The Organizing Committee provided active participants, accompanying officials, and members of the National Olympic Committees and the IOC, with Olympic identity cards. The cards were sent to the National Olympic Committees who took responsibility for their being filled-out, certified, and distributed.

The statistics of the issue of Olympic identity cards showed the ratio between the number of active team members and the total number of cards issued. Altogether one-third of the total number went to active competitors. Accordingly, about two-thirds of the identity cards were issued to officials, judges, or to persons accompanying the teams or standing in some relation or other to them. It was not possible for the Organizing Committee to check the persons to whom Olympic identity cards were given as it was entrusted to the National Olympic Committees to account properly for their distribution. The lists of the identity cards issued were handed in to the Organizing Committee at the time when teams arrived. Speaking generally, the large number of non-active persons who had received identity cards came as a surprise to the Organizing Committee, which had itself been very sparing in the issue of these special passes.
 

The Olympic identity card entitled the holder to the following privileges:

1. Grant of the German travel vise free of charge by the German consular authorities.

2 . Reduced fares on all steamship, railway and air lines of the world. The extent of the reduction could be seen in a booklet published by the Organizing Committee, "Travel and Transport Reductions."

3 . Customs facilities granted by the Reich Ministry of Finance.

4 . 50% reduction in fares on the German State Railway, and free baggage up to 75 kilogrammes including sports apparatus.

5 . Free travel on all Berlin systems of transportation.

6 . Special advantages for the "Chefs de Mission" after arrival in Berlin; these including the right of admission to the seats reserved for competitors in the Stadium.

The Olympia identity card did not confer the right of free admission to the scenes of competition
without a participants' badge or participants' ticket.

(Source document: Official Report 1936 Berlin, Vol. I, page 256)