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On the face of it, the
XIth Olympiad in Berlin in 1936 was a triumph for the Nazi government
and its leader, Adolf Hitler.
Berlin Games How Hitler Stole the Olympic Dream by Guy Walters is an interesting read. At least, that appears to be the conclusion of Guy Walters in this excellent book. The world was amazed by the Teutonic gift for organisation. A record 49 countries participated. The Games generated a profit. The Olympic Stadium, which held over 100,000 spectators, wowed everyone. The athletes were housed in relative luxury. The Germans introduced the bringing of the Olympic flame by torch from Olympia, a journey of 2,000 miles involving 3,075 runners. There were giant television screens, albeit with dodgy pictures, dotted around the city to relay the action. Walters also reveals the extent to which the Nazis were prepared to go to persuade the world how great a country Germany was. All traces of anti-Semitism were concealed, though no German athletes of Jewish descent were selected to compete. There was one exception, the brilliant blonde fencer Helen Mayer. She, however, renounced her Jewish origins to make it to the team. Regarded as a certainty for gold, she finished up with silver. Amid all the hype of the Nazis’ chase for political credibility through sport, ran such hypocrisy. Walters points out the irony of Jesse Owens’ situation as a black American victimised in his own country because of race, yet lionised by the Berlin public as he dented Hitler’s dream of an Aryan "master race" (aka the German team) running away with glory in track and field. Owens won four gold medals. Few dignitaries, or the International Olympic Committee as a whole, emerge with much credit, least of all Avery Brundage, who eventually became head of the IOC. Oddly, 36 years later and again in Germany, Brundage was involved in another unsavoury Olympiad when he ordered that the Munich Games continue after Palestinian terrorists took hostage and murdered 11 Israeli athletes and officials. The closing speech of the IOC president in Berlin, with the traditional invitation for the youth of the world to assemble in four years’ time, in Tokyo, has to be one of the more ironic statements of the 20th century. Hitler had envisaged Germany hosting all future Olympiads, but there were to be no Games at all for 12 years. The youth of the world did assemble a few years later, however, laying down their lives to thwart the tyranny of Hitler. —By arrangement with The Independent
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