Sport as a Political tool
Berlin 1936, Olympic Games:
The 1936 Olympics were held in a tense, politically charged atmosphere. The Nazi movement had risen to power in 1933, two years after Berlin was awarded the Games, and its racist policies led to international debate about a boycott of the games. Fearing a mass boycott, the international Olympic committee pressured the German government and received assurances that qualified Jewish athletes would be part of the German team and that the games would not be used to promote Nazi ideology. Adolf’s Hitler government, however, routinely failed to deliver on such promises. Only one athlete of Jewish descent was a member of the German team.
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The Berlin Olympics also featured advancements in media coverage. It was the first Olympics competition to use telex transmissions of results, and zeppelins were used to quickly transport newsreel footage to other European cities.
Nearly 4.000 athletes competed in 129 events. The track and field competition starred American Jesse Owens, who won three individual gold medals and a fourth as a member of the triumphant U.S 100 meters relay team. Altogether Owens and his teammates won 12 men’s track and field gold medals the success of Owens and the other African American athletes, referred to as “black auxiliaries” by the Nazi press was considered a particular brow to Hitler’s Aryan ideals.
However, the Germans did win the most medals overall, dominating the gymnastics, rowing, and more events.
Jesse Owens; The Berlin Games are best remembered for Adolf’s Hitler failed attempt to use them to prove his theories of Aryan racial superiority. As it turned out, the most popular hero of the games was the African-American sprinter and long jumper Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals in the 100m, 200m, 4x100m relay and long jump.
There was a worldwide pressure to boycott the Games, but in the end only the Soviet Union refused to take part. Some individual athletes, including three Jewish members of the Austrian women’s swimming team Judith Deutsch, Ruth Langer and Lucy Goldner also refused to participate. All three were subsequently banned for two years by the Austrian Swimming Association.
Several Jewish athletes won medals at the 1936 Olympics, including the Austrian weight-lifter Robert Fein, who broke the lightweight world record. And Jesse Owens winner of four gold medals at the 1936 Games set a world record in the long jump and helped e the American team to set an Olympic Record.
The Nazis considered his race to be ‘subhuman’, but to the rest of the world Owens became a hero of the Games.
While some visitors realised that the Olympics were being used to disguise the true nature of the Nazi regime, many others left Berlin impressed by the spectacle and amazed by the sporting successes they had witnessed.
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