Berlin bids for the Olympics with four other countries

Berlin wants to bring the Olympic Games and Paralympics to Germany together with Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein. According to dpa, the bid will be presented next Tuesday in Berlin's Olympic Stadium. It initially remained unclear which year the bid, entitled "Berlin plus", would be for.

The heads of the federal states Kai Wegner (CDU/Berlin), Dietmar Woidke (SPD/Brandenburg), Manuela Schwesig (SPD/Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) and Daniel Günther (CDU/Schleswig-Holstein) will be present. The Interior Minister responsible for sport, Armin Schuster (CDU), is to come from Saxony.

Leipzig's Lord Mayor Burkhard Jung had previously announced the date in the Leipziger Volkszeitung newspaper and spoke of a bid for 2040. North Rhine-Westphalia will also present its plans for the Games on the Rhine and Ruhr next Wednesday.

Application to be submitted in fall 2026

The applicants must first submit refined concepts to the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) by the end of May as part of a so-called three-stage model. These will be checked for compliance with the minimum requirements and the corresponding plausibility by the end of September 2025. All concepts that pass this review will be presented at the General Assembly at the end of this year. However, no decisions will be made at that time.

The final decision on a German bid concept should be made by fall 2026 at the latest. The whole thing will then have to be approved by the DOSB members. The last Olympic Games in Germany took place in Munich in 1972.