![]() It was canceled after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936, just as thousands of athletes had begun to arrive. One of the largest was the "People's Olympiad" planned for the summer of 1936 in Barcelona, Spain. Some boycott proponents supported counter-Olympics. Debate over participation in the 1936 Olympics was most intense in the United States, which traditionally sent one of the largest teams to the Games. Movements to boycott the 1936 Berlin Olympics surfaced in the United States, Great Britain, France, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, and the Netherlands. Thus, the regime exploited the Olympic Games to present foreign spectators and journalists with a false image of a peaceful, tolerant Germany. Most anti-Jewish signs were temporarily removed and newspapers toned down their harsh rhetoric, in line with directives from the Propaganda Ministry, headed by Joseph Goebbels. In August 1936, the Nazi regime tried to camouflage its violent racist policies while it hosted the Summer Olympics. Most did not fully grasp at the time the extent and purpose of Nazi persecution of Jews and other groups. These athletes chose to compete for a variety of reasons. Like some of the European Jewish competitors at the Olympics, many of these young men were pressured by Jewish organizations to boycott the Games. Seven Jewish male athletes from the United States went to Berlin. Still, nine athletes who were Jewish or of Jewish parentage won medals in the Nazi Olympics, including Mayer and five Hungarians. No other Jewish athlete competed for Germany in the Summer Games. She won a silver medal in women's individual fencing and, like all other medalists for Germany, gave the Nazi salute on the podium. ![]() Mayer was viewed as a “non-Aryan” because her father was Jewish. Roma (Gypsies), including the Sinti boxer Johann Rukelie Trollmann, were also excluded from German sports.Īs a token gesture to placate international opinion, German authorities allowed the star fencer Helene Mayer to represent Germany at the Olympic Games in Berlin. But these Jewish sports facilities were not comparable to well-funded German groups. Jewish athletes barred from German sports clubs flocked to separate Jewish associations, including the Maccabee and Shield groups, and to improvised segregated facilities. Gretel Bergmann, a world-class high jumper, was expelled from her German club in 1933 and excluded from the German Olympic team in 1936. (Seelig later resumed his boxing career in the United States.) Another Jewish athlete, Daniel Prenn-Germany's top-ranked tennis player-was removed from Germany's Davis Cup Team. The German Boxing Association expelled professional light heavyweight champion Erich Seelig in April 1933 because he was Jewish. ![]() "Non-Aryans"-Jews or individuals with Jewish parents and Roma (Gypsies)-were systematically excluded from German sports facilities and associations. In April 1933, an "Aryans only" policy was instituted in all German athletic organizations. Such imagery also reflected the importance the Nazi regime placed on physical fitness, a prerequisite for military service. In sculpture and in other forms, German artists idealized athletes' well-developed muscle tone and heroic strength and accentuated ostensibly Aryan facial features. German sports imagery of the 1930s served to promote the myth of “Aryan” racial superiority and physical prowess. The Nazi claim to control all aspects of German life also extended to sports. Two years later, Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany and quickly turned the nation's fragile democracy into a one-party dictatorship that persecuted Jews, Roma (Gypsies), all political opponents, and others. The choice signaled Germany's return to the world community after its isolation in the aftermath of defeat in World War I. In 1931, the International Olympic Committee awarded the 1936 Summer Olympics to Berlin. With the conclusion of the Games, Germany's expansionist policies and the persecution of Jews and other "enemies of the state" accelerated, culminating in World War II and the Holocaust. Having rejected a proposed boycott of the 1936 Olympics, the sponsoring athletic and Olympic organizations of the United States and other western democracies missed the opportunity to take a stand that-some observers at the time claimed-might have given Hitler pause and bolstered international resistance to Nazi tyranny. ![]() Softpedaling its antisemitic agenda and plans for territorial expansion, the regime exploited the Games to bedazzle many foreign spectators and journalists with an image of a peaceful, tolerant Germany. For two weeks in August 1936, Adolf Hitler's Nazi dictatorship camouflaged its racist, militaristic character while hosting the Summer Olympics.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |