Berlin Olympic Games

The 1936 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XI Olympiad () and officially branded as Berlin 1936, were an international multi-sport event held from 1 to 16 August 1936 in Berlin, then capital of Nazi Germany. Berlin won the bid to host the Games over Barcelona on the 29th IOC Session on 26 April 1931. The 1936 Games marked the second and most recent time the International Olympic Committee gathered to vote in a city bidding to host those Games. Later rule modifications forbade cities hosting the bid vote from being awarded the games.

To outdo the 1932 Los Angeles Games, Adolf Hitler had a new 100,000-seat track and field stadium built, as well as six gymnasiums and other smaller arenas. The Games were the first to be televised, with radio broadcasts reaching 41 countries.Rader, Benjamin G. "American Sports: From the Age of Folk Games to the Age of Televised Sports", 5th ed. Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl was commissioned by the German Olympic Committee to film the Games for $7 million. Her film, titled '' Olympia'', pioneered many of the techniques now common in the filming of sports.

Hitler saw the 1936 Games as an opportunity to promote his government and ideals of racial supremacy and antisemitism, and the official Nazi Party paper, the , wrote in the strongest terms that Jews should not be allowed to participate in the Games. Nagorski, Andrew. '' Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power''. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012, p. 188.David Clay Large, ''Nazi Games: The Olympics of 1936'', p. 58. German Jewish athletes were barred or prevented from taking part in the Games by a variety of methods, although some female swimmers from the Jewish sports club Hakoah Vienna did participate. Jewish athletes from other countries were said to have been sidelined to avoid offending the Nazi regime. Lithuania was expelled from the Olympic Games due to Berlin's position regarding Lithuanian anti-Nazi policy, particularly because of the 1934–35 Trial of Neumann and Sass in Klaipėda.

Total ticket revenues were 7.5million Reichsmark (equivalent to € in ), for a profit of over one million ℛ︁ℳ︁. The official budget did not include outlays by the city of Berlin (which issued an itemized report detailing its costs of 16.5million R.M.) or the outlays of the German national government (which did not make its costs public, but is estimated to have spent US$30million).

Jesse Owens of the United States won four gold medals in the sprint and long jump events, and became the most successful athlete to compete in Berlin, while Germany was the most successful country overall with 101 medals (38 of them gold); the United States placed a distant second with 57 medals. These were the final Olympic Games under the presidency of Henri de Baillet-Latour. For the next 12 years, no Olympic Games were held due to the immense world disruption caused by the Second World War. The next Olympic Games were held in 1948 (the Winter Games in St. Moritz, Switzerland, and then the Summer Games in London, England).

Host city selection

At the 28th IOC Session, held in May 1930 in Berlin, 14 cities announced their intention to bid to host the 1936 Summer Olympic Games. By the time of the 29th IOC Session in Barcelona in April 1931, only Barcelona and Berlin were left in contention. The other cities that announced an intention to hold the games, but withdrew from the race, were Alexandria, Budapest, Buenos Aires, Cologne, Dublin, Frankfurt, Helsinki, Lausanne, Montevideo, Nuremberg, Rio de Janeiro, and Rome. Helsinki, Rome, Barcelona, and Rio de Janeiro would go on to host the Olympic Games in 1952, 1960, 1992, and 2016, respectively. Rome withdrew on the eve of the 1931 Session.

The city of Barcelona held a multi-sport festival at the same time as the 1931 IOC Session. This included a football match between Spain and the Irish Free State, which was watched by 50,000 spectators. The political uncertainty around the declaration of the Second Spanish Republic, which had happened days before the IOC Session, was likely a great factor in the decision taken by delegates regarding the host city for 1936.

The games were the first for which the host was decided by a vote of each individual IOC member. The deadline for votes was 13 May 1931, two weeks after the Barcelona Session. Of the 67 voting IOC members, 19 submitted ballots during the Session, and 40 by post to the IOC headquarters in Lausanne; the other 8 abstained. The vote was 43 for Berlin, and 16 for Barcelona.

After the Nazis took control of Germany and began instituting anti-Semitic policies, the IOC held private discussions among its delegates about changing the decision to hold the Games in Berlin. However, Hitler's regime gave assurances that Jewish athletes would be allowed to compete on a German Olympic team. One year before the games, the American Olympic Association suggested to change the venue to Rome; they saw Rome as a good replacement because Rome was originally selected to hold the 1908 Summer Olympics. The proposal was not seriously discussed.

