The 1936 Olympics: A Victory for Propaganda
How the Nazi regime prevented a boycott of the Olympic Games – and how the world allowed itself to be deceived by Hitler
With the aim of warding off a threatened boycott of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, the Nazi regime presented itself as peace-loving. Adolf Hitler assured the international community that the Games would be fair, and that even Jewish athletes would be allowed to take part. World-class Jewish high jumper Gretel Bergmann was nominated as a token gesture. Ultimately, she was not allowed to compete, however.
90 years ago, in August 1936, the 11th Summer Olympic Games were held in Berlin. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) had already decided on the venue for the Olympic Games back in 1931 – at a time when it was still conceivable that the Games could be held in Germany without restrictions. From the start of Nazi rule in 1933, however, international opposition to Germany hosting the Olympic Games began to emerge, particularly in the USA, France and England
Reassurances and lip service
Adolf Hitler initially had little interest in the Olympic Games, as the idea of bringing nations together stood in stark contrast to the Nazis’ racial ideology. However, Theodor Lewald, the chairman of the organising committee for the 11th Summer Olympic Games, managed to bring him around to the idea. Sports official Lewald, who was later himself subjected to hostility because of his Jewish heritage, was a member of the IOC and a fervent supporter of the Games. Hitler, and even more so Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, quickly recognised the propaganda value of the Olympics. Moreover, the competitions would encourage the public to take part in sport, it was thought, and thus contribute to preparations for war.
The more Hitler’s enthusiasm for the Games grew, the more sceptical the IOC became. The US public, in particular, called for Germany to commit to complying with the Olympic rules and to allow Jewish athletes to take part. Hitler paid lip service to this and ostensibly bowed to the pressure. The Nazi regime instructed the press to tone down racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric for the duration of the Games. However, the phrase “Once the Olympics are over, we’ll beat the Jews to a pulp!” was already doing the rounds among the ranks of the SA stormtroopers.
International boycott movement
Despite Germany’s obfuscation tactics, the calls for a boycott did not die down. The movement gained fresh momentum with the passing of the Nuremberg Race Laws in 1935. Opponents were convinced that Germany would not uphold fundamental Olympic values such as equality, understanding and respect.
However, Avery Brundage, then President of the US Olympic Committee, was firmly opposed to a boycott. Following a trip to Germany in 1934, he insisted that there was no reason to fear discrimination against Jewish men and women at the Games. In a vote on a boycott, he secured US participation in the Olympic Games. Many other countries followed suit. With 49 nations and nearly 4,000 athletes, the Games in Berlin were set to break the record for the number of participants.
No Yugoslav national football team
Only a few teams stayed away from the Olympic Games. As well as Spain, where a civil war was raging, the Yugoslav football team was also absent. One of the leading figures behind the boycott was Milutin Ivković, captain of the Yugoslav national team. He had taken part in both the 1928 Olympic Games and the first FIFA World Cup in 1930. In 1934, he played for the national team for the last time. During the war, he supported the Yugoslav People’s Liberation Army, the military wing of the Communist Party, and was arrested several times by the Gestapo. In early May 1943, he was arrested again and executed on 25 May 1943 in a concentration camp near Belgrade.
Contrary to Avery Brundage’s insistence, the Nazis in Germany had been systematically promoting discrimination against Jewish men and women since 1933, including in sport. Jewish athletes were excluded from sports clubs and were only allowed to train in exclusively Jewish clubs, which were often not equipped for top-level sport. Many Jewish athletes were unable to qualify for the Olympics in the first place.
Gretel Bergmann, the “token Jew”
High jumper Gretel Bergmann was also forced to leave her home sports club in Ulm in April 1933 because of her Jewish heritage. Disappointed, she emigrated to England, where she attended a sports academy and won the British high jump championship in 1934. The Nazi regime forced her to return by threatening her family in Germany with reprisals. The world-class athlete was to compete at the Games as a “token” Jew in order to avert the threat of a US boycott.
Meisterschaften des Sportbundes des Reichsbundes jüdischer Frontsoldaten (RJF) auf dem Sportplatz der Jüdischen Gemeinde in Berlin-Grunewald, Juli 1936: Die Hochspringerin Gretel Bergmann aus Laupheim, dt. Rekord d. Frauen über 1,60 m (1914-2017; emigrierte 1937 (USA) ).
Foto (A.Pisarek).
Despite adverse training conditions, Gretel Bergmann achieved record-breaking performances. However, the Nazi regime never intended to allow the high jumper – whom they regarded as a ‘full Jew’ – to compete. Shortly before the Games began, and exactly one day after the US team’s ship left the United States, she received a letter from the German Reich Sports Federation. In it, she was informed of her exclusion from the squad. The flimsy justification was: “Given your recent performances, you yourself probably didn’t expect to be selected.”
On 1 August, Adolf Hitler opened the Olympic Games in front of over 100,000 spectators at the newly built Olympic Stadium in Berlin. The role of “token Jew” now fell to Helene Mayer. The fencer, who is classified as “half-Jewish” under the Nazis’ racist ideology, was the only Jewish member of the German team. She went on to win the silver medal in foil fencing and gave the Nazi salute at the medal ceremony.
Gretel Bergmann emigrated to the USA in 1937. Her achievements were immediately removed from the German all-time rankings. In her memoirs, published in 2003, she wrote: “And so I became a decoy, a pawn in Hitler’s political manoeuvre of deception.”
A fresh start in New York
In New York, Gretel Bergmann had to scrape by doing odd jobs, but she continued to enjoy sporting success. In 1937 and 1938, she won the US high jump title. In 1938, she married her fiancé, Bruno Lambert, who had been able to join her in the USA. Gretel Bergmann-Lambert and Bruno Lambert both reached the grand old age of 103. He died in 2013; she died in 2017 in New York. The couple were married for 75 years.
The Olympics – a masterpiece of Nazi propaganda
For the Nazis, the meticulously staged Olympic Games proved to be a massive propaganda success: with 33 gold medals, Germany topped the medal table – ahead even of the USA.
The TV network even broadcast live to the studio for a few hours. The programmes were shown in 28 public viewing rooms in Berlin. The fact that Jesse Owens, of all people – a black American – went on to become the most successful athlete and a crowd favourite, ironically undermined the claim of the superiority of the “Aryan race”.
The Film “Olympia”
With her two-part film “Olympia”, director Leni Riefenstahl (1902–2003) paid tribute to the 1936 Games. During filming, she experimented with a range of technical innovations, such as shots taken from a hot-air balloon or using an underwater camera. Her team comprised around 300 people, including 34 camera operators alone.
To this day, the film is often described as an aesthetic masterpiece. However, due to its glorification of athletic bodies, it is regarded above all as the epitome of the “fascist cult of the body”, which was intended to demonstrate the supposed strength and superiority of an “Aryan race”. For the Nazis, the film proved to be an extremely successful propaganda tool, although the director denied throughout her life that she had supported the Nazi regime. Her films tell a different story, however. The first part of “Olympia” premiered on 20 April 1938, on Hitler’s birthday, at the Ufa-Palast in Berlin.
