The Olympic games have been around since the time of the ancient Greeks, being a showcase of physical feats and sport prowess. After Germany won the bid for the Olympic games in 1931, the Nazis would unfortunately be able to use it to showcase the country’s technological and economic prowess to the world. In the process they would also set the precedent for all Olympic games to come.
Kyle Brett explains.
The torch relay for the Summer Olympic Games, 1936. Source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1976-116-08A / CC-BY-SA 3.0, available here.
Germany wins the Olympic bid
Germany originally won the Olympic bid to host the summer games in Berlin in 1908. This would not come to fruition as the advent of the first World War led to the games being canceled. Organizers of the event wanted to have the games continue to run during wartime like the ancient Greeks had done, but the brutality of the war made the games unfeasible. Thus the next Olympic games would be held in Antwerp, Belgium in 1920.
Germany, after the First World War, was broken, its economy was in tatters and its people left unhappy with their leadership. These problems were further exacerbated by the advent of the Wall street crash and the Great Depression. The 1924 Olympic games in Paris had even banned Germany from participating in the games, which followed the general public sentiment that people were not fond of Germany for their actions during the first World War. This would all change with Dr. Theadore Levalde and his lobbying for Berlin in the International Olympic committee.
The 1930 and 1931 meetings of the International Olympic committee saw much debate on which city would be the one to host the 1936 summer games. Levalde would spend much of these debates proposing Berlin as the host city and defending Germany in these meetings. Levalde was Germany’s Olympic representative since 1904 and was a very well respected member of the International Olympic Committee community. That gave Germany a good chance to win the bid and host the Olympics. There was also a rising sentiment of utilizing the games to bring the world together. The past 20 years saw much division in the world, and the IOC sought to help right that with the Olympic games. At the end of the 1931 meeting 2 cities had to be chosen: Barcelona and Berlin. In the end it came down to an uncertainty surrounding the Republic of Spain and their ability to host the summer Olympics in Barcelona. This left Germany the winner and thus the 1936 bid for the Olympic games went to Germany and to the failing Weimar Republic.
A new Ideology rises to claim the Olympics
The Nazi party rose out of the failure of the Weimar Republic to capture the public's trust, thus the people of Germany yearned for a leader who would change the country for the better. To this end saw an ever growing support for the Nazi party and its very strong ideological values and economic solutions. This culminated in 1933 with the Nazi party seizing power from the Weimar Republic and becoming the leaders of Germany as well as the inheritors of the Olympic Games.
Originally Germany’s leader Adolf Hitler was apprehensive about the Olympic games as he saw no real need to host them or to participate in them. His opinion was swayed by the chief propagandist for the Nazi party Paul Joseph Goebbels. Goebbles convinced Hitler that the Olympics could be an opportunity to put Nazism and Germany’s achievements on the world stage, and thus construction of the Olympic stadium in Berlin began. The Olympic games were to be a showcase of the success of Germany and how their new ideology was to be spread around the world.
Problems fueled by hate
The German government’s state sponsored anti-semitism was not unknown by many of the participating countries. It was originally decided that for the games that no Jewish athletes would be allowed to participate, however facing backlash that rule was lowered to appease the other countries that would be in the games. The 1935 Nuremberg Laws declared that all German Jews were no longer citizens of Germany and thus they were no longer allowed to participate in the games for the German team. These ideas of hate would not leave the games as many countries would sideline their Jewish athletes to appease the German hosts.
There was one problem with the games actually happening and that was the participation of the United States of America. The US would be the largest presence at the games and if they chose to stay out of the games many other countries might also back out. As for if they were to join, there were 2 people responsible for deciding if the US would participate in the games. Those 2 people were Avery Brundage and Jerimiah Mahoney. Avery was an Olympian himself as well as being a self made millionaire. He also saw what was happening in Germany and had no real problems with it, even aligning himself with Nazi values. Mahoney on the other hand would be the opposite, he was a judge who served on the supreme court and he was very staunchly anti-Nazi. His main point on his disdain for the Nazis was their anti-Christian stance on religion in society and that would drive his position against them.