Organization

Hans von Tschammer und Osten, as ''Reichssportführer'' (i.e., head of the National Socialist League of the Reich for Physical Exercise (Deutscher Reichsbund für Leibesübungen, DRL), the Reich Sports Office, played a major role in the structure and organisation of the Olympics. He promoted the idea that the use of sports would harden the German spirit and instill unity among German youth. At the same time, he also believed that sports was a "way to weed out the weak, Jewish, and other undesirables".

Von Tschammer entrusted the details of the organisation of the games to the president of the German Olympic Committee, Theodor Lewald, and Carl Diem, the former president and secretary of the ''Deutscher Reichsausschuss für Leibesübungen'', the forerunner of the Reich Sports Office. Among Diem's ideas for the Berlin Games was the introduction of the Olympic torch relay between Greece and the host nation. Lewald would be replaced, owing to his paternal grandmother's Jewish roots, by Von Tschammer himself.

Torch relay

The 1936 Summer Olympics torch relay was the first of its kind, following on from the reintroduction of the Olympic Flame at the 1928 Games. It pioneered the modern convention of moving the flame via a relay system from Greece to the Olympic venue. Leni Riefenstahl filmed the relay for the 1938 film '' Olympia''.

Broadcasting

The games were the first to have live television coverage in black-and-white. The German Post Office, using equipment from Telefunken, broadcast over 70 hours of coverage to special viewing rooms throughout Berlin and Potsdam and a few private TV sets, transmitting from the Paul Nipkow TV Station. They used three different types of TV cameras, so blackouts would occur when changing from one type to another. The games were also first time photographed and filmed in color using newly invented Agfacolor.

Olympic village

The 1936 Olympic village was located at Elstal in Wustermark (at ), on the western edge of Berlin. The site, which is from the centre of the city, consisted of one and two-floor dormitories, a large dining hall, ''Dining Hall of the Nations'', a swimming facility, a gymnasium, track, and other training facilities. Its layout was designed and construction was overseen by the appointed village commander ''Hauptmann'' Wolfgang Fürstner beginning in 1934. Less than two months before the start of the Olympic Games, Fürstner was abruptly demoted to vice-commander, and replaced by ''Oberstleutnant'' Werner von Gilsa, commander of the Berlin Guard-Regiment. The official reason for the replacement was that Fürstner had not acted "with the necessary energy" to prevent damage to the site as 370,000 visitors passed through it between 1 May and 15 June. However, this was just a cover story to explain the sudden demotion of the half-Jewish officer. The 1935 Nuremberg Laws, passed during the period Fürstner was overseeing the Olympic Village, had classified him as a Jew, and as such, the career officer was to be expelled from the ''Wehrmacht''. Two days after the conclusion of the Berlin Olympics, vice-commander Fürstner had been removed from active ''Wehrmacht'' duty, and committed suicide a day later because he realised he had no future under the Nazis.

After the completion of the Olympic Games, the village was repurposed for the ''Wehrmacht'' into the Olympic Döberitz Hospital (), and Army Infantry School (), and was used as such through the Second World War. In 1945 it was taken over by the Soviet Union and became a military camp of the Soviet occupation forces. Late 20th-century efforts were made to restore parts of the former village, but little progress was made. More recently, the vast majority of the land of the Olympic Village has been managed by the DKB Foundation, with more success; efforts are being made to restore the site into a living museum. The dormitory building used by Jesse Owens, Meissen House, has been fully restored, with the gymnasium and swimming hall partially restored. Seasonally, tours are given daily to small groups and students.

The site remains relatively unknown even in Germany, but some tournaments are held at the site to boost knowledge of the venues.

File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-P019183, Berlin, Olympisches Dorf.jpg, The Olympic village
File:Olympic Village house of Jesse Owens.jpg, US track team house at the Olympic village, 2015
File:Jesse Owen's Room in Berlin 1936 Olympic Village.jpg, Jesse Owens' room at the Olympic village, 2015
File:Hindenburg_D-LZ129_léghajó_a_Berlini_Olimpia_idején._Fortepan_17447.jpg, LZ 129 Hindenburg flying over the village, with the Olympics logo painted on its underside hull

Venues

Twenty-two venues were used for the 1936 Summer Olympics. Many were located in the Reich Sportsfeld complex.

Sailing was held in the Bay of Kiel, which would serve as the same sporting venue for the 1972 Summer Olympics held in Munich. The Olympic Stadium would later be part of two FIFA World Cups and then host an IAAF World Championships in Athletics along with undergoing a renovation in the early 2000s to give new life to the stadium. Avus Motor Road (AVUS) was started in 1907, but was not completed until 1921 due to World War I.Kolumbus.fi profile of German race tracks.
Accessed 17 October 2010. The track was rebuilt for the 1936 Games. AVUS continued being used after World War II though mainly in Formula 2 racing. The German Grand Prix was last held at the track in 1959. Dismantling of the track first took place in 1968 to make way for a traffic crossing for touring cars that raced there until 1998.

BSV 92 Field was first constructed in 1910 for use in football, handball, athletics, and tennis. The Reich Sports Field, which consisted of the Olympic Stadium, the Dietrich Eckert Open-Air Theatre, the Olympic Swimming Stadium, Mayfield, the Hockey Stadiums, the Tennis Courts, and the Haus des Deutschen Sports, was planned for the aborted 1916 Summer Olympics, but was not completed until 1934.1936 Summer Olympics.
Volume 1. pp. 129–140. Accessed 17 October 2010. Mayfield was the last venue completed prior to the 1936 Games in April 1936. Deutschland Hall was opened in 1935.
Accessed 17 October 2010. Mommenstadion opened in 1930.
Accessed 17 October 2010. Basketball was held outdoors at the request of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA).Wallechinsky, David and Jaime Loucky (2008). "Basketball: Men". In ''The Complete Book of the Olympics: 2008 Edition''. London: Aurum Press Limited. pp. 399–400. The tennis courts were used, which turned to mud during heavy rain at the final. The K-1 1000 m canoeing final was also affected by heavy rain at Grünau that included thunder and lightning. During World War II, Deutschlandhalle in Berlin, suffered heavy aerial bombing damage. After the war, the hall was reconstructed and expanded. The Deutschlandhalle was used as a venue, but was increasingly closed for repairs, last in 2009. It was demolished in December 2011. The Mommsenstadion was renovated in 1987 and was still in use .

The Olympic Stadium was used as an underground bunker in World War II as the war went against Nazi Germany's favor. The British reopened the Stadium in 1946 and parts of the stadium were rebuilt by the late 1950s. As a host venue for the 1974 FIFA World Cup, the stadium had its roof partially covered on the North and South Stands. British occupation of the stadium ended in 1994. Restoration was approved in 1998 with a contractor being found to do the work in 2000. This restoration ran from 2000 to 2004. The modernized Stadium reopened in 2004, with a capacity of 74,228 people. The seating has been changed greatly, especially the sections that were reserved for German and international political leaders. The stadium now plays host to Hertha BSC (1963–present), and is expected to remain the home of the team for years to come. For the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the venue was where the final took place between Italy and France. Three years later, the venue hosted the World Athletics Championships.

Games

Opening ceremony

The opening ceremony was held at the Berlin Olympic Stadium on 1 August 1936. A flyover by the German airship '' Hindenburg'' flying the Olympic flag behind it was featured early in the opening ceremonies. After the arrival of Hitler and his entourage, the parade of nations proceeded, each nation with its own unique costume. As the birthplace of the Olympics, Greece entered the stadium first. The host nation, Germany, entered last. Some nations' athletes purposefully gave the Nazi salute as they passed Hitler. Others gave the Olympic salute (a similar one, given with the same arm), or a different gesture entirely, such as hats-over-hearts, as the United States, India, and China did. All nations lowered their flags as they passed the Führer, save the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and the Commonwealth of the Philippines. (The United States doing this was explained later as an army regulation, and the country traditionally avoids dipping its flag at the Olympics.) Writer Thomas Wolfe, who was there, described the opening as an "almost religious event, the crowd screaming, swaying in unison and begging for Hitler. There was something scary about it; his cult of personality."''Jesse Owens''. TV documentary. WGBH Educational Foundation. 2012. Presented on YLE TV 1, 9 July 2014.

After a speech by the president of the German Olympic Committee, the games were officially declared open by Adolf Hitler who quoted (in German): "I proclaim open the Olympic Games of Berlin, celebrating the Eleventh Olympiad of the modern era." This sentence was written by IOC President Baillet-Latour as part of a compromise the IOC struck to prevent Hitler from turning the speech into a propaganda event, and he was to follow it strictly, to which Hitler reportedly joked "Count, I'll take the trouble to learn it by heart". Hitler opened the games from his own box, on top of others. Writer David Wallechinsky has commented on the event, saying, "This was his event, he wanted to be glorified."

Although the Olympic flame was first introduced in the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam, this was the first instance of the torch relay. The Germans invented the concept of the torch run from ancient Olympia to the host city. Thus as swimmer Iris Cummings later related, "once the athletes were all in place, the torch bearer ran in through the tunnel to go around the stadium". A young man chosen for this task ran up the steps all the way up to the top of the stadium there to light a cauldron which would start this eternal flame that would burn through the duration of the games.

