Hitler's Olympics

by Christopher Hilton

  The French team came in. Patricia Down, a member of the Australian team, remembered the French did give the Nazi salute to a tremendous reception but later claimed it had in fact been the Olympic salute. Nobody, Down added, had heard of that before.

  The New York Times described how the French intended to give the Olympic salute and did ‘as they understood it’, but the Germans simply didn’t know the difference and later, delighted, said that ‘even the French heiled Hitler’.

  The Daily Express described how ‘the loudest ovation went to France and Austria, both of whom out-Nazied the Nazis in the way they flung out their right arms. The officials of the many competing countries are still arguing about what they should have done, but the pity is that an arrangement was not come to long before the processions were started.’

  The Canadian Official Report admitted that ‘while Canada was given a great reception, France perhaps stole the cheers of the day. The French in blue berets, nearly two hundred and fifty strong, did something that none had expected from them. The flag bearer dipped the Tricolor to Hitler, and the entire French section raised their outstretched arms in the Nazi salute. For one moment there was silence as the French marched past the reviewing stand – the next moment the two-tiered stand rocked with an ovation that continued in rippling volume all around the track as they proceeded to their place on the field. How the German folk love that gesture of admiration.’22

  The Great Britain team was criticised by the Daily Express because it ‘contented itself with a turn of the head, or eyes right as soldiers would describe it, but it is to be stated that these men and women were received with little more than a whisper. It would not have done the British any harm if they had made a gesture to the country housing the Games by following the unexpected example of France.’

  Even the British Official Report said: ‘It was a little unfortunate that no uniformity of saluting was agreed upon by the International Olympic Committee. The French team giving the Olympic salute, so similar to the Nazi form of salutation, received a tumultuous welcome. The British contingent with their “eyes right” met with almost complete silence.’

  The single athlete from Haiti had to carry his flag and was given as big a cheer as the Costa Rican although he, too, could not give any salute.

  The Icelanders, bare-headed, did give the Nazi salute.

  The Indian team wore flowing turbans and reportedly one of them ignored the instruction for ‘eyes right’ as they went past the boxes but waved a ‘How are you, Hitler?’ salute of his own.23

  The Italians did give the Nazi salute, and the New York Times noted cryptically that they ought to have done: they invented it. They wore black shirts over white trousers.

  The Japanese did not give the salute but the man at the end of their front rank held an orthodox military salute as they went by, the rest all looking to the right.

  Canada – ‘Kanada’ to the Germans – were delighted when the London Times reported that they ‘made a brilliant spectacle in bright red blazers’. The Canadians also wore ‘red and white ties for the men, our team were dressed all in white, with white shoes, and they certainly looked spick and span. They were drilled … in marching and in giving the Olympic salute, and they did both well in unison. The majority of the 800 Press men voted Canada the place of honor as the smartest and most colorful unit in the parade. We had an imposing array of 160 in line.’24

  Ab Conway, a runner from the University of Toronto, remembered the dilemma. To give the Nazi or Olympic salute? ‘But the Nazis had taken it over. We decided that we were not going to let them do it, that the Olympic salute was the Olympic salute and we were going to give the Olympic salute.’ The crowd went wild because they imagined the Canadians were giving the Nazi salute. The flag bearer, hurdler Jim Worrall, has said: ‘We took a lot of backlash criticism for that. The kindest thing you might say is it was done in naivety.’25

  The Daily Express reporter thought the Canadians gave the Nazi salute …

  The Latvians, in white jumpers, white shirts and dark ties, marched solemnly by.

  Liechtenstein, wearing jackets, marched solemnly by followed by Luxembourg, Malta – all in white, including caps – and Mexico in tops with single dark hoops on them.

  The little Monaco contingent did give an indistinct salute.

  The Netherlands marched solemnly by led by their women in pretty skirts.

  The New Zealanders evidently mistook an erect German official for Hitler and doffed their hats to him, putting them on again when they reached Hitler himself. Jack Lovelock, their leading runner, carried their flag. The Daily Express noted that during the wait at the May Field ‘Lovelock was forced to stand about for more than two hours and I observed that when he was not hopping from one foot to the other he was leaning very heavily on his flagpole.’ He carried the flag high.

  The Norwegians marched solemnly by.

  Austria – Österreich – received almost as much applause as the French, but a curious thing happened reflecting, no doubt, the political divisions of that troubled land. Some made an ostentatious show of holding their arms sideways so everyone could see they were giving the Olympic salute, while the majority, and the whole women’s team, gave the Nazi salute.

  The Peruvians, wearing buttoned-up blazers, did give a salute, some stiff arm, some slightly crooked.

  The team from the Philippines, like the Chinese, placed their white sunhats over their hearts.

  The Poles marched solemnly by and so did the Portuguese, Romanians, the Swedes and the South Africans.

  A merry Swiss carried their flag, whirling the pole round his head, casting it into the air and catching it. Was it perhaps the self-same Swiss who had done something similar when the team reached the Village?

  Turkey did give a salute throughout but waving their hats.

  The Americans were pleased, too. Their 400-strong team – fifteen athletes were excused the parade because they were competing the next day, including Owens – felt they

  made a splendid showing…. The men were outfitted in a double-breasted blue serge coat with emblem on left breast and six Olympic buttons, white trousers, white shirt with red, white and blue striped necktie, straw hat with blue band and emblem, white sleeveless V-necked sweater trimmed in red and blue with shield in center, white sport shoes and white sox. Blue leather belts bearing the team insignia were worn. The women wore a blue serge jacket with emblem on left breast and two Olympic buttons, white skirt, white blouse, white shoes and stockings and white sport hat.

  The men’s uniforms were tailored by Smith-Gray Corporation of New York who furnished well-fitting and neat looking clothes. This concern sent two tailors at their expense on the SS Manhattan to make the necessary alterations in the uniforms. The women’s suits were made by Long Mark of New York and were well fitted and most satisfactory.26

  Glickman remembered marching into the stadium although, as he subsequently confessed, marching was not perhaps quite the right word. They shambled forward amid fears they’d disgrace themselves. They were extremely curious to see exactly what Hitler looked like. As they passed they turned their gaze to where he stood and, Glickman sensed, they all had the same thought: Yep, he really does look like Charlie Chaplin.27

  ‘When the march into the stadium was arranged we were a total disgrace,’ fencer Joanna de Tuscan said. ‘First about thirty or forty non-members of the team, fat, with cigarette ashes on their clothes, marched at the head of the team. Then came the chaperones. I had to produce my passport. I was 29 years of age and too old to march with the athletes. They made me march with the chaperones.’28

  Velma Dunn ‘saw Hitler go by’ as he came across the May Field. ‘The march past? We weren’t used to military styles and all the rest of the countries were pretty well in order. It may be the American character that doesn’t like being told what to do!’29

  The American team was the only one that did not lower its flag when they passed Hitler and later an official explained that �
�army regulations’ – whatever that meant – prevented them from doing so.

  They were given a cordial reception, no more and no less.30

  The Yugoslavs marched solemnly by.

  The 400-strong German team, all in white, went last as hosts and they appeared while the Americans went round the track. Their appearance created such a surge of emotion among the spectators that the band abandoned what they were playing and moved into Deutschland über Alles and the Horst Wessel Lied. The Americans found themselves marching to the music of those.31

  For the first time an Olympic Games could be listened to on the radio and the German Broadcasting Company set up facilities so the world could hear. Conditions proved perfect for transoceanic transmission and listeners in America heard the speeches with great clarity. Shortly before midday Eastern Standard Time two networks with over a hundred stations coast-to-coast prepared to broadcast the arrival of the flame and the inevitable speeches when the athletes were in place across the infield. In Japan listeners to the NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) who wanted to hear events as they unfolded had to be up at dawn because of the time difference. This broadcast, and the subsequent radio coverage of the Games, provoked a ‘previously unheard-of national sport frenzy’ in Japan, fuelled by the fact that Tokyo had just been given the 1940 Games and the Japanese competitive successes. Huge numbers of people prepared to follow the Games in ‘real time’ – the dawn watch or late at night – and NHK claimed ‘storms of excitement for about half of August’.32

  The British took it in their stride. The broadcast came, as one newspaper put it, from Berlin to the national transmitter and the commentary, by a Mr T. Woodruffe, covered the runner lighting the Olympic flame in the stadium. It culminated in ‘Handel’s Hallelujah by the band of 450 instrumentalists and chorus of 1,000 voices’. Programmes then returned to normal: in the evening the first act of Orpheus and Eurydice went out while the Western Brothers and Miss Phyllis Robbins ‘contribute[d] to the variety entertainment’. 33

  Gretel Bergmann was not among the listeners. ‘There was no television at Laupheim and very little radio – and we weren’t allowed to have a shortwave radio. Jews weren’t. There was a little newspaper and whether there was something in it about the Games I do not remember – I do not remember one thing about the Olympics. Maybe psychologically I just shut everything out because I was so traumatised by the whole thing. I would love to tell you “I did this, I did that”, but I have no recollection whatsoever.’

  In fact there was television, albeit limited. Two German companies provided the first live television coverage of any sporting event anywhere. Three cameras would transmit 72 hours during the Games and they could be watched at special booths in Berlin and Potsdam.34 Werner Schwieger says he appeared in close up in film transmitted by one of the companies, Wochenschau. ‘The camera was right in front of me and I could be seen in the middle of the picture. This was the first time that there were television cameras and so the first time I ever saw them. One day, when there was a little less going on in the stadium – around noon – I just strolled around and I saw the cameras. They were huge.’

  In the stadium, Lewald spoke from a small rostrum, thanking Hitler for being the protector of these Games, ‘built according to your will and purpose’. Lewald invited Hitler to declare the Games open. Hitler said only: ‘I proclaim open the Olympic Games of Berlin, celebrating the XIth Olympiad of the modern era.’ Olympic flags were raised, trumpets sounded and the four-gun salute exploded into the air. The great flock of pigeons took to the sky and a chorus in virginal white sang the Olympic Hymn.

  At this moment – 5.20 p.m. – the runner appeared at the top of the steps on the East Gate. He was tall, slender and he hesitated, brandishing his torch above his head. He was a champion student athlete, Fritz Schilgen, and ‘with his fair hair and blue eyes’ represented the ‘image of an “Aryan youth”’.35 He ran down the track and ascended the steps at the Marathon Gate.

  The stadium fell silent.

  He thrust the torch deep into the bowl and the flame leapt up.36

  A few minutes later Louis, the old marathon runner – moved to tears – presented Hitler with a gift from Greece.

  It was an olive branch.

  Notes

   1. Daily Express, 1 August 1936.

   2. Hedda Adlon, Hotel Adlon (London, Barrie Books, 1958), p. 211. Princess Mafalda, born in Rome and the second child of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, married a Nazi, but during the war Hitler suspected her of treachery. She died in Buchenwald concentration camp.

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

   4. Ibid.

   5. Ibid. The organisers tried to cater for individual nations’ preferences. They sent out a questionnaire and this is what came back (in the MENUS OF THE NATIONS I have used only selected examples):

  Argentina: three meat dishes daily with large portions. Australia: English cooking; beef, mutton and veal preferred; three meat dishes daily. Austria: biomalt. Finland: ample quantities of milk. France: hors d’oeuvres instead of soup or broth at lunch. Germany: tomato juice, cream cheese with linseed oil; Ovaltine, Dextropur, Dextroenergen. Greece: cold or warm Ovaltine at all meals. Holland: warm meals only in the evening; ample quantities of vegetables, potato and fresh salads; for breakfast, Dutch cheese; for lunch, cold cuts of various kinds, sausages, eggs, Dutch cheese, bread and butter. India: curry, meats including mutton, veal, lamb and fowl but no beef, pork or beef suet. Poland: cold or warm Ovaltine for breakfast and dinner. Switzerland: Ovaltine at every meal. U.S.A.: Ovaltine, Dextroenergen. Yugoslavia: dishes cooked in oil.

  The Official Berlin Report comments:

  Since the meals provided at the international physical education students’ encampment did not agree with the Indian and Chinese representatives, the camp authorities approached the household department of the North German Lloyd Company with the request that lunch be prepared at the Olympic Village for about 30 Chinese and 30 Indians, the food then being transported each day to the students’ encampment in special containers. The menus at Frisian House [Friesenhaus] and in Kopenick were in general the same as those at the Olympic Village, and the dishes were prepared in a similar manner.

  THE MENUS OF THE NATIONS

  Afghanistan: no pork and no sausages with a high fat content; fish and fowl demanded daily; ample quantities of fruit, principally bananas; rice and fresh vegetables.

  Australia and New Zealand: beefsteaks, fowl and lamb but no pork; mostly grilled meat; salads; milk and tea as principal beverages.

  Brazil: large quantities of meat, especially beef and pork; veal and lamb less popular; black beans daily (with dry rice); little butter but large quantities of olive oil; six oranges daily and one pound of bananas per person; strong coffee.

  Canada: considerable quantities of beefsteak prepared in the English fashion, also roast beef and spare ribs; cold cuts seldom requested; American breakfast with all extras; salads; vegetables cooked only in water; lamb and veal as well as fowl prepared in the usual fashion, but preferably roasted; stewed fruit, tomatoes and fresh fruit constantly demanded; large quantities of honey and cream cheese.

  Chile: the Chileans were moderate eaters, preferring beef and pork as well as fowl. Beefsteaks half done were popular; rice, noodles or spaghetti at every meal; large quantities of marmalade.

  China: the Chinese were also moderate in their requests, pork and fowl being preferred as meats although beefsteaks were also demanded occasionally; no lamb; fish requested now and then; curry as a principal spice; large quantities of salad and fresh fruit, but few vegetables; 300 grammes of rice daily per person; iced tea and orange juice as beverages.

  France: the French sportsman is also an epicure, paying less attention to practical nourishment than to tasty and varied dishes. English steaks Chateaubriand fashion with white bread and red wine preferred for the weight-lifters; all kinds of meat requested, this being prepared in the form of steaks, fill
ets, cutlets, roasts and ragouts; delicacies such as mushrooms, anchovies, sardines, corn on the cob, green peppers, etc. popular; stewed fruit with every meal; vegetables steamed in butter but without sauces; cheese, fruit and coffee after the principal meals.

  Germany: the weight-lifters received beefsteak Tatar, chopped raw liver, cream cheese with oil and considerable quantities of eggs, often four per meal. Light refreshment before training and more substantial food afterwards. The athletes required normal meals, steaks, cutlets, pork chops, roast beef and fowl being principally requested. Large quantities of fruit; vegetables prepared with flour, potatoes but practically no rice; tomatoes and salads popular; milk with grape-sugar and fruit juices preferred as a drink; various kinds of bread with large quantities of butter.

  Great Britain: moderate eaters; grilled meat, ‘medium’ done, especially popular three to four eggs, oatmeal, tea, milk, fruit and toast for breakfast; Horlicks malted milk; plainly cooked vegetables.

  India: no beef or pork; principally fowl or lamb prepared in curry and eaten with rice only; few vegetables and salads; four to five eggs daily; large quantities of fruit and fruit salads. Several sportsmen were vegetarians.

  Italy: the Italians’ diet was prescribed by their sporting physician. Principally soups, spaghetti, macaroni and large quantities of Parmesan cheese; noodles, ravioli and strudles of all kinds; starchy foods at every meal; the weight-lifters ate considerable quantities of meat, while the boxers consumed only bouillon with egg two days before competing; daily portions of meat average in size; normal quantities of fruit; coffee and chianti wine preferred as beverages; large quantities of rolls.

  Japan: for breakfast, soup with meat, vegetables, soy and rice, then eggs, fruit and bread; for lunch, meat (pork preferred), vegetables, rice, potatoes and often a sweet dessert; for dinner, steaks, ragouts, and other similar dishes with rice; vegetables and salads always mixed with soy; preserves which the Japanese brought with them also popular.