10 Reasons Hitler Hosted The Craziest Olympics Of All Time The 11th Olympic Games of the modern era was held in Berlin in 1936. It would go down in history as the “Nazi Games,” a vehicle of unabashed self-promotion for Adolf Hitler and his regime. The Nazis had hoped the Games would provide a clear demonstration of Aryan superiority and a vindication of their doctrine of the master race. Never before had politics intruded so brazenly into sports, making for a very interesting and controversial Olympics. The Counter-Olympics As Berlin prepared to host the 1936 Olympics, many people were already suspicious of Nazi ideology and agenda. Sports insiders were particularly disturbed by reports of persecution of Jewish athletes. Many within the Olympic organization felt that participating in the coming Games was tantamount to showing support of the Nazi regime. Calls for boycott began to be heard. The debate was particularly intense in the United States, which traditionally fielded the largest team in the Olympics. Other countries also had groups opposed to the Games. The new republic of Spain went beyond plans for a boycott and proposed an anti-Nazi counter-Olympics to be held in Barcelona, the city that lost out to Berlin in the 1931 vote for the host city. Barcelona had been greatly disappointed at the decision, believing that it was well prepared to hold the Games. Barcelona already had new, modern facilities used in the 1929 International Exposition, plus the Hotel Olimpico that could house the athletes. Spain was determined to take the glory away from Hitler and the Nazi propaganda machine. Invitations to the “People’s Olympics” were sent out and answered by radical and left-wing athletes from around the world, including the US. There were German athletes who joined to protest the regime at home. Communists, socialists, anarchists—Barcelona swarmed with players of every leftist stripe, 6,000 athletes from 22 countries in all. To call out Nazi bigotry and racism, the emblem of the People’s Olympics depicted three muscled athletes: one white, one black, and the last of mixed ethnicity. The warm and fraternal atmosphere in Barcelona was evident.But then, just 24 hours before the opening ceremony, the fascist General Francisco Franco launched the military revolt against the government. The Spanish Civil War had begun, in which Hitler would support Franco and the Nationalists. The People’s Olympics was canceled. Nevertheless, individual players had spoken out their conscience and shamed the Nazis. Eventually, Spain and the USSR would be the only countries to boycott Berlin. Barcelona got the chance to host an Olympic party—legitimate this time—in 1992. The Nazi Origins Of The Torch Relay No moment better defines the modern Olympics than the torch relay, a moving symbol of international brotherhood and cooperation. From the lighting of the sacred flame in Olympia, Greece, to its spectacular entrance into the stadium, it cannot fail to excite and electrify. That’s what German Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels wanted spectators to experience—not for brotherhood but for the glory of the Nazi regime. Not many people know that the torch relay is a Nazi invention. The ancient Greeks did run relay races that involved flames as part of their worship to the gods. But all the modern Games before Berlin did not have a torch relay. The idea was not actually Goebbels’s. It was proposed by Carl Diem, secretary general of the Games’ organizing committee and inspired by the flame that burned at the Amsterdam Olympiad in 1928. Goebbels decided to squeeze the last drop of propaganda mileage out of the torch relay, which satisfied Nazi thirst for spectacle and ceremony.At the lighting ceremony in Greece, the flame was dedicated to Hitler as the band played the Nazi anthem Die Fahne Hoch. By depicting the relay as an ancient tradition, the Nazis were proclaiming themselves heirs of civilization’s progress from Greece, to Rome, and finally to Germany. The torch’s 2,500-kilometer (1,500 mi) route to Berlin passed through Czechoslovakia, where it provoked a clash between ethnic Germans and Czechs. On the last stage of the relay, only blond and blue-eyed athletes were allowed to bear the torch.Just as Goebbels had hoped, the stirring sight of the flame being carried into the stadium by a fine specimen of Aryan manhood impressed spectators into concluding that the Nazis were strong but not brutal. The New York Times reported that Germany showed “goodwill” and “flawless hospitality.” The Associated Press assured its readers that the Games betokened peace in Europe.The hollowness of Nazi propaganda was revealed by the catastrophic war years. Nevertheless, at the resumption of the Olympics in London in 1948, the torch relay was retained with a brighter message of friendship and peace. It still remains a symbol of goodwill, one legacy of Nazism we decided was worth keeping.

• published: 26 Dec 2015
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