But despite all the pomp and ceremony, and the glorification of Hitler, all did not go according to plan, and there was a rather humorous aspect in the opening ceremony. U.S. distance runner Louis Zamperini, one of the athletes present, related it on camera:

Events

129 events in 25 disciplines, comprising 19 sports, were part of the Olympic program in 1936. The number of events in each discipline is noted in parentheses.

* Aquatics
**
**
**
*
*
*
*
*
** Road (2)
** Track (4)
*
** Dressage (2)
** Eventing (2)
** Show jumping (2)
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
** Freestyle (7)
** Greco-Roman (7)

Basketball, canoeing, and handball made their debut at the Olympics. Handball did not appear again on the program until the next German summer Olympic games in Munich in 1972. There were two demonstration sports: baseball and gliding. Art competitions for medals were also held, and medals were awarded at the closing ceremony for feats of alpinism and aeronautics. Unofficial exhibition events included Indian sports, wushu and motor racing.

Notable achievements

Germany had a successful year in the equestrian events, winning individual and team gold in all three disciplines, as well as individual silver in dressage. In the cycling match sprint finals, German Toni Merkens fouled Arie van Vliet of the Netherlands. Instead of being disqualified, he was fined 100 ℛℳ and kept his gold. German gymnasts Konrad Frey and Alfred Schwarzmann both won three gold medals.

American Jesse Owens won four gold medals in the sprint and long jump events. His German competitor Luz Long offered Owens advice after he almost failed to qualify in the long jump. Mack Robinson, brother of Jackie Robinson, won the 200-meter sprint silver medal behind Owens by 0.4 seconds. Although he did not win a medal, future American war hero Louis Zamperini, lagging behind in the 5,000-meter final, made up ground by clocking a 56-second final lap. In one of the most dramatic 800-meter races in history, American John Woodruff won gold after slowing to jogging speed in the middle of the final to free himself from being boxed in. Glenn Edgar Morris, a farm boy from Colorado, won gold in the decathlon. British rower Jack Beresford won his fifth Olympic medal in the sport, and his third gold medal. The U.S. eight-man rowing team from the University of Washington won the gold medal, coming from behind to defeat the Germans and Italians with Hitler in attendance. 13-year-old American sensation Marjorie Gestring won the women's 3 meter diving event.

Jack Lovelock of New Zealand won the 1500 m gold medal, coming through a strong field to win in the world record time of 3:47.8.

In the marathon, the ethnic Koreans Sohn Kee-chung and Nam Sung-yong won one gold and one bronze medal; as Korea was annexed by Japan at the time, they were running for Japan.

India won the gold medal in the field hockey event once again (they won the gold in all Olympics from 1928 to 1956), defeating Germany 8–1 in the final. Indians were considered Indo-Aryans by the German authorities and there was no controversy regarding the victory.

Rie Mastenbroek of the Netherlands won three gold medals and a silver in swimming. Estonian heavyweight wrestler Kristjan Palusalu won two gold medals, and he became the first and only wrestler in Olympic history ever to win both the Greco-Roman and freestyle heavyweight events. Berlin 1936 marked the last time Estonia competed as an independent nation in the Olympics until 1992.

After winning the middleweight class, the Egyptian weightlifter Khadr El Touni continued to compete for another 45 minutes, finally exceeding the total of the German silver medalist by 35 kg. The 20-year-old El Touni lifted a total of 387.5 kg, crushing two German world champions and breaking the then-Olympic and world records, while the German lifted 352.5 kg. Furthermore, El Touni had lifted 15 kg more than the light-heavyweight gold medalist, a feat only El Touni has accomplished. El Touni's new world records stood for 13 years. Fascinated by El Touni's performance, Adolf Hitler rushed down to greet this human miracle. Prior to the competition, Hitler was said to have been sure that Rudolf Ismayr and Adolf Wagner would embarrass all other opponents. Hitler was so impressed by El Touni's domination in the middleweight class that he ordered a street named after him in Berlin's Olympic village. The Egyptian held the No. 1 position on the IWF list of history's 50 greatest weightlifters for 60 years, until the 1996 Games in Atlanta where Turkey's Naim Süleymanoğlu surpassed him to top the list.

Italy's football team continued their dominance under head coach Vittorio Pozzo, winning the gold medal in these Olympics between their two consecutive World Cup victories (1934 and 1938). Much like the successes of German athletes, this triumph was claimed by supporters of Benito Mussolini's regime as a vindication of the superiority of the fascist system. Austria won the silver; a controversial win after Hitler called for a rematch of the quarterfinals match to discount Peru's 4–2 win over Austria. The Peruvian national Olympic team refused to play the match again and withdrew from the games. In the quarter-finals of the football tournament, Peru beat Austria 4–2 in extra-time. Peru rallied from a two-goal deficit in the final 15 minutes of normal time. During extra-time, Peruvian fans allegedly ran onto the field and attacked an Austrian player. In the chaos, Peru scored twice and won, 4–2. However, Austria protested and the International Olympic Committee ordered a replay without any spectators. The Peruvian government refused and their entire Olympic squad left in protest as did Colombia.

A remarkable story from the track and field competition was the gold medal won by the US women's 4 × 100 m relay team. The German team were the heavy favourites, but dropped the baton at one hand-off. Of notable interest on the US team was Betty Robinson. She was the first woman ever awarded an Olympic gold medal for track and field, winning the women's 100 m event at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. In 1931, Robinson was involved in a plane crash, and was severely injured. Her body was discovered in the wreckage and it was wrongly thought that she was dead. She was placed in the trunk of a car and taken to an undertaker, where it was discovered that she was not dead, but in a coma. She awoke from the coma seven months later, although it was another six months before she could get out of a wheelchair, and two years before she could walk normally again. Due to the length of her recovery, she had to miss participating in the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, in her home country.

Participating nations

A total of 49 nations attended the Berlin Olympics, up from 37 in 1932. Five nations made their first official Olympic appearance at these Games: Afghanistan, Bermuda, Bolivia, Costa Rica and Liechtenstein.

File:1936 Summer Olympic games countries.png, Nations participating for the first time shown in blue.
File:1936 Summer Olympics numbers.png, Number of attending athletes from respective participating countries.

The nations that returned to the games were Bulgaria, Chile, Egypt, Iceland, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Peru, Romania and Turkey.

The nations that participated in the previous games in Los Angeles in 1932 but were absent in Berlin in 1936 were Ireland and Spain.

At the time, Australia and New Zealand were dominions of the British Empire. Both nations had not yet ratified the Statute of Westminster 1931. India and Bermuda were also part of the British Empire, but were not dominions. And Philippines was an unincorporated territory and commonwealth of the United States.

* , also took part in the Opening Ceremony, but its only athlete (a weightlifter) did not compete.

Number of athletes by National Olympic Committee

Medal count

The twelve nations that won the most medals at the 1936 Games.

Political aspects

Hitler saw the Games as an opportunity to promote his government and ideals of Aryan racial supremacy. The official Nazi party paper, the ''Völkischer Beobachter'', wrote in the strongest terms that Jewish and black people should not be allowed to participate in the Games. However, when threatened with a boycott of the Games by other nations, he relented and allowed black and Jewish people to participate, and added one token participant to the German team— Helene Mayer, a woman of Jewish descent. Hitler was an adroit player of sexual affairs and he used his liaison with Unity Mitford to good advantage in the public sphere, for example when he gave her a private Olympic stadium box, to which she invited her connections in British high society. In an attempt to "clean up" the host city, the German Ministry of the Interior authorized the chief of police to arrest all Romani and keep them in a "special camp", the Berlin-Marzahn concentration camp. The 'Jews Not Welcome' signs were removed for the duration of the Olympics.

On the Olympic stage

American Olympic Committee president Avery Brundage became a main supporter of the Games being held in Germany, arguing that "politics has no place in sport", despite having initial doubts.

French Olympians gave a Roman salute at the opening ceremony: known as the ''salut de Joinville'' per the battalion, Bataillon de Joinville, the Olympic salute was part of the Olympic traditions since the 1924 games. However, due to the different context this action was mistaken by the crowd for a support to fascism, and the Olympic salute was discarded after 1946.

Although Haiti attended only the opening ceremony, an interesting vexillological fact was noticed: its flag and the flag of Liechtenstein were coincidentally identical, and this was not discovered until then. The following year, a crown was added to Liechtenstein's to distinguish one flag from the other.

Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller were originally slated to compete in the American 4x100 relay team but were replaced by Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe prior to the start of the race. There were speculations that their Jewish heritage contributed to the decision "not to embarrass the German hosts"; however, given that African-Americans were also heavily disliked by the Nazis, Glickman and Stoller's replacement with black American athletes does not support this theory. Others said that they were in a better physical condition, and that was the main reason behind the replacement.

Domestic antisemitism

The German Olympic Committee, in accordance with Nazi directives, virtually barred Germans who were Jewish or Roma or had such an ancestry from participating in the Games ( Helene Mayer, who had one Jewish parent, was the only German Jew to compete at the Berlin Games). This decision meant exclusion for many of the country's top athletes such as shotputter and discus thrower Lilli Henoch, who was a four-time world record holder and 10-time German national champion, and Gretel Bergmann

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases