Hitler's Olympics

by Christopher Hilton

  Six interpreters, recognisable by armbands, manned the stadium’s entrances dealing with whatever came along. ‘A foreign lady visitor, for example, wished to be introduced to the Führer, and after her reasons for making this unusual request had been considered, the interpreter established connections with the proper officials and was actually successful in arranging an audience with the German Chancellor.’47

  The competitors from Denmark, Malta and Poland – including Stella Walsh – arrived at the Village.

  Fritz Wandt remembers ‘a problem with the Polish team. Each house was named after a German city and, since these houses were named after Upper Silesian cities like Oppeln, Gleiwitz and so on [Silesia was once part of Poland] the Poles said “This is a provocation, we won’t move into these houses.” The Canadians and the Afghans I think, did. This is why the Poles were the only team that had to be divided, one part in the Village and the other part in the barracks to the north.’48

  The British men’s team left Liverpool Street Station, London, at 8.30 p.m. for Harwich, the ferry to the Hook of Holland and the train to Berlin. The British said: ‘The London & North Eastern Railway Company made excellent arrangements for the transport of the team. The food on the journey proved expensive, especially as many meals were taken in Holland, and the rate of exchange to Dutch florins was very unfavourable.’ This despite the fact that ‘every competitor and team official received a return ticket from London to Berlin and vouchers for meals on the journey. Sleeping berths were reserved on the boats.’49

  For some reason the British women went by train to Dover, taking the Ostend ferry and resuming their journey by train again. Dorothy Odam recalls how she clutched ‘a lion which was our mascot. At sixteen I was very excited. I had very old spikes with my toe hanging out because I couldn’t afford new ones, a pair of shorts and a top that I had to make myself. They gave me some red and blue bands to put round my top and some red, white and blue stripes to put down my shorts. We were given a cravat, dress, jacket and beret, but the rest we had to provide ourselves.’50

  As the torch emerged from the Austrian town of Stockerau at 11 p.m., 2,350 runners had borne the flame. Out in the Austrian countryside, that was three days to the Opening Ceremony and 717 runners to go.

  THURSDAY 30 JULY

  The flame moved north from Vienna towards the Czechoslovak frontier which it reached at 9.45 a.m. Two policemen kept a path open through the crowds at the frontier while the flame was transferred to the first of the Czech runners.

  In the Friesenhaus the American women complained about the monotony of the food – presumably they were not receiving any of the feast shipped over for the men – and found it not particularly well cooked. Initially they’d been given green apples and typical German heavy black bread for breakfast, which they had never eaten before. The Americans hollered and got cereals, bacon and egg.

  Velma Dunn remembered that the ‘women’s quarters were in a brand new building. It wasn’t decorated, let us say, with pictures and things of that sort because as soon as the Olympics were over the Army moved in – it had been built as Army barracks – so it was very spartan but otherwise very adequate. We were two to a room and I shared with Iris Cummings [200 metres breaststroke], a Californian girl. I couldn’t complain about the accommodation at all. The food was adequate although not what I might have got at home. We just weren’t used to so much boiled potatoes, boiled vegetables.

  ‘We walked to the diving every day for practice or competition. It was not very far, I don’t think even half a mile.’51

  There had also been complaints because the rooms were damp and cold, the plaster not yet properly dry. Stephens also described the conditions as ‘spartan’ with a bed although not a real mattress, communal baths and showers, and a well-furnished lounge to welcome guests.52

  Ruth told Stephens that among the 150 German youngsters acting as gofers some might have been spying on the athletes, so she hid her diary and made sure her luggage was always locked.53

  The French team left from Platform 1 at the Gare du Nord, Paris, on a special train. Those of Monaco and Portugal arrived at the Village and the British contingent reached Berlin at 4.30 p.m. that afternoon.

  The flame arrived in Prague at 11 p.m. that night for a ceremony in Wenceslas Square attended by the country’s president.

  The French team’s train experienced mechanical problems and only pulled into Berlin shortly before midnight.

  That Thursday 2,628 runners had borne the flame, 439 to go. At midnight, two days remained before the Opening Ceremony – the Friday and the Saturday itself.

  At 1 a.m. on the Friday the flame resumed its journey from Prague towards the German border.

  It kept on coming.

  Notes

   1. Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (London, Sphere, 1979), p. 119.

   2. Sharon Kinney Hanson, The Fulton Flash (Carbondale, IL, Southern Illinois University Press, 2004).

   3. The XIth Olympic Games, Berlin, 1936 Official Report.

   4. Richard D. Mandell, The Nazi Olympics (London, Souvenir Press, 1971), p. 246.

   5. Hanson, The Fulton Flash.

   6. Lewis H. Carlson and John J. Fogarty, Tales of Gold (Chicago, IL, Contemporary Books, 1987), p. 138.

   7. en.olympic.cn/games/summer/2004-03-27/121663.html (visited 22 September 2005).

   8. New York Times, Thursday 23 July.

   9. Official US Olympic report.

  10. Velma Dunn; interview with author.

  11. Marty Glickman with Stan Isaacs, The Fastest Kid on the Block (Syracuse, NY, Syracuse University Press, 1996).

  12. Official US Olympic report.

  13. William J. Baker, Jesse Owens, An American Life (New York, The Free Press, 1986), p. 82.

  14. Jesse Owens with Paul Neimark, Jesse: The Man Who Outran Hitler (New York, Fawcett Gold Medal, 1978), p. 71.

  15. Hanson, The Fulton Flash.

  16. www.usc.edu/dept/pubrel/trojan_family/summer03/F_Zamperini.html (visited 26 September 2005).

  17. Carlson and Fogarty, Tales of Gold, pp. 162–3.

  18. www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/olympics.html

  19. Stephanie Daniels and Anita Tedder, ‘A Proper Spectacle’ – Women Olympians 1900–1936 (Houghton Conquest, Beds., ZeNaNa Press, 2000), p. 103.

  20. Fritz Wandt; interview with Birgit Kubisch.

  21. A record player with trumpet.

  22. Carlson and Fogarty, Tales of Gold, p. 161.

  23. New York Times, 25 July 1936.

  24. Hanson, The Fulton Flash.

  25. Esther Myers; interview by Matthew Walker of I, Witness to History, Wichita, Kansas for this book.

  26. The XIth Olympic Games, Berlin, 1936 Official Report.

  27. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Beccali (visited 11 August 2005).

  28. New York Times, 26 July 1936.

  29. Owens with Neimark, The Man Who Outran Hitler.

  30. The XIth Olympic Games, Berlin, 1936 Official Report.

  31. Ibid.

  32. Hanson, The Fulton Flash.

  33. New York Times, 26 July 1936.

  34. Canadian Olympic Committee, Canada at the XI Olympiad 1936 Germany.

  35. Fritz Wandt; interview with Birgit Kubisch.

  36. The XIth Olympic Games, Berlin, 1936 Official Report.

  37. Horst Wessel was a 23-year-old Nazi Party member murdered in 1930, supposedly by communists, and made into a martyr. His song was adopted by the Nazis as their anthem.

  38. New York Times, 29 July 1936.

  39. Daniels and Tedder, ‘A Proper Spectacle’, p. 107.

  40. Hanson, The Fulton Flash.

  41. Baker, Jesse Owens, pp. 83–4.

  42. Ibid, p. 84.

  43. Hanson, The Fulton Flash.

  44. The XIth Olympic Games, Berlin, 1936 Official Report.

  45. Duff Hart-Davis, Hitler’s Game
s (London, Century Hutchinson, 1986), p. 135.

  46. The XIth Olympic Games, Berlin, 1936 Official Report.

  47. Ibid.

  48. Fritz Wandt; interview with Birgit Kubisch.

  49. British Olympic Association, The Official Report of the XIth Olympiad, Berlin 1936.

  50. Daniels and Tedder, ‘A Proper Spectacle’, p. 106.

  51. Velma Dunn; interview with author.

  52. Carlson and Fogarty, Tales of Gold, p. 140.

  53. Hanson, The Fulton Flash.

  Chapter 6

  WAR GAMES

  The famous thoroughfare was afire with flags and banners, some flying from four lines of poles running the whole length of the route, others waving from windows or from the top of houses. The red of the Nazi banner predominated.

  Canada at the XI Olympiad 1936 Germany

  At 11.45 a.m. that Friday the last Czechoslovak runner approached the frontier, just south of a hamlet called Bahratal in deepest rural wooded Saxony. The excitement was now palpable and it brought an estimated 50,000, many travelling long distances, to witness the handover. The frontier lay in the countryside midway between Bahratal and Petrovice on the Czech side.

  At the frontier a middle-aged customs official in white, armless singlet – only his surname, Goldhammer, is recorded – shook hands with the last Czechoslovak runner through a dense press of people, some in traditional costume. Goldhammer accepted the transfer of the flame and padded off along the open road, lined with trees, which dipped in a long undulation towards Bahratal. He could see, to his right, meadowland falling away and beyond that hillsides dark with taller trees.

  The route reflected the Games themselves because they belonged just as much to the rural folk here – isolated farming communities lost in the woodland, small clusters of solid old houses, roads little more than tracks – as they did to the inhabitants of Berlin. From Olympia in Greece to this German frontier, the route had come to prove and would now prove within Germany itself, that the Games belonged to everybody. Moreover, between here and Berlin, as it wended its way north, the torch would pass through only one big city, Dresden, and one town everybody had heard of – Meissen of the exquisite china. The rest was heartland Germany and the places were places nobody had heard of.

  When Goldhammer came into sight the crowd in the little square at Bahratal roared ‘Heil Hitler!’ and collectively froze into the Nazi salute. In the square the flame lit up a temporary altar, the band played, the choir sang and the governor predictably gave a speech proclaiming that the Olympic Games should serve as a unifying force in the world.

  A great flock of carrier pigeons fluttered into the sky and headed north towards Berlin. Their arrival there meant the flame is now in Germany.

  When word reached the market square in Pirna, a town on the Elbe and the next staging post, groups of Hitler Youth sounded fanfares and as they melted away church bells pealed out.

  Berlin, ready, waited impatiently. Trevor Wignall wrote in the London Daily Express:

  Almost every street is deliriously decorated and be-flagged but gem of them all, if not indeed of the world, is the famous boulevard that leads to the Brandenburg Gate. Gone are the trees that for so many long years were its principal glory. They have been uprooted and their places taken by red clothed poles that seem to reach nearly to the skies. From each pole flies a banner. They bear two emblems only – the intertwined five rings of the Olympic Games and the Swastica of the Nazis. The organising ability of the German nation has never been so palpably in evidence. Years of preliminary work have resulted in the vast machine operating in the manner of a newly oiled clock.1

  The New York Times reflected that mood, writing about the decorations from the Brandenburg Gate to the stadium: loudspeakers at regular intervals to relay not just Olympic news but official announcements and music such as Viennese waltzes and quick-steps. The squares and platz along the avenue out to the stadium sported big Olympic banners and tall flagpoles. A million people were expected to line it to watch Hitler and the flame go by to open the Games.

  The luxurious, meticulously run Adlon Hotel beside the Brandenburg Gate provided sanctuary for the ‘royalty and nobility’ who ‘thronged to Berlin’. They included the King of Bulgaria, the Crown Prince and Princess of Italy, the heir to the Swedish throne, the Crown Prince of Greece, Mussolini’s sons, the Duke of Hamilton, and Lord and Lady Londonderry. The hotel owner, Hedda Adlon, remembered that ‘it was at this time that I again met Prince Philip of Hesse and his wife, Princess Mafalda, the second daughter of the King of Italy. I have often thought of the Princess’s large, dark, ardent eyes and of the appalling fate that awaited her eight years later.’2

  Bermuda and Luxembourg arrived at the Village, making fifty-one countries and, at their maximum, 4,202 competitors. Village life offered fertile ground for the German love of statistics: by the end of the Games each competitor had ‘spent an average of 19 days and 17 hours in the Olympic Village’.3 By contrast, the Canadian swimming team were very angry about an astonishing failure to allocate them proper training time at a pool and scoured Berlin trying to find out at which they ought to be, eventually getting an hour at 6 a.m. in the main pool.

  Jesse Owens moved easily around the American quarters with a big smile and a polite refusal to discuss any possibilities of gold. In the Village the American men’s team staged a march past rehearsal for the Opening Ceremony but reports called it unimpressive and said that however many medals the Americans – and Owens – might win, one for marching would not be among them. It begged a much bigger question, the twin themes of politics and sport drawn tight together. As the athletes paraded past Hitler country by country – the tradition at every Opening Ceremony – should they give the Nazi salute? If they did, would they be publicly regarded as recognising the Nazi creed and, by extension, endorsing it? Worse, the Olympic salute resembled the Nazi salute and might be mistaken for it.

  The Americans had to make a decision on this delicate matter, not least because some of the athletes felt so strongly that they refused to take part in the parade if they were ordered to give the salute. Some insisted they would not give it in any circumstances, others expressed indifference. Originally the men were to remove their straw hats and hold them out with the brims at arm’s length but that had been moderated to holding them against their bodies below the left shoulder and keeping their eyes to the right. During the afternoon two American officials went to the women’s quarters to tell them what they should do but neither the officials nor the athletes spoke publicly about it.

  The IOC met in secret session and awarded the 1940 Summer Games to Tokyo rather than Helsinki – Britain had withdrawn her bid the night before.

  From Hellendorf a chain of twenty runners bore the flame up towards Pirna, the entire route ‘lined by phalanxes of the members of National Socialist Party organisations, school children and sportsmen’.4

  Dresden, itself a stone-clad city but of cathedrals, churches, opera houses and museums of almost fragile beauty, lay a further 20 kilometres up the Elbe. The flame arrived there in the evening. A truly immense crowd, including members of the Reich Association for Physical Training and different Party organisations, watched as Hitler Youth trumpeters sounded a fanfare announcing that the twentieth runner was near.

  Inevitably pomp and spectacle attached themselves once more to the flame during a ceremony on the Königsufer, the big open space on the north bank of the Elbe commanding a view of the city’s spires: a programme of music, a speech from the Regional Leader of Physical Training, a gymnastics display and more music before it left on the 28-kilometre leg to Meissen – 227 runners to go. There, more pomp and circumstance surrounded the third ceremony since the run entered Germany: fanfares sounded from towers, an altar was lit in front of the town hall, the district leader of the National Socialist Party and the mayor made speeches, then the mayor lit a torch and padded off into the first of the 19 kilometres north to Grossenhain – 200 to run.
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br />   At Grossenhain, floodlights and thousands of candles turned the main square into an enchanted place filled with a crowd of more than 20,000. Floodlights played too on the town’s 1,000-year landmark, a tower, now decorated by the Olympic rings. At 10 p.m. three canon, fired from the tower, signalled the start of festivities although the flame was still a couple of hours away. The flags of the seven nations through which the torch passed fluttered from flagpoles

  At midnight, 1 August – the Opening Ceremony only sixteen hours away – Grossenhain’s church bells rang out to announce the flame’s approach. The crowds cheered and the Regional Governor gave a short address of welcome before the next runner padded off for Herzberg – 123 to go. The flame wended its way north through a string of anonymous little communities and reached Herzberg at around 2 a.m.; between Herzberg and Jütebog it passed from Saxony to the Land (the province) of Brandenburg, where the stone-clad city sat.

  In the Olympic Village preparations for breakfast began, as they did each day, at 5 a.m. Vans from the Spandau Dairy Company arrived bringing fresh milk; biscuits, rolls and bread soon followed. Service was from 7 a.m., with menus in English, French, Spanish and German for the various dining rooms. The choice:

  Apples, bananas

  Porridge with milk

  Cornflakes, puffed wheat

  Grapenuts

  Orange marmalade, raspberry jelly

  Eggs prepared as desired

  Scrambled eggs with ham

  Coffee, tea, ‘Sanka’ coffee

  Malt coffee, cocoa, milk

  Breakfast biscuits, toast5

  At 7 a.m., too, controllers and policemen moved to their positions at the stadium’s entrances while others patrolled the area. At 7.30 a roll call ensured they were all present.