Hitler
thought it was a good idea. So did Goebbels.
The rest of the world?
Not so much. We speak today of the Berlin Olympic Games,
which opened
on this day in 1936.
To be fair, getting the Olympics for Germany wasn't originally a Nazi idea --
the Games were awarded
to Germany in 1931, before Hitler came to power. Still, the National Socialist Party saw the Olympic Games as an opportunity to show off the alleged superiority
of the Aryan race. There were calls for a boycott,
which was opposed by worthies as different as President Franklin D. Roosevelt and United States Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage
(whom many suspected was a Nazi sympathizer). There was even an alternate competition set up in
Spain, though it was canceled due to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.
Despite the controversy, the games went on as scheduled -- and were even televised (granted, it was a limited
broadcast, but there's no telling who was watching). Hitler's celebration was spoiled,
however, when his German supermen were upstaged by a young African
American from Alabama named Jesse Owens,
who won four gold medals (thanks to tips from German competitor Lutz Long
and Brundage's demand that Jewish sprinter Marty Glickman
be replaced on the 4x100 meter relay team), shattering Hitler's scheme.
Of course, history being what it is, not everything went as we in the 21st
century might have hoped. Germany did indeed win the most medals,
but more interestingly, Owens had a freedom in Germany that he didn't in America,
and was able to frequent the best hotels and restaurants with no worries about
segregation. When he returned to America, not only did he not get so much as a
telegram of congratulations from FDR,
he had to take the freight elevator to attend his own welcome-home celebration at the restricted Waldorf-Astoria
hotel.
Suggested Sites...
- International Olympic Committee: 1936 Olympics - official history of the Games.
- Jesse Owens.com - home of the one-time fastest man in the world.
- Wikipedia: 1936 Summer Olympics - good overview of the Games and the controversy surrounding them.
- Television History: 1936 Berlin Olympics - information about the first live TV coverage of a sporting event.
- History News Network: Hitler's Ambitious Plans for the 1936 Olympics - how the Fuhrer planned to exploit the Games.
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