Mahoney was against the games and Brundage was all for US participation, so in a bid to rally support for his position Brundage would travel to Berlin to make sure that the Jewish athletes were being treated fairly. His trip to Berlin, which was very controlled and deceptive, had shown no mistreatment of Jewish athletes by the Germans and had actually shown Germany to be a fair and equal place for all athletes. In reality Brundage was shepherded around by Hitler and taken to talk to actors. It also did not help that Brundage did not speak any German and would need a translator the entire trip. Nonetheless Brundage returned to the US and with his evidence was able to convince the organizers of American athletics that Germany was fit for the Olympics.
Olympic preparations
Germany began their preparations for the 1936 Olympics with the building of the Olympiastadion, a large neoclassical oval stadium that could house 100,000 spectators. This was only the start of Germany’s display of the opulence of the Third Reich. They would do a tremendous amount of cleanup in Berlin for the upcoming games. One of the main things they would do is remove all forms of hate from the streets. They cleaned up all signs of anti-semitism and would replace them with either the swastika, or with the Olympic flag. This was in an effort to make Germany seem much more liberal than they were in reality. They would also set out to arrest and ship off all of the Romani people in the area around the venue to try to make the stadium seem more opulent and refined. Shops near the stadium were also told to lower the prices drastically in an effort to make the economy of Germany seem much better than it was. There was also a major campaign to repaint and fix up any buildings that were looking run down. This extended out of Berlin to any building along the train lines that lead to Berlin. All of these efforts culminated in a fresh and beautiful city perfect to host the Olympics.
Technology was another major point of focus for the Nazis and something they proudly displayed at the Olympic games. They built 6 large international transmitters so that the journalists could report back to their home countries about the games. They also put cameras in the stadium so that this could be the first ever televised Olympic games. On top of that they showed off other technological achievements like the Hindenburg which was a huge airship as well as various military technologies.
Let the Games begin
The 11th Olympiad began with an opening ceremony and with a new tradition that would become a staple of the modern Olympics. That tradition would be the Olympic flame and its journey from Olympia in Greece to the Olympic brazier. The tradition was treated as if it were an ancient tradition; however it was made up for the Olympics by the Nazis. It was followed by the entrance of Hitler and his entourage which was played up to show the extravagance of the German leadership. The marches of the 49 different countries would follow Hitler’s entrance, with each country showing off their flag and their teams. The opening ceremony continued with a flyover from the Hindenburg and with much more fanfare, really playing up the glory of the Third Reich. With that the games were underway and the first televised Olympics was on for the world to see.
Hitler made sure to provide the journalists and reporters with all the equipment they would need, along with nice living quarters to keep their opinions about Germany good and to keep their reports about the games in good spirits. The eyes of the world were on Germany as the games commenced. There were a few athletes that the public were eager to see like Jesse Owens from the US. The stands would be filled up for most of the games as people were eager to see this worldwide event in person.
The main goal of the Nazis in the Olympics was to show off the Aryan race and their superiority. When all was said and done, Germany led with the most gold medals and with the most medals overall. There were instances, such as Jesse Owens, a black athlete from the US, beating the German champion Luz Long in the long jump that may have hindered their aspirations. However when all was said and done the Germans came out of the Olympics the leaders of the world in athletic prowess, which ultimately was their goal.
The Olympics comes to a close
When the games came to a close and all of the spectators filtered out the hate and discrimination that surrounded the Nazi party before the Olympics had resumed. They returned to persecuting Jews and anyone who was Jewish through what the Nuremberg laws had dictated. Many Jewish families were invited back to Germany before and during the games in an attempt to show the liberalization efforts the Nazi party was trying to showcase. These families were persecuted along with every Jewish person under the Third Reich. The Olympics had generally been a pause for hate and discrimination, but once they had left Germany so too did the facade of a liberal society.
The 1936 summer Olympics was a major success for the Nazi party. They had turned the public perception of Germany from a hateful and downtrodden country, into a much more economically wealthy and liberalized society. They succeeded in showing their technological and economic prowess off to the world and painting the picture of a new and improved society.
What do you think of the 1936 summer Olympics? Let us know below.
Sources
Bachrach, Susan D. The nazi olympics: Berlin 1936. Little, Brown, 2000.
Walters, Guy. Berlin Games: How Hitler stole the Olympic Dream. London: John Murray, 2007.
