As we view the Winter Olympics on television, Mike Bondy looks back 70 years to the event which Adolf Hitler presided over.

ON May 13, 1931, the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Belgian Count Henri de Baillet-Latour, announced that the German capital Berlin would be hosting the Summer Olympics of 1936.

As the rules then permitted, the German National Olympic Committee immediately said that it was exercising the right to organise the Winter Games at the neighbouring towns of Garmisch and Partenkirchen in the Bavarian Alps. The IOC gave its agreement.

At that time Germany was still a democratic country, but two years later the political climate changed dramatically when Adolf Hitler, leader of the extreme right-wing National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party, was appointed Chancellor.

Germany was soon turned into a police state and its anti-semitic views were no longer a secret.

America and some European nations questioned the morality of supporting an Olympics hosted by a country whose policies ran so contrary to the ideals that inspired the games.

However in 1933 the IOC decreed that the games would go ahead as with one important stipulation: the Germans should not exclude Jews from participating.

The Nazis pledged fair treatment for all athletes.

On February 6, 1936, a crowd of 50,000 watched Adolf Hitler declare the fourth Winter Olympic Games open.

Almost all the great nations were participating, 28 in total, but a notable exception was the Soviet Union which still showed little interest in the games. There were 668 athletes taking part, 80 of them women.

Alpine (downhill) ski-ing was introduced for the first time but the event was marred by controversy before it had even started.

Ski instructors were classed as professionals, and therefore ineligible for Olympic competition.

It proved an unpopular move, especially with Austria and Switzerland which were unable to enter some of their finest skiers and boycotted these events.

The ice hockey tournament provided the biggest upset.

Overwhelming favourites Canada were unhappy that 11 players who had emigrated to Canada were eligible to play for Great Britain.

In the interests of international goodwill, the Canadians withdrew their protest.

After the preliminary matches, Great Britain faced Canada. After just 30 seconds play Barking-born Gerry Davey put Great Britain ahead but Canada equalised after 13 minutes.

With only 90 seconds Edgar Chirp' Brenchley scored to give Great Britain a 2-1 victory.

Having defeated Czechoslovakia 5-0, Great Britain needed only a draw against the United States to win the gold medal.

With 39-year-old skipper Carl Erhardt providing motivation and Jimmy Foster proving himself the best goal-tender in the tournament Great Britain got there with a 0-0 scoreline.

It made Great Britain the Olympic ice hockey champion for the only time in its history.

The brightest star and biggest personality at these 1936 Winter Olympics was undoubtedly "The Queen of The Ice", 23-year-old Norwegian figure-skating star Sonja Henie.

She had already won two Olympic gold medals and nine consecutive World Championships.

Blonde and beautiful, she revolutionised women's figure skating with her short skirts, white skates and balletic routines choreographed to the music.

It seemed nothing would halt her progress to a third successive Olympic triumph but a cheeky underdog from Great Britain, Cecilia Colledge, came very close to upsetting the odds.

In the opening compulsory figures Cecilia finished just three points behind her great rival. The British girl's free-skating display had the ice stadium in an uproar.

Sonja Henie, skating last, gave the performance of her life to win gold and leave Cecilia with a well merited Olympic silver medal.

Great Britain gained a third medal when the four-man bobsled team of Frederick McEvoy, James Cardno, Guy Dugdale and Charles Green took bronze.

The biggest individual medal winner was speed skater from Norway, Ivar Ballangrud, who won three gold and one silver.

The Nazi administration allowed only German photographers access to the Olympic events and their work was vetted for international distribution.

All anti-Jewish signs had been removed and there was no sign of the fervently right-wing newspaper Der Sturmer (The Stormer) Western journalists observed and reported troop manoeuvres nearby.

As a result, the Nazi regime would try to downplay the military presence at the Summer Olympics.

It would be 12 years before another Winter Olympics.

The outbreak of war in 1939 shut down competition until 1948 when the Winter Games was resurrected in St Moritz, Switzerland.