed by the stadium's roof opening.

What Olympiastadion Berlin actually is

Olympiastadion Berlin was built between 1934 and 1936 for the Summer Olympics, designed by the architect Werner March as a showpiece for the regime. Everything about it was meant to project power: the heavy limestone bowl, the long axis, and the neighbouring Maifeld, a vast field laid out for rallies and mass gymnastics rather than sport.

Those Games are remembered above all for one man. Jesse Owens, a Black American sprinter and long jumper, won four gold medals here in front of the Nazi leadership, and the crowd cheered him. It is the single most famous thing that ever happened in this stadium, and it happened as a direct rebuke to the racial propaganda the whole site was designed to serve.

The stadium survived the Second World War largely undamaged, which is rare for anything in central Berlin. After the war the British military ran the grounds for decades. A major renovation between 2000 and 2004 added the distinctive floating roof and modernised the interior for the 2006 World Cup final. It has kept hosting the biggest football nights since, including the Euro 2024 final.

The twin stone towers of Berlin's Olympiastadion east gate with the Olympic rings hanging between them under a grey sky

The east gate towers with the Olympic rings between them, the face most people picture when they think of the stadium.

How to visit: tickets, hours and the one thing that catches people out

On a normal day this is one of the easiest big sights in Berlin to see. You buy a self-guided ticket at the visitor centre at Olympischer Platz 3 and walk in on your own.

Self-guided visit: 11 EUR adults, 8 EUR reduced, 6 EUR for children aged 6 to 14, and 27 EUR for a family card.
Multimedia guide: add 4 EUR for a GPS handset that walks you round the grounds in about 75 to 100 minutes, in English and several other languages.
Opening hours: open days usually run from around 11:00 to 18:00, with last entry roughly 30 minutes before closing.

Here is the catch nobody warns you about. On Hertha BSC home games and major events, the visitor centre closes and you cannot just walk in. On those days only guided tours run, and they sell out. So the worst version of this trip is arriving on a match Saturday, finding the walk-in shut, and having travelled 30 minutes for nothing.

The fix is simple: check olympiastadion.berlin for your exact date before you go, because the hours also change at short notice. The planner below lets you set the kind of day you are visiting on, then shows what is actually open and how you would see it.

What you see inside

The self-guided route gives you the bowl itself: the steep rings of seating, the running track, and the pitch in the middle. Around the western opening you reach the Marathon Gate, with its eternal-flame cauldron on tall pillars and, on the ground nearby, the original 1936 Olympic bell. The bell is cracked, and the swastika on it has been deliberately left in place as a historical document rather than erased. Standing next to it is one of those quiet Berlin moments where the history stops being abstract.

Information boards fill in the rest as you walk. If you want more than that, a guided tour is the only way into the parts the self-guided route skips, typically the players' tunnel, the dressing rooms and the VIP areas, with the full story of the 1936 Games and the 2006 rebuild.

Olympiastadion Berlin at night, floodlit and full for an athletics event with flags around the roof

The bowl full and floodlit for an athletics night. Seeing the stadium in use is a completely different experience from an empty walk-in.

If your dates line up, the most memorable way to experience the place is at an actual event. A Hertha league game, the ISTAF athletics meet in late summer, or a concert all give you the scale and noise that an empty stadium simply cannot. Even a lower-stakes fixture is worth it for the atmosphere in a 74,000-seat bowl.

The Glockenturm: the best view most people skip

Just west of the stadium, above the Maifeld, stands the Glockenturm, the bell tower. A lift takes you up to the widest view of the whole area: the stadium bowl, the Maifeld, the Waldbühne amphitheatre, and the forests and lakes stretching out toward the edge of the city. It is quieter than the stadium and gives you the clearest sense of how huge this complex really is.

One thing to know: the Glockenturm has its own entrance and ticket, separate from the stadium. Treat it as a second stop rather than part of the walk-in. If you like a good high view, it pairs naturally with Berlin's other climbable landmarks like the Victory Column.

The Glockenturm bell tower rising behind the Maifeld grandstands in Berlin's Olympic Park

The Glockenturm above the Maifeld. Its lift takes you to the widest view over the whole Olympic Park.

Aerial view of Berlin's Olympiastadion set among the forests of the Olympic Park in the west of the city

From the air, the stadium sits in green parkland out in Berlin's west, a half-morning trip from the centre.

Getting there, and why it is cheap

The stadium is out in Westend, in the west of the city, but public transport drops you almost at the gates.

S-Bahn: line S3 or S9 to S Olympiastadion, then a short walk to the south or east gate.
U-Bahn: line U2 to Olympia-Stadion, about five minutes from the entrance.

The good news for the wallet: both stations sit inside Berlin's AB fare zone, so a standard city ticket covers the trip. There is no need for the wider C zone here. If you are unsure which ticket that means, my guides to Berlin's AB and ABC zones and the difference between the U-Bahn and S-Bahn sort it out. From the centre, count on 20 to 30 minutes each way.

Is it worth the trip?

Honestly, it depends on who you are. If you have any interest in history or sport, yes, without hesitation. Standing in the bowl where the 1936 Games unfolded, reading how the site was built for propaganda and then reused for decades afterwards, is one of the more thought-provoking half-mornings in Berlin. It sits well next to the city's other hard-history sites like the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

If it is your first visit and you have only two or three days, I would be honest with you: the stadium is a detour to the west, and the dense old centre has more per hour. My own free walking tour stays in that historic core and does not come out here, which is exactly why the Olympiastadion works better as its own slower morning. If you are trying to slot it sensibly into a wider trip, the Ultimate Berlin Trip Planner helps you place it on the right day. And whatever you do, check the official visitBerlin listing or the stadium site first, so a match day does not close the door on you.

Image credits

Stadium interior with the flame cauldron: Jan Künzel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
East gate towers with Olympic rings: Michael Barera, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Floodlit night athletics view: Tobi 87, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Aerial view over the Olympic Park: Olaf Tausch, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Glockenturm above the Maifeld: Gunnar Klack, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.