The year that Hitler won the Olympics

[Fiona]

HITLER hadn't spoken but the crowd knew he was there.

They roared his name and the stadium shook to a vast chorus of Heil Hitler! The 1936 Berlin Olympic Games were at a triumphal end.

As the cheering echoed across the city another historic, but less publicised, drama was being enacted just north of the stadium: some of the earliest inmates were being delivered by truck to Sachsenhausen, a newly-opened concentration camp.

On that night 70 years ago, the world did not realise how they had been duped into supporting the most cynical propaganda coup in history. Yet a new book, Hitler's Olympics, reveals that they had no excuse for their ignorance. Author Anton Rippon shows that Hitler's evil intent was clear all along - and that nations like Britain and America, anxious to compete in the Games, turned a blind eye.

When, in May 1931, the International Olympic Committee awarded the 1936 Games to Germany, Hitler had denounced the Olympics as "inspired by Judaism which cannot possibly be put on in a Reich ruled by National Socialists". Two years later, with the Nazis in power, he had realised the propaganda benefits of the Games.

His only problem was to persuade the world that he would not prevent Jewish, black and other "non-Aryan" athletes from competing. "It should have been impossible, given the clear evidence of persecution, " says Rippon. "But he managed to do so, despite the shallowness of the smokescreen.

"The individual stories of how 'non-Aryan' sportsmen were treated are very telling.

They should have alerted the world, yet the Games were allowed to go ahead."

In April 1933, the Reich Sports Office publicly implemented an Aryans-only policy in all German sporting organisations.

Jewish boxer Erich Seelig was told that, if he defended his German middleweight crown, he would be killed. He was stripped of all his titles and fled to America.

Soon afterwards, another boxer, Johann "Rukelie" Trollman, was stripped of his light-heavyweight title because of his gypsy blood.

Subsequently ordered to lose a welterweight title fight, he climbed into the ring with his hair bleached blond and his body covered in flour to resemble an Aryan warrior, then allowed himself to be beaten to pulp. That was not to be the end of his humiliation. He chose to be sterilised rather than suffer internment. He was eventually killed in Neuengamme in 1943.

Twelve days after the German Boxing Association's ban on Jews, Germany's Davis Cup tennis team dropped their top player.

Dr Daniel Prenn, sixth in the world and No1 in Germany, who had Jewish ancestry, moved to England, where top seeds Fred Perry and Bunny Austin fought his case. But the international tennis body took no action.

When a Jewish runner Fritz Rosenfelder was kicked out of the German Gymnastics Association, he committed suicide, saying he could not "live with the knowledge that I am considered a traitor to the Fatherland".

GERMANY then recruited two diplomats, Dr Theodor Lewald and Carl Diem, to front the bid for the 1936 Olympics. They won a measure of respectability for the bid, assuring the IOC that no Jewish athletes would be barred - before they were forced to stand down because of their Jewish ancestry.

The man now in charge of German sport was Nazi Hans von Tschammer und Osten, who, while barring Jews from most official bodies, encouraged them to form their own organisations so foreigners would believe that Jewish sport was not excluded, just separate. He also announced that 21 Jewish athletes had been invited to training camps.

It was not enough to quell calls for an international boycott, with the most vociferous protests coming from the US.

But the two leading lights on the American Olympic Committee, Avery Brundage and Charles Sherrill, pushed for the Games to go ahead. Sherrill visited Germany and accepted Hitler's assurances.

For his part, Brundage announced that he had no problem with the concept of Jews being "separate but equal". Indeed, his own club in Chicago barred Jews. The argument seemed to hinge on the point that so few Jews had participated in recent Olympic sport. Sherrill pointed out that there had been only five Jewish athletes out of 400 Americans in the 1932 Olympics. One of Britain's IOC delegates, Sir Noel CurtisBennett, complained: "There are a lot of well-meaning busybodies who are trying to mix sport with politics."

Rippon explains: "Everyone seemed to be trying to persuade everyone else that the problem was being blown out of proportion.

But whether Germany or anyone else had Jewish sportsmen of Olympic standard rather missed the point. It was, after all, a moral issue."

Strangely, on the other side of the fence was Jewish sprinter Harold Abrahams, who had won gold in Paris in 1924. He was a proponent of Britain's involvement in the Games, believing it could only have "a positive effect" on the delicate situation.

There were two other cases that helped sway many IOC members. Olympic fencer Helene Meyer, German-born to a Jewish father but now living in California, returned to Berlin to represent Germany in the hope of regaining her citizenship. She won silver in the women's foil, and took the podium wearing a swastika and gave the Nazi salute. She returned to America a celebrity - while her father's relatives were sent to concentration camps.

ANOTHER Jewish expatriate, high-jump champion Gretel Bergmann, living in England after being expelled from her athletic club, also returned to Germany after threats to her family. A year later, however, she was dropped "for mediocre performances" even though she had equalled the European high-jump record.

This became an even more bizarre saga when Germany, desperate for a medal, replaced her with Dora Ratjen. The athlete finished fourth but in 1938 was barred from further competition due to "ambiguous genitalia". In 1957, then Hermann Ratjen, he admitted that the Nazis had forced him to enter the 1936 Olympics as a woman.

Says Rippon: "Bergmann was dropped at the last minute, when the US team were safely on a ship bound for Europe." By the time it began to dawn on sporting diplomats that they had been duped, it was too late.

In March 1936, a month after Hitler opened the Winter Games, he tore up the Treaty of Versailles and re-occupied the Rhineland. As he prepared for war the pride of international sporting youth was arriving for the Summer Games.

At 1pm on August 1 the Olympic Flame was lit. The crowd of almost 100,000 sang Deutschland Uber Alles and then the Nazi anthem, Horst Wessel Lied. Hitler had won a spectacular Olympic victory.

To order Hitler's Olympics by Anton Rippon (Pen & Sword, GBP 19.99) with free UK Delivery, send a cheque or PO made payable to The Express Bookshop to Olympics Offer, PO Box 200 Falmouth TR11 4WJ, call 0871 434 6092 or buy online at www. expressbookshop. com.

MENTION the 1936 Berlin Olympics and everyone thinks of Jesse Owens, the 22-year-old Black American who won four gold medals. But, says author Anton Rippon, it is a myth that Hitler snubbed Owens. It is true Owens was never presented to Hitler, since the dictator left the stadium as planned before the opportunity arose. But earlier, when receiving his medal for the 100 metres, Owens had bowed his head to the VIP box and Hitler had acknowledged him with a straight-armed salute.

"Owens had seen more racial harassment in his own country than in Germany.

The African-American athletes were not separated from their white team-mates in Berlin - but were immediately segregated into different hotels when they returned to the States."

usolympicteam.com

[richard]

To anyone whom is interested in the history of the 1936 Nazi games, the book is also available from Amazon.

Hitler's Olympics: The Story of the 1936 Nazi Games

Book Description
For two weeks in August 1936, Nazi Germany achieved an astonishing propaganda coup when it staged the Olympic Games in Berlin. Hiding their anti-semitism and plans for territorial expansion, the Nazis exploited the Olympic ideal, dazzling visiting spectators and journalists alike with an image of a peaceful, tolerant Germany. In Hitler's Olympics, Anton Rippon tells the story of those remarkable Games, the first to overtly use the Olympic festival for political purposes. His account, which is illustrated with almost 200 rare photographs of the event, looks at how the rise of the Nazis affected German sportsmen and women in the early 1930s. And it reveals how the rest of the world allowed the Berlin Olympics to go ahead despite the knowledge that Nazi Germany was a police state.

Anton Rippon is a distinguished journalist, author and publisher who has specialized in the history of sport. He has written widely for national newspapers, including The Times, Independent, the Sunday Telegraph and the Guardian, and he contributes regular columns to local newspapers. His many books include The Book of Derby, The Aston Villa Story, The Arsenal Story, Classic Moments of the Ashes, Cricket Around the World and Gas Masks For Goal Posts: Football in Britain During the Second World War.

Synopsis
Illustrated with photographs of the event, this account looks at how the rise of the Nazis affected German sportsmen and women in the early 1930s. It reveals how the rest of the world allowed the Berlin Olympics to go ahead despite the knowledge that Nazi Germany was a police state.

List Price: £19.99
Amazon Price: £13.19
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Not yet published: you may still order this title. Amazon will dispatch it to you when they receive it from the publisher.

Edition: Hardcover

Product Details:
# Hardcover 224 pages (May 18, 2006)
# Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
# Language: English
# ISBN: 1844154440

Here's the link Hitler's Olympics: The Story of the 1936 Nazi Games