Pierre de Coubertin, reviving the Olympic Games, preached the principle of "Sports outside politics". However, spectators of the first Olympics already witnessed political demarches. And in 1936, the Olympic Games were first used for political purposes by the state. Hitler's Germany became the "initiator" of the tradition of "political Olympiads".
Failed Olympics
By the decision of the IOC in 1912, Berlin was to become the capital of the VI Summer Olympic Games in 1916. The construction of a sports complex has begun in the German capital. The complex remained unfinished. In 1914, the First World War canceled the games, the failed Olympic champions went to the fronts to shoot at each other.
Rogue country
Five years later, in 1919, the victorious countries gathered in Versailles to decide the post-war fate of Germany, which had lost the war. They tore Germany like wounded jackals. The jackals were 26 and each tried to snatch a piece fatter. Germany was cut geographically from all sides and imposed a huge indemnity. Several generations of Germans had to work without straightening their backs to pay off their debts. Additionally, Germany was erased from the political, social and cultural life of Europe. She found herself isolated. Important international events were held without the participation of its representatives, they were simply not invited, and those who dared to come without a request were not allowed further than the front. This is why Germany is not on the list of countries participating in the 1920 and 1924 Olympic Games.
Berlin fights for the Olympics
In 1928, the excommunication was lifted and the German athletes at the IX Olympics in Amsterdam took second place, proving to the whole world that the Teutonic spirit from Germany did not disappear.
Having made a breach, Germany began to expand it vigorously and applied for the right to become the host of the XI Olympic Games. In addition to Berlin, 9 other cities expressed the same desire. On May 13, 1930, in Lausanne, the IOC members had to make the final choice between Berlin and Barcelona, which reached the final. Berlin won with a huge advantage (43/16).
But in 1933, a question mark appeared at the end of the phrase “Berlin is the capital of the XI Olympiad”.
Why would the Nazis need the Olympics?
Hitler, who came to power, was not a supporter of the Olympic Games and called them "an invention of Jews and Freemasons." And in Germany itself, the attitude towards the Games was by no means unambiguous. Many Germans were not going to either forget or forgive the humiliation at Versailles, and did not want to see athletes from England and France in Germany. The anti-Olympic movement was gaining momentum among the Nazis. The "skirmisher" was the National Socialist Union of Students. In their opinion, Aryan athletes should not compete with representatives of "inferior" peoples. And if the Olympics cannot be postponed, then it should be held without the participation of German athletes. Hitler did not see any value in the Olympics for promoting the ideas of National Socialism: after the triumph of 1928 in 1932 in Los Angeles, Germany was in 9th place. What is the superiority of the Aryan race!
Goebbels convinced Hitler.
Goebbels' arguments
It was the propaganda minister who suggested that Hitler not only provide support for the Olympics, but take it under state tutelage, use it to create a new image of Germany and propagate the Nazi regime. According to Goebbels, the Olympic Games will show the world a new Germany: striving for peace, not torn apart by internal political contradictions, with a united people, led by a national leader. And a positive image is not only a way out of political isolation, it is also the establishment of economic contacts and, as a result, an inflow of capital, which Germany so badly needs.
The Olympics will give an impetus to the development of sports in the country. The basis of any army is a soldier - strong, healthy, physically developed. The war-oriented Nazis did not tire of carrying out actions in favor of sports.
One of such actions was the football match held in 1931 between the teams "Sturmovik" (the leadership of the SA) and "Reich" (the leadership of the NSDAP). In the "Reich" played: Hess, Himmler, Goering (1 half), Lei, the gate was defended by Bormann. “Sturmovik” won with a score of 6: 5, but the party press wrote “correctly”: “Reich” won.
But even hundreds of promotions held cannot be compared in their effect with 2 weeks of the Olympics.
The Olympics will rally the people around the Fuhrer and the regime. As for the sporting achievements of the German team, the head of the NOC of Germany, Karl Diem, swore an oath that this time the German athletes would not let them down.
How did you prepare for the Berlin Olympics
Having made the decision to make the Berlin Olympics the largest among all those previously held, Hitler began to implement the decision. If earlier the NOC of Germany planned the budget of the Games within 3 million Reichsmarks, then Hitler increased it to 20 million. stadium and Olympic village of 500 cottages. It was planned to install a 74-meter-high bell tower at the stadium, for which a 4-meter bell weighing 10 tons, which became the symbol of the XI Olympiad, was cast.
Karl Diem put forward the idea to bring a torch with a burning Olympic flame from Athens itself to Berlin by relay race. Goebbels liked the idea, the Fuehrer approved. (This is how the tradition of the Olympic torch relay began.)
If earlier the opening and closing of the Games was limited to the passage of athletes along the stands of the stadium under their national flags, then Goebbels planned to hold theatrical shows, which laid another tradition.
The world star of documentary filmmaking Leni Riefenstahl began preparing the filming of the 4-hour film "Olympia" (the first large-scale film recording of the games).
Aryan sports
But the III Reich remained the III Reich. Soon, the IOC began to receive reports of persecutions of Jews taking place in Germany. They also did not bypass the field of sports. “Racially inferior” physical culture lovers were expelled from sports societies, expelled from sports associations. The IOC demanded clarification, threatening to deprive Berlin of the status of the capital of the Olympic Games. Dispatches were sent from Germany that all this was vile slander from the enemies of the reviving Germany, and in general, what persecutions, what are you talking about ?! If there were separate cases, then for each such incident, an investigation will be carried out, measures will be taken, the perpetrators will be found and punished. The IOC was quite happy with such responses.
In September 1935, the so-called. "Nuremberg Laws" restricting the rights of Jews and Roma. The persecution has received a legislative basis. In sports societies, sections, a total "cleaning of the ranks" began. No sporting success, titles or titles were taken into account: German champion Erik Seelig was excluded from the boxing association. What can we say about others who did not have such regalia!
In response, the world began a movement for a boycott of the Berlin Olympics.
Boycott
The movement was led by the sports societies of the United States. They were soon joined by sports organizations from France, Great Britain, Czechoslovakia, Sweden and the Netherlands. Political, social, religious and cultural organizations that had nothing to do with sports joined the protest movement. The idea of organizing alternative People's Games in Barcelona was born and promoted to the masses.
The IOC, before which the prospect of a breakdown of the games loomed, sent a delegation to Berlin with the task of finding out the situation on the spot. Germany has seriously prepared for the visit. The guests were shown the Olympic facilities under construction, familiarized with the program of events, shown the Olympic Village, sketches of numerous badges, medals, awards and souvenirs. During the visit, the Nazis were not too lazy to clear Berlin of anti-Semitic slogans and signs “Jews are undesirable”. The visitors were given a meeting with Jewish athletes, who were surprised to say that they heard about the infringement of Jews in Germany for the first time in their lives. To appease the conscience of sports functionaries, the German Olympic team included a fencer Helen Mayer, who lives in the United States and had a Jewish father, from Germany.
(Subsequently, the athlete will thank Hitler: standing on the second step of the podium, at the moment of awarding she will throw out her hand in a Nazi salute. She will never be forgiven.)
However, the move with Helena Mayer was even unnecessary: the representatives of the IOC were so amazed at the scale of the upcoming Olympics, so blinded by its future splendor and greatness that they did not see anything and did not want to see anything.
Necessary digression: Olympiad shy
The first Olympic Games were not at all global events. In 1896 in Athens (I Olympic Games) 241 athletes took part in the competition. At the II Games in Paris in 1900, many athletes had no idea that they were taking part in the Olympic Games. They were sure that these sporting events are being held in the framework of the World Exhibition in Paris. Games at that time were a set of competitions, divided among themselves in time and space. The II Olympic Games were held from May 14 to October 28, 1900, III - from July 1 to November 23, 1904, IV - from July 13 to October 31, 1908.
Other competitions were also held, the Olympic Games could well have gotten lost among them and disappeared into oblivion, as the Goodwill Games left the race (who remembers them now?).
Slowly, very slowly, the locomotive of the Olympic movement picked up speed, and a very large acceleration was given to it by the games of 1936.
What he saw simply amazed the members of the IOC. They realized that if the Olympics were held in Berlin, there was no need to worry about the future of the competition: the former modesty of the Olympic Games would be over forever. They took the bait. The IOC delegation returned from Germany with a firm decision: the Olympics should be held only in Berlin!
How the boycott failed
The IOC decision was supported by the US NOC. There was no unity among the athletes themselves, many did not want to lose the chance that falls every four years. The situation was resolved on December 8, 1935, when the US Amateur Sports Committee called for participation in the Olympics. Following him, sports organizations of other countries also spoke in favor. The boycott came down to the personal decision of individual athletes.
