History

Germany was selected to host the 1936 Summer and Winter Olympics in 1931. Two years later, Adolf Hitler took over and began turning the country from a democracy to a repressive totalitarian state under the control of the Nazi Party.

Before taking power, Hitler had attacked the Olympics as "an invention of Jews and freemasons." Among the first moves Hitler's government made against Jews was to ban their membership in various sports organizations.

Josef Goebbels, the German propaganda minister, convinced Hitler that the Olympics could be used to showcase Nazism and its supposed accomplishments. As a result, Hitler did a quick about face. He announced in October of 1933 that a stadium seating up to 100,000 spectators and a swimming stadium with seats for 16,000 would be built in Berlin.

There were doubts in many quarters about the wisdom of attending the Berlin Olympics. An alternative, to be called the "People's Olympics," was actually scheduled for Barcelona, but that plan was destroyed by the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.

In the United States, a move to boycott the Olympics was led by Judge Jeremiah T. Murphy, president of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU). Murphy and his supporters were concerned chiefly about Nazi anti-Semitism.

However, in 1935 the AAU voted by a narrow margin to sanction participation and Murphy resigned. He was replaced by Avery Brundage, who went to Germany on an inspection tour and reported that everything looked just fine. He event so far as to claim that there was a "Jewish-Communist conspiracy" to keep the United States from participating.

Despite the preliminary doubts and the growing international tensions that were to culminate in World War II, the 1936 Olympics attracted more countries (49) and more athletes (4,066) than any previous Olympics.

On the positive side, the Berlin Games were noted mainly for technological achievements. Events were televised on a closed-circuit system throughout the Olympic village and to public halls and theaters throughout the country. Zeppelins carried newsreel film to other European cities, while results were transmitted to news media by telex as soon as events were completed.

But many athletes and members of the press were alarmed by the nationalistic and militaristic atmosphere in Berlin. The ever-present swastika and icon-like portraits of Hitler and the martial music that blared endlessly through loudspeakers were deeply disturbing to many. Nor did it help that many journalists, suspected of anti-Nazi sentiments, discovered that their rooms had been searched by the secret police.

In Nazi Germany's pro-Aryan setting, it was ironic that the greatest athletic hero was Jesse Owens, the black American sprinter. Owens won the 100- and 200-meter dashes and the long jump and also anchored the U. S. 400-meter relay team to a gold medal.

Hitler's "snub" of Owens is a well-known story, but it's not accurate. The German leader, who was prominently on display in his regal box, personally congratulated the first three gold medal winners in track and field--two Germans and a Finn. With darkness looming and rain threatening, he left the stadium after all the German competitors had been eliminated from the high jump.

The winner was another black American, Cornelius Johnson, who led a U. S. sweep of the event. If Hitler is to be blamed for snubbing someone, Johnson was the victim.

That evening, Hitler was told by Count Baillet-Latour, the president of the IOC, that he should congratulate either all of the winners or none of them. He opted to congratulate none. When Owens won the first of his four gold medals the following day, therefore, he was not congratulated by the Fuehrer. (It is, of course, quite possible that Hitler made his decision knowing that Owens was very likely to win at least one event and possibly more.)

Black athletes were certainly denigrated, though, by the semi-official newspaper, Der Angriff (The Attack), which referred to them as America's "black auxiliaries" and did not include them in its daily scoring chart. The publisher of the paper was Hitler's minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels.

Besides Owens, the top individual athletes in 1936 were two German gymnasts, Konrad Frey and Alfred Schwarzmann; Dutch swimmer Hendrika "Rie" Mastenbroek; French cyclists Robert Charpentier and Guy Lapebie; and U. S. sprinter Helen Stephens.

Frey was the top medalist with three golds, one silver, and two bronze, while Schwarzmann collected three gold and two bronze medals. Mastenbroek won three golds and a silver. Charpentier won three gold medals, Lapebie two golds and a silver. Stephens won the women's 100-meter dash and also anchored the 400-meter relay team to victory.

In part because of a greatly expanded men's gymnastics program, Germany led all countries with 89 medals, including 33 gold, to 56 total and 24 gold for the United States.

To no one's surprise, one of the American gold medals came in basketball, which was added to the Olympic program in 1936. The games were played outdoors, often in rain, but that couldn't prevent the U. S. team from rolling through its opposition. The biggest threat to American victory actually came just after the games started, when the International Basketball Federation decided to ban any players 6-foot-3 or taller. The ban, which would have applied to only three players, all Americans, was quickly rescinded.

The Japanese dominated men's swimming, winning four of the six events, while Holland won four of the five women's events. Jack Medica and Adolph Kiefer were the only American gold medalists in swimming, although Medica added two silvers to finish among the top total medalists.

Four different U. S. athletes won the diving events. Marjorie Gestring, the women's springboard champion, was only 13 years and 9 months. She is still the youngest individual gold medalist in Olympic history.

Top of page