All About - History - Nero - Rome's Deadliest tyrant

The Nazi Olympics
outshining the efforts of the Los Angeles 1932
games, which suffered poor attendances and
troubled finances due to the Great Depression.
Germany went all out in its preparations for the
games with a new 100,000-seat stadium and
150 other Olympic buildings built especially
for the event. The
‘Olympiastadion’ was one
of the biggest stadiums
in the world and part of
the all-new Reich Sports
Field complex. Away
from the impressive
stadium complex, Berlin
was being kitted out as a
grand host city. Along the
Unter den Linden Street
and outside the Reich’s
Chancellery, huge statues
were erected echoing classic Greek and Roman
symbolism. The Berlin Summer Olympics was to
be the first to be televised and benefited from the
videography of Leni Riefenstahl, who was handed
a cool $7 million and entrusted with a team of 33
camera operators to film the event. On arrival, the
international media were no doubt impressed by
the Nazi welcome, with transmitting vans and the
DID YOU KNOW?
Resistance to the Berlin
Olympics was initially so
severe that a rival ‘People’s
Olympiad’ was planned in
Barcelona but was cancelled
due to the Spanish Civil War
equipment to broadcast in 28 languages, as well
as Zeppelins to carry newsreel footage to other
European cities for rapid transmission of events to
more than 41 countries.
The acid test for the Germans was gaining the
trust of the international community. Boycott
threats came from the
USA, Britain, France,
Czechoslovakia, the
Netherlands and Sweden.
Even within Germany
itself, not all were behind
the idea of hosting the
Olympics. This dissent
primarily came from
the left wing of German
politics with Arbeiter
Illustrierte Zeitung (The
Worker Illustrated) firmly
opposed. One man who did support American
participation was the president of the United
States Olympic Committee, Avery Brundage.
Championing the idea that “the Olympic Games
belong to the athletes and not the politicians,” after
a trip to Berlin he claimed that from what he had
witnessed, Jews and other supposed enemies of
the Nazi state were being treated fairly.
Hitler and Minister of Propaganda Goebbels
toned down their true intentions to Brundage and
the watching world. Since the establishment of
Nazi totalitarian control, all Jewish athletes had
been banned from attending sporting facilities and
expelled from competition. Come 1936, all traces
of anti-Semitic propaganda had been hidden away
and a false image of Nazi Germany successfully
established. All anti-Semitic propaganda had been
removed, Nazi tabloid Der Stürmer had been taken
off newsstands and Olympic flags hung in the
streets beside swastikas. Even the SA brownshirts
greeted visitors with an uncharacteristic friendly
smile. The Nazi hierarchy performed an elaborate
cover up that even managed to hide the fact that
the Jewish president of the German Olympic
committee Dr Theodor Lewald had been replaced
by SA member Hans von Tschammer und Osten,
as well as the 600 Romani gypsies who had been
arrested and forcibly relocated to the outskirts of
Berlin between a cemetery and a sewage dump.
With all these measures in place, the idea of a
boycott melted away with only the Soviet Union
(who had not been present at any of the Olympics
it had been invited to) not attending what would
be a world event. Goebbels had successfully drawn
a curtain over the worst of Nazi oppression.
The Hindenburg Zeppelin looms
over the Olympiastadion, just under
a year before its tragic demise
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