The boycott movement was finished off by Coubertin's statement of support for the Berlin Olympics. The founding father of the Olympic Games received a letter from German NOC member Theodor Lewald asking for support. Attached to the letter were 10,000 Reichsmarks - a personal contribution from the Fuhrer to the Coubertin Foundation. What could a 73-year-old baron, who faced financial difficulties in his declining years, oppose such heavy artillery!
The Olympics haven't started yet, and Berlin has already won the first half.
The idea of a boycott lived on until the last day. On July 18, athletes gathered in Barcelona for the People's Olympiad. But on the same day, "a cloudless sky over the whole of Spain" sounded on the radio. A civil war broke out in Spain, she was not up to the Olympics.
Dress Rehearsal - Winter Olympics 1936
From 6 to 16 February, in the Bavarian Alps in Garmesch-Partenkirchen, the Winter Olympic Games were held, which Hitler regarded as a trial balloon. The first pancake did not come out lumpy. The guests of the Olympics were delighted. They were greeted by a 15,000-seat winter stadium and one of the world's first artificial ice rinks with 10,000 seats. The organization of the games was recognized by the IOC leadership as impeccable. Not a single incident darkened the sporting event. (Previously, the Nazis "cleaned" the city from Jews, Gypsies, unemployed, politically active boozemers and anti-Semitic slogans.) Rudi Bal, one of the best hockey players of that time, was appointed captain of the German hockey team.
To Hitler's delight, the first 4 places were taken by representatives of the "Nordic" race - Norwegians, Germans, Swedes, Finns, which perfectly fit into the racial theory of the Nazis. The star of the Olympics was the Norwegian figure skater Sonia Heni. Hitler was more than satisfied with the results of the Olympics and expected an even greater triumph from the Summer Olympics.
Olympics with Nazi characteristics
4066 athletes from 49 countries and about 4 million fans arrived at the Olympic Games in Berlin. 41 states sent their reporters to cover the competition. Berlin has been scrubbed and licked to an incredible shine. In preparing the city for the sports festival, not only city municipal services took part, but also local offices of the NSDAP, the German Ministry of the Interior and the Berlin police. Gypsies, beggars, prostitutes were evicted outside the city. (The city was "cleared" of Jews back in 1935.) Goebbels banned the publication of anti-Semitic articles and stories in newspapers during the Olympics. Anti-Jewish posters and slogans disappeared from the streets, books and brochures were seized from shops. Even Berliners were ordered to refrain from publicly expressing negative attitudes towards Jews.
And everywhere there was a swastika: on thousands of banners hung around the city, on hundreds of posters, it was embossed on sports facilities, side by side with Olympic symbols, was present on badges and souvenirs. According to the organizers, the symbol of Nazism was supposed to be present even on the Olympic medals, but the IOC reared: "Sport is out of politics!"
There was also a stunning novelty awaiting the guests of Berlin: the world's first live television broadcast from the Olympic Games. (I am sure this is news for many.) In Berlin, a network of TV salons (33) was organized, each of which had 2 TVs with a 25x25 cm screen, serviced by a specialist. During the Olympics, the salons were visited by 160 thousand people. It was more difficult to get tickets in them than to the stadium, but those who had visited TV salons had something to tell about at home upon their return.
Highlights of the Olympics
On the very first day of the competition, Germany experienced a taste of triumph: Hans Welke became the Olympic champion in shot put. The tribunes raged. Hitler invited the Olympian to his box.
On March 22, 1943, Belarusian partisans fired at a German convoy. Two policemen and a German officer, Hauptmann Hans Welke, were killed. On the same day, the Dirlewanger team carried out a punitive "retaliation action": a nearby village was burned down along with the inhabitants. The village was named Khatyn.
The "highlight" of the Olympics was the duel between the German Lutz Long and the black American Jesse Owens in the long jump. At first, Owens was in the lead with a result of 7, 83 m. Long comes out. The stands froze. He scatters. Jumping. Flies. The heels cut into the sand. 7, 87! Olympic record! The stands roar. Owens comes out again and in the last fifth attempt he wins (already his second) Olympic medal - 8, 06! Long ran up to Owens first and congratulated him on his victory. Embracing, the athletes went under the stands.
Jesse Owens will stand on the first step of the podium twice more. The American anthem was played 4 times in honor of a black athlete from the United States.
Long and Owens' friendship lasted for many years, despite the war that divided them. In 1943, while in the army, Lutz wrote a letter in which he asked Jesse, in the event of his death, to become a witness at the wedding of his son Kai Long. On July 10, Chief Corporal Lutz Long was mortally wounded and died three days later. In the early 50s, Jesse Owens fulfilled a friend's request and became the best man at Kai's wedding.
Olympics scandal
Talking about the 1936 Olympics, one cannot ignore the story of how Hitler refused to shake hands with black Jesse Owens. Was it or not? When on August 4, after the triumphant victory in the long jump, the moment of congratulating the Olympic champion Jesse Owens came, it turned out that Hitler, who had never missed the opportunity to congratulate the Finns or Swedes, was not in the box. The Nazi functionaries explained to the stunned IOC officials: “The Fuhrer has left. You know, the Reich Chancellor has so much to do!"
On the same day, IOC Chairman Baye-Latour delivered an ultimatum to Hitler: either he congratulates everyone, or no one. Hitler, having estimated that the next day most often would have to congratulate, most likely the Americans, chose the second option and on August 5 demonstratively did not leave his place on the podium, which, however, did not upset him at all: he was quite pleased with the general course of the Olympics.
Who won the Olympics?
Definitely: Nazi Germany won the Olympics, having achieved all its goals - political, sports, propaganda. German athletes took the most medals - 89, followed by US athletes - 56. Without bothering with such trifles as the gold-silver-bronze ratio, and in which sports Germany was the leader, Goebbels never tired of repeating: “Here it is, a clear confirmation superiority of the Aryan race! " He also did not disdain outright fraud. When, on the opening day, athletes marched through the stadium, throwing their right hand forward and upward in the so-called. "Olympic salute", all German newspapers wrote that the Olympians threw out their hands in the Nazi salute.
Today this symbol of the Olympics has not been canceled, but has been safely forgotten. Not a single athlete dares to salute in the Olympic manner on pain of being accused of promoting Nazism.
The world media sang the praises of German organization and order. Germany demonstrated to the whole world the unity of the people and the Fuhrer. 4 million propagandists of the Nazi regime have dispersed all over the world: “What kind of horrors are you telling about Germany? Yes, I was there and I can personally testify: all this is lies and propaganda of the left!"
Jesse Owens told how he could freely go to any cafe, any restaurant in Berlin, ride public transport along with whites. (If he tried to do this in his native Alabama - they would hang on the nearest tree along with the Olympic medal!)
In 1938, Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia came out. The tape won a bunch of prizes during the year, continued to collect awards until 1948 and is still considered a masterpiece of sports documentary filmmaking.
Despite this, after the war, Leni Riefenstahl was accused of promoting the ideas of National Socialism, she was branded as a Nazi, and she was expelled from the cinema almost forever. She made her next film about the beauty of the underwater world, Coral Paradise, in 2002, a year before her death.
After the Olympics
Hitler himself was very pleased with the results of the Olympics and once told Speer that after 1940 all the Olympic Games would be held in Germany. When in 1939 the question arose about the postponement of the Winter Olympic Games (Japan, which started the war with China, was recognized as an aggressor country and deprived of the status of the host of the Olympics), Germany submitted an application. The Anschluss of Austria has already passed, the Munich Agreement has taken place, and Czechoslovakia has disappeared from the political map. III Reich openly rattled weapons. But the IOC was so eager to repeat the Berlin Olympic miracle that it could not resist - Garmisch-Partenkirchen was to become the capital of the Winter Olympics again. Even in September 1939, IOC officials still hesitated: “Why all these scandals? Poland has fallen, the war is over, there is peace and order in Europe again”, not wanting to notice that this order is new, German. Only in November 1939, when Germany she recalled his candidacy, the frustrated IOC decided not to hold the Winter Olympics.
The Summer Olympics question soon resolved itself. In 1940, no one thought about a sports festival in Europe. The German youths brought into the sport by the Berlin Olympics were assigned to various military units. Glider pilots - in the Luftwaffe and paratroopers, yachtsmen - in the Kriegsmarine, wrestlers and boxers - in various sabotage teams, masters of equestrian sports - in the cavalry, and the virtuosos of bullet shooting went to improve their skills in sniper schools. Hitler himself lost interest in sports, he was no longer occupied with sports, but military battles.
Echoes of the Berlin Olympics
The next Olympic Games were held in 1948 in London. As before, the fans watched the athletes' competitions with tension, but other winds were already blowing over the Olympic stadiums. In the noisy applause of the spectators, the sports functionaries heard the crunch of new bills. More than once or twice the Olympic Games have become the subject of bargaining and political blackmail.
In Berlin in 1936 the first "political Olympics" was shown to the world. She was not the last. The tradition laid down in Berlin has safely survived to this day and is not going to die.
