How Hitler Won the Olympic Games - The Berlin Olympics | BETWEEN 2 WARS I 1936 Part 3 of 3 - YouTube (2)
celebrations. In that sense, the Olympics are a perfect propaganda triumph for Hitler
and his Nazis.
Or are they? Because the actual games might suggest something different.
I'm aware that I haven't talked about the actual games themselves yet. And I'm
not really going to, since, you know, it was for the most part just a regular sports event
with... well... sports. Norwegian Ivar Ballangrund won three out of four speed-skating races
in the Winter Games, and Great Britain won the Ice Hockey against the 1932 Olympic Winner,
Canada, in a thrilling match, yup the Brits beat the Canucks. For Germany the massive
investment in sports pays off. They win the by far the most medals in the summer games,
leading with 33 Gold. The US is second with 24 gold and Hungary comes in third with 10.
But the most remarkable athletic achievement is one that does not match the Nazi ideal
of the physical superiority of the Aryan race at all. African American athlete Jesse Owens
wins four gold medals- in one day, setting the Olympic record for the 200 meters and
the world records for the 100 meter sprint and 400-meter relay. Again unexpectedly - the
Nazi controlled German press does not understate this achievement. They seem to cover and even
celebrate his sportsmanship without racial bias. This ‘fair treatment' of black athletes
is actually a planned effort by the Ministry of Propaganda to reshape the global public
image of the German regime as ‘less racist than you thought.' It's a documented and
purposeful jibe at the US, where black athletes, including Owens, still have to ride at the
back of the bus and are not even featured in southern newspapers.
And so, Hitler appears to have won the Olympic Games. He establishes a global image of grandeur
and magnificence, but also a public image of racial superiority and unity, while at
the same time keeping global public opinion at bay. This all culminates in an interview
with Pierre de Coubertin in Le Journal, who says that ‘these “Grandiose Games, [organized
with] Hitlerian strength and discipline, [had] Brilliantly Served the Olympic Ideal. ” So
even Coubertin, who had brought forth the modern Olympics with internationalist and
pacifist ideals goes for the German propaganda narrative.
It may be unfair to say that that Hitler ‘Abused' sports for his propaganda. While he definitely
used the Olympics and Sports to spread his narrative domestically and to share a robust
and magnificent image of Germany globally, it was also- simply and magnificently- the
Olympic games. It's been said that the 1936 Olympics did more to further Coubertin's
vision than Hitler's. And sure, sports may have always had a political use - before and
after Hitler. And yes, many of the symbolism and rituals that the Germans introduced in
the Olympics are still used to this day, such as the symbolism of the Olympic Torch Relay,
the Olympic inauguration ceremony, sport filming, and so on because it transcends far beyond
Nazism.
But we shouldn't forget that Hitler used this event to enhance his image and obscure
the industrial scale, state organized, oppression, suppression, torture, and murder going on
in Germany outside of the Olympic venues. And this false image of Naziism will prove
essential as Hitler moves to expand his national network of racial hatred by cajoling the other
nations of Europe into tacitly, or even actively accepting his expansionist, bellicose plans
that will soon escalate into a global conflict.
And yet, the image that will survive, far beyond the adulation of the Führer dressed
in the emperor's clothes, stronger in human memory than the magnificent sites, the banners,
the Hitler salutes and national, racial chauvinism is the exact opposite of what Hitler wanted
to achieve. It is the image of Jesse Owens rising above normal human limits to show us
that greatness has no race, is not created by demagogues, and cannot be stopped by demagoguery,
because individual men and women rising above their own physical and mental limits can become
an unstoppable force for the good of mankind.
Do you want to learn more about what was going on in Germany in the thirties? You can click
here, any moment now to watch a playlist about the rise of Nazism after the Great War - it
goes all up until the outbreak of World War Two. Our TimeGhost army member of the week
is Artem Polk. I mean it when I say that we wouldn't exist without people like Artem.
So be like him, and join the TimeGhost Army on Patreon or timeghost.tv. Subscribe, ring
that bell.
And Remember what Nelson Mandela said: Sport has the power to change the world.
I realize that this is Coca-Cola, from a Coca-Cola glass, and no, we're not sponsored by them.
But Coca-Cola was actually the very first sponsor of the modern Olympic games, back
in 1896.
See you next time!
