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Olympic Affair

Page 10

by Terry Frei


  Lindbergh ostensibly was in Germany to represent the U.S. Army Air Corps and inspect Luftwaffe facilities. The growing tensions between the nations didn’t preclude openness, and in fact made displays of strength and preparedness prudent. But Leni had heard the hints that Lindbergh in private moments sounded as if he were carrying a National Socialist Party membership card in his wallet.

  Reporters stood in the back of the room as Lindbergh began his speech at the luncheon—a speech he gave a sentence or two at a time before allowing a well-dressed, middle-aged civilian translator to pass along his message in German. Leni was one of the few women in the room. At first, she wondered if the notes in front of the American were his own, or he was following instructions from his military leaders. She quickly decided, no, the pilot’s thoughts were his own—and nervy, considering his audience. It sounded as if he were speaking directly to the portly Göring, the Great War flyer now in charge of the German air forces.

  Air power in the Great War had led to significant destruction, Lindbergh noted. But that would be nothing compared to what could happen in future wars, given the advances in bomber aircraft and weaponry. He said “those in aviation” should attempt to avoid the unnecessary unleashing of the new forces of unprecedented destruction, and he called for a “new security founded on intelligence.” Leni interpreted that as praise of the Reich’s openness on his tour, and as a challenge to continue it—and even for his own nation to reciprocate. Around her, though, the reddened faces and squirming of Luftwaffe men made her wonder if they thought Lindbergh was merely chiding his hosts.

  A little later, as she waited in the reception line at the Lufthansa tea, Leni noticed that Lindbergh was uneasy as he shook hands, seemingly intent on avoiding any communication that would require the interpreter at his side to become involved in something other than introductions. When it was Leni’s turn, the Luftwaffe adjutant held out the introductory card for the interpreter, but he ignored it. He didn’t need it. He had seen The Blue Light four times.

  “Fraulein Leni Riefenstahl,” the interpreter said. As Lindbergh took her hand, the interpreter added in English, “Our renowned actress and filmmaker.”

  Smiling, Lindbergh said, “Oh, I know Miss Riefenstahl’s work. Please tell her I very much admire it.”

  Leni cut off the translation. “Thank you,” she said in English. She continued, “Thank you for your message. I agree our nations need to be open with each other.”

  “Yes,” Lindbergh said solemnly. “With communication and candor, peace is possible.”

  The Luftwaffe officer behind Leni was being shoved along, so she smiled again and left Lindbergh. As she walked away, Leni wondered if he had seen her on-screen as Leni, the actress, or simply been shown one of the documentaries in his briefings. Then she decided that Lindbergh’s smile was his answer. That was the smile of another man who was meeting Junta.

  A balding man with a moustache and in glasses strode toward her, catching her attention with a slight wave. She recognized him as American journalist William Shirer, well known in the Reich Chancellery circles and considered an influential—and often challenging—voice in the portrayal of the Reich for the American readership. Two years earlier, he had just arrived in Germany as a correspondent when he covered the Nuremberg rally, which was the basis for Triumph of the Will and later told her of the film: “I wanted to stop watching it because of what I was seeing, but I couldn’t. It was that mesmerizing. And frightening.”

  She had interpreted that as at least respect for her work, but as Shirer’s antagonistic reputation spread, she wondered if he had been playing the role of a nit-picking critic.

  “Good evening, Fraulein Riefenstahl. I’m William Shirer, Universal News Service,” he said.

  “Of course, Mr. Shirer,” she said neutrally. “I remember you.”

  “I’m wondering how your preparations are going for your Olympics film,” he said.

  “Very satisfactorily, Herr Shirer. It will be a tribute to beauty, competition, and the Olympic ideal.”

  “Have you have been instructed to downplay the accomplishments of American Negroes if they are successful here?”

  Leni remained calm. “As you saw in my previous work, I am an independent artist,” she declared. “I am a filmmaker. I do not have preconceptions when I begin a project. I document what we see. We will simply have to see how events unfold, won’t we?”

  Shirer asked, “Shall I interpret that as a ‘no’?”

  Leni’s eyes flashed defiance. “Interpret that as a ‘no, no one tells me what to do.’”

  10

  Zehnkampf! Zehnkampf!

  As the SS Manhattan traveled up the Elbe River toward Hamburg, the word spread through the American athletes that Avery Brundage had just kicked Eleanor Holm Jarrett off the Olympic squad.

  Glenn didn’t know whether to be mad or sad. He could still hear Eleanor saying of Brundage: “Oh, he’s just bluffing.”

  One of her young swimmer roommates seemed to know the most, and more trickled in from the athletes’ grapevine. The word was that Eleanor had played dice with the sportswriters the afternoon before and later partied in first class and had been loud when walking around the deck before going back to her room. The stories differed, depending on who was telling them or how many times they had been passed along, but most agreed that the swim team’s chaperone, Ada Sackett, had confronted Eleanor during the evening, suggested she go to bed, and was told to mind her own business. This morning—when Eleanor hadn’t been in bed long—Sackett took the ship doctor to wake her up and examine her. The doctor declared her in the throes of acute alcoholism. The swim coaches made all the girls on the team go to Eleanor’s room and see how sick she was, and then reported her to Brundage. And a few hours later, Brundage had passed judgment: Eleanor was off the Olympic team.

  Glenn and Walter Wood were on the deck later when Joe Williams hustled over to them.

  “Hey, boys, can I get your comment on Mrs. Jarrett’s suspension?”

  “Mister Williams, I don’t know enough to comment,” Glenn said. “You know more than I do. All I know is she is off the team and that’s sad.”

  “Wood?”

  “Put me down for the same thing, Mr. Williams.”

  After Williams left, Walter nudged Glenn.

  “That was weird,” Walter said. “But you sure were right about him knowing more than we do.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Glenn said, realizing what he meant.

  They had both heard that Williams and Paul Gallico were among Eleanor’s favorite drinking buddies, and that many writers were treating the crossing as a nine-day party. Glenn wondered if that helped explain why Williams, who was supposed to be chronicling the Colorado athlete for the Rocky Mountain News, hadn’t yet asked him about anything else.

  Before the Americans were to go ashore the next morning, Brundage called another team meeting. Glenn was trying to figure out if these lectures would be a common occurrence in Berlin, too. He hoped not.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I understand that dispatches in American newspapers have said this trip over was hijinks on the high seas, with parties going on around the clock,” Brundage said. “You’ve been slandered. Human nature being what it is, some people will believe what they read. I’m suggesting that when you write home, correct them.”

  A swimmer near Glenn quietly said, “We got that straight, boys? All we did on the way over was work out, eat, and read the Bible!”

  Brundage moved on to a spiel about representing America and being polite to officials, spectators, and even fellow competitors.

  “Remember we are representing the greatest country in the world and we are here to win for the honor of our country and the glory of our sport. If I’m not able to address you all after we arrive . . . good luck to you all.”

  The athletes cheered—as much because his speech seemed to be over as in reaction to its sentiment.

  Beating Walter Wood back to the room, Glen
n finished packing and, as ordered, put on the blue blazer, tie, slacks, and white hat. Because of the uniforms and clothes they had acquired during the trip, they were issued a duffle bag they could use along with their own suitcase. As he was about to leave, he stopped in the doorway and looked back. In the nine days of the crossing, it had become home, the spot where he would lie on the bed and look at the ceiling or close his eyes and picture his dreams for Berlin. Clearing 12 feet in the pole vault. Doing so well in the 100 meters and the broad jump, Jesse Owens congratulated him and said he was glad Glenn was in the decathlon and not the “regular” events. Plowing along in the 1,500 meters until he knew he had the gold clinched. Accepting the gold medal. Looking at the American flag and hearing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

  All in his third decathlon ever.

  Glenn shut the door and headed for the deck. At the rail, he had mixed feelings as he stood among his teammates, with his suitcase at his feet. A huge banner, in English, at the Hamburg dock announced: “welcome to germany.” A band played “Stars and Stripes Forever.” The American flag was next to the German flag. Along the shore, Germans welcomed them—with the Nazi salute.

  Next to Glenn, Marty Glickman said, “That just doesn’t look right. That shit, with our flag.”

  Walter Wood joined them. “Hey, Glenn,” he said. “You forgot something in the room.” He reached into his duffle bag, pulled something out, and handed it to Glenn.

  It was Karen’s picture.

  As the Americans filed onto the dock, a huge crowd welcomed them, despite the drizzly weather. At first skeptical, Glenn tried to spot evidence that it all was scripted, rather than genuine, but the warmth of the smiles and the greetings, and the outreached hands, won him over. He was shocked to see that many, especially the children, were eager to touch the Negroes. The displays of friendliness continued during and after the ride to the beautiful and historic Hamburg City Hall, where dignitaries not only welcomed them, but also insisted on all—the American athletes included—joining in a toast of friendship with orange juice and sherry.

  “Where’s Eleanor when we really need her?” Jack Torrance asked.

  “They say she’s going to be on the train with us to Berlin,” swimmer Al Vande Weghe said.

  At the Hamburg train station, as they were waiting to board the express to Berlin, sprinter Mack Robinson voiced what had been running through the minds of Glenn and many others. “I know the Germans are supposed to hate me, but they’re sure not acting like it,” he said.

  Sam Stoller snorted. “They look down on you Negroes. They hate us Jews. But they aren’t sure which ones we are.”

  “You know what I’d like to think?” Glenn asked. “When nobody has time to tell the regular German people how to act, when they’re just reacting naturally, maybe they’re not so bad.”

  “Keep dreaming, Morris,” Marty Glickman scoffed.

  “I agree with him,” declared 400-meter runner Archie Williams. “Think they’d let us in the City Hall in Birmingham?”

  “Hold on. It’s all a charade from now on,” said sprinter Ralph Metcalfe. “They’re trying to fool us—and the world.”

  Jack Torrance asked, “Don’t you think we’ve figured out what the Nazis are? They don’t have us fooled. For Christ’s sake, we almost skipped their Olympics!.”

  “And they’re not all Nazis,” Glenn reminded.

  Stoller said, “What you’re forgetting is that your ‘regular’ German people have less say every day. The thugs are taking over. It doesn’t matter anymore how many decent Germans there are. Besides, more of them are deciding to go along with this bullshit every day.”

  Walter Wood nudged Glenn and pointed. In another area of the terminal, a group surrounded Eleanor Holm. Glenn and Walter wandered over. “At least I won a hundred bucks in the crap game,” she told the group sarcastically. “If you want to do it, I won’t stop you, and I’m grateful. They said I could come on the train and they’d at least listen to me. I’ll tell ’em I’m sorry, I’m done drinking, and ask for another chance . . . but if that asshole Brundage thinks I’m gonna beg—at least beg him—he’s got another guess coming.”

  In the half hour left before the Americans boarded the train, some of the athletes circulated, seeking signatures on handwritten petitions asking for Eleanor’s reinstatement. When tiny swimmer-diver Katherine Rawls approached Glenn’s group of trackmen, he waited as others signed. “The coaches don’t know how much she helps the rest of us,” she said. “She’s really a nice person. She deserves another chance.”

  Glenn decided he needed to take a last-second trip to the bathroom.

  “What was that all about?” Jack Torrance asked him when he returned. “Sure looked like you didn’t want to sign.”

  “She already had her second chance,” Glenn explained. “I’ve had Brundage up to here, too. If they let her back on the team, fine, but all they did was tell her to tone it down a bit. She wouldn’t even do that.”

  “All true,” Torrance conceded, “but it couldn’t have hurt to sign the petition.”

  “Well, if Katherine still was here when I got back, I might have signed it. Not with a lot of enthusiasm, though.”

  “You can probably catch her . . . or any of the others with a copy,” Torrance noted, gesturing at the girl about fifty feet away.

  “That’s okay. It can succeed or fail without me.”

  Glenn didn’t leave his window seat as the express train passed through the countryside on the three-hour trip from Hamburg to Berlin. Everywhere they looked, there were young men in uniforms—Glenn couldn’t, and didn’t want to, keep them straight—and the swastika flags. Spotting the train as it traveled past, many of the Germans, and far from only those in uniform, gave the Nazi salute. Glenn wondered if a wave back qualified as acknowledging the salute and what it stood for.

  The Berlin station was jammed.

  “Think they do this for Norway?” Torrance asked dryly.

  “Listen up everybody!” hollered a Badger at the door. “Step off and stay on the platform. They’ve got a little ceremony planned for us. Then we go to the buses.”

  As they stood in the aisles and waited to climb off, Glenn could see Brundage leading the way onto the platform, where a delegation of Germans in civilian suits waited. One man, apparently in charge, not only shook hands with Brundage, he also kissed him on the cheek.

  “Did we just see that?” Glenn asked Walter Wood.

  “Afraid so. At least there was no tongue.”

  When they all were wedged on the platform, Brundage’s pal stepped to a microphone and introduced himself—in English—as Dr. Theodor Lewald of the German Organizing Committee. He welcomed the Americans and said he hoped the Games strengthened the bonds and increased understanding between the two nations. A band played “The Star-Spangled Banner,” with the Germans through the station standing respectfully at attention, and then Brundage got his turn, alternating with the interpreter.

  “We are happy first because we know the great disappointment Germany suffered when the 1916 Games were postponed because of the World War,” he said. “And secondly, because the Olympic call has been answered so splendidly around the world that more than fifty nations will participate in what probably will be the finest competition in the history of sport. Conditions in Berlin are the finest ever provided in modern sports competition. We in the United States who pride ourselves on being the first in so many fields cannot equal the facilities provided here.”

  The crowd loved that.

  The Americans headed to the vehicles outside. Young Germans both reached out to touch the Americans and to plead for autographs. Much to Glenn’s amazement, the clamor for Jesse Owens again was enthusiastic and unrestrained. “Ow-ens! Ow-ens!” young boys hollered. Jesse slowed and tried to sign on the move.

  Then as Glenn started through the line, he was even more amazed.

  “Morris! Morris! Zehnkampf! Zehnkampf!”

  He recognized the German word for deca
thlon. That much, he had learned. In the next five minutes, he signed more autographs than he had in four years of college sports competition. Many of them were on his huge picture on the cover of a German newspaper. As he signed one for a pretty young German woman, a javelin thrower looked over Glenn’s shoulder. “What’s that headline say?” he asked Glenn, good-naturedly. “’Beware, the Simla Sensation’?”

  Glenn winced. The nickname had gotten around.

  The javelin thrower snatched the paper from Glenn when he was done signing and handed it back to the girl, saying: “Ich liebe dich. Du bist schön.”

  The girl smiled shyly. “Danke.”

  “What was that?” Glenn demanded.

  The javelin thrower grinned. “I said, ‘I love you. You are beautiful.’”

  Outside the station, as they waited to climb into the charabanc-style, or open-topped, buses and open cars that—according to the schedule on the sheet Glenn checked again—would take them to the Unter den Linden for a short parade to Rotes Rathaus, the city hall, for another welcoming ceremony. Sam Stoller raised his hand and called out: “All right, this is Germany now! All Negroes . . . know your place. You walk behind.”

  “You don’t think we’re used to that?” asked 400-meter man Jimmy LuValle. “Just like home!”

  “Yeah, but here’s the difference,” Stoller said. “All us Jews, get under the wheels!”

  “Damn it, Stoller,” a guy Glenn didn’t recognize growled, “are you going to be this way the whole time? We’re here to compete, not bitch, okay? If the Germans treat you like shit at the Village or anywhere else, and the same with our Negroes, I’ll be the first in line to back you. But until that happens, why don’t you do us all a favor and shut up! If you’re going to hate this so much, you shouldn’t have come, made your point that way and left a spot for someone who wanted to be here.”

  “Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Torrance shouted. “Why doesn’t everybody just shut up!”

 

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