1936 Summer Olympics

The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: Olympische Sommerspiele 1936), officially the Games of the XI Olympiad (Spiele der XI. Olympiade) and branded as Berlin 1936, were an international multi-sport event held from 1 to 16 August 1936 in Berlin, Germany. Berlin won the right to host the Games over Barcelona at the 29th IOC Session in 1931. The 1936 Games were the second and last occasion on which the International Olympic Committee (IOC) chose a host by a ballot in which the bidding cities themselves could vote. Later rules barred cities that voted from being selected.

The Games had been awarded to Germany during the Weimar Republic, but by 1936 the country was governed by the Nazi regime. Adolf Hitler's government treated the Olympics as an opportunity for propaganda. To show an image of a peaceful, tolerant Germany, the authorities temporarily removed antisemitic signage and softened the most visible forms of persecution during the Games. At the same time, German Olympic authorities barred nearly all Jewish and Romani athletes from the national team. The fencer Helene Mayer, who had one Jewish parent, was the only such athlete to represent Germany.

A movement to boycott or relocate the Games developed in several countries, including Czechoslovakia, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. However, it ultimately failed. Forty-nine nations competed, the largest number at any Olympics up to that point.

These were the first Games to be televised and the first to feature a torch relay carrying the Olympic flame from Olympia to the host city. This ceremony was devised for Berlin and became a permanent Olympic tradition. The filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl recorded the Games for her two-part film Olympia, which pioneered techniques still used in sports cinematography.

Jesse Owens of the United States won four gold medals in the sprint and long jump events, and became the most successful athlete to compete in Berlin. Germany was the most successful country overall, with 101 medals (38 of them gold). The United States placed a distant second with 57 medals. These were the final Olympic Games under the IOC presidency of Henri de Baillet-Latour. For the next 12 years, no Olympic Games were held due to the immense world disruption caused by the Second World War. The next Olympic Games were held in 1948, with the Winter Games in St. Moritz, Switzerland, and then the Summer Games in London, England.

Host city selection

In May 1930, fourteen cities said they wanted to bid for the 1936 Summer Olympics. By April 1931, only Barcelona and Berlin were still in the running. Several of the cities that had dropped out later hosted the Games: Helsinki in (/wiki/1952_Summer_Olympics), Rome in (/wiki/1960_Summer_Olympics), Barcelona in (/wiki/1992_Summer_Olympics), and Rio de Janeiro in (/wiki/2016_Summer_Olympics). The 1936 Games were the first where each member of the International Olympic Committee voted on the host, instead of the host being decided at the meeting alone. Of 67 voting members, 43 voted for Berlin and 16 for Barcelona, and 8 abstained. Barcelona's chances were probably hurt by political uncertainty after the Second Spanish Republic was declared just days before the meeting.

After the Nazis took power in 1933 and began early measures against Jewish people, some committee members privately discussed moving the Games. The US Olympic Association briefly suggested moving them to Rome. Hitler's government promised that Jewish athletes would not be excluded from the German team, and the idea was not seriously pursued.

Background and political context

See also: Nazi persecution of Jews during the 1936 Olympic Games

Berlin was awarded the Games in 1931, when Germany was ruled by the Weimar Republic. After the Nazi takeover in January 1933, the Games took on a new purpose, because the regime saw them as valuable international propaganda. Hitler regarded the Games as a chance to promote his government and its belief in Aryan supremacy. The official Nazi paper, the Völkischer Beobachter, had strongly argued that Jewish and black athletes should be barred from the Olympics. As the Games approached, however, the regime worked to soften Germany's image abroad. Signs reading "Jews not welcome" (German: Juden unerwünscht) were taken down from public places for the Games, and overt antisemitic agitation was muted.

The regime also removed people it considered undesirable. In July 1936, the Ministry of the Interior allowed Berlin's police to detain the city's Romani and confine them in a special camp at Marzahn. In March 1936, Germany had remilitarised the Rhineland in breach of the Treaty of Versailles, which heightened international tension before the Games. In line with Nazi directives, the German Olympic Committee effectively barred German athletes who were Jewish or Roma from competing. The most prominent excluded athlete was high jumper Gretel Bergmann, who was dropped from the team shortly after equalling the German record of 1.60 m in June 1936. Others kept off the team included record-holding athlete Lilli Henoch, tennis player Daniel Prenn, boxer Erich Seelig and Sinti boxer Johann Trollmann. The exclusions also reached the organisers. Theodor Lewald, president of the German Olympic Committee, had a Jewish grandparent and was sidelined from a leading role. Hauptmann Wolfgang Fürstner, who had overseen construction of the Olympic Village, was reclassified as a Jew under the Nuremberg Laws and demoted shortly before the Games.

Organisation and preparation

Hans von Tschammer und Osten, the Reichssportführer, had overall responsibility for the Games. The detailed work was led by Theodor Lewald and Carl Diem. Diem, as secretary-general of the organising committee, was the main promoter of the torch relay from Olympia to Berlin. The Games' emblem, designed by Johannes Boehland, first combined the Olympic rings, the German eagle and the Brandenburg Gate. Lewald suggested opening its lower part into the shape of a bell, and the resulting Olympic Bell became one of the Games' lasting symbols. Berlin staged the first torch relay, carrying a flame lit at Olympia in Greece through seven countries to the host city. The relay set the pattern used at later Games. The Olympic Village was at Elstal in Wustermark, about 30 km west of central Berlin. After the Games, the Wehrmacht took over the site, and Soviet forces later used it as a military camp.

Twenty-two venues were used, most of them in the Reichssportfeld complex, which had been planned for the cancelled 1916 Summer Olympics. The centrepiece Olympic Stadium seated about 100,000 people. Sailing was held in the Bay of Kiel, which was later used again for the 1972 Summer Olympics.

The Games were the first to be shown live on television. Using Telefunken equipment, the German Post Office sent more than 70 hours of black-and-white coverage to public viewing rooms in Berlin and Potsdam. Radio also carried the Games in 28 languages. The Games were an early showcase for colour photography, using the newly developed Agfacolor film. Leni Riefenstahl recorded the Games for her two-part documentary Olympia, released in 1938. The Games were among the most expensive of their time. The budget was roughly 4 million Reichsmark, and money came from a three-year lottery, special stamps, and an "Olympic Penny" added to ticket prices. From 1933, the Reich Ministry of the Interior directed a large building programme, and much of the spending came from the state rather than the organising committee.

The Games

The sports programme ran from 1 to 16 August 1936 and was framed by large opening and closing ceremonies. At the opening, the airship Hindenburg flew over the Olympic Stadium, and the parade of nations followed, with Greece first and the host nation last. Some teams gave the Nazi salute or the Olympic salute as they passed Hitler, French athletes gave a Roman salute, and the United States and a few others did not. The Greek team was led by Spyridon Louis, winner of the marathon at the first modern Olympics in 1896. The Olympic Hymn, composed by Richard Strauss, was heard for the first time after the writer Gerhart Hauptmann did not supply a text. The programme had 129 events in 19 sports. Basketball, canoeing and handball made their Olympic debuts, and the host nation topped the medal table, mainly through gymnastics, rowing and equestrian events. The outstanding athlete was Jesse Owens of the United States, who won four golds, and Rie Mastenbroek of the Netherlands was the leading swimmer. Italy won the football tournament, and India took a third hockey gold in a row. Japan's Sohn Kee-chung won the marathon for Japan, which then ruled Korea as a colony. The closing ceremony took place on 16 August before more than 100,000 people, and Henri de Baillet-Latour declared the Games closed. The 1940 Games had already been awarded to Tokyo before the 1936 Games opened.

• Aquatics
  • Diving
  • Swimming
  • Water polo
• Athletics
• Basketball
• Boxing
• Canoeing
• Cycling (road, track)
• Equestrian
• Fencing
• Field hockey
• Football
• Gymnastics
• Handball
• Modern pentathlon
• Polo
• Rowing
• Sailing
• Shooting
• Weightlifting
• Wrestling

Participating nations

Forty-nine nations took part, up from 37 in (/wiki/1932_Summer_Olympics). Five countries appeared at the Olympics for the first time: Afghanistan, Bermuda, Bolivia, Costa Rica and Liechtenstein. Several countries returned after missing 1932. Ireland and Spain had competed in 1932 but did not come to Berlin.

Sources give different numbers of participants, mostly because of how the art competitions are counted. The International Olympic Committee counts 3,963 athletes in the sporting events: 3,632 men and 331 women. The 1936 Games also gave medals in five art categories (architecture, literature, music, painting and sculpture) and in alpinism and aeronautics. If the architects, writers, composers, painters and sculptors who entered the art competitions are included, the database Olympedia records 4,483 participants across all 31 medal events.

Medal table

* Host nation (Germany)

Main article: Art competitions at the 1936 Summer Olympics

Medals were also given in art competitions, as at every Games from 1912 to 1948. The 1936 art competitions were the largest the Olympics ever held, with fifteen events in five categories: architecture, literature, music, painting and sculpture. Their entries were shown in an exhibition on the Kaiserdamm, which drew about 70,000 visitors. For the first time, the prize-winning music was performed. German artists dominated because many French and British artists stayed away. They won twelve of the thirty-two medals and five of the nine golds, and the judges gave no medals at all in three events.

Among the golds, the German composer Werner Egk won the orchestral prize for Olympic Festive Music. The architect Werner March and his brother Walter won for their design of the Reichssportfeld. The Finnish writer Urho Karhumäki won for the novel Avoveteen, the Swiss graphic artist Alex Diggelmann for a sports poster, and the Italian sculptor Farpi Vignoli for The Sulky Driver. The art competitions were dropped after 1948, but the IOC currently recognizes them as official. Its database gives Germany a combined total of 101 medals for the 1936 Games, which includes 12 medals won in art competitions.

Boycott debate

Main article: People's Olympiad

Before and during the Games, many people outside Germany debated whether the competition should go ahead or be stopped. Campaigns to boycott or move the Games appeared in the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, and the United States. The protests were not successful. Forty-nine teams from around the world took part in the 1936 Games, the largest number of nations at any Olympics up to that time.

In the United States, which usually sent one of the largest teams, there was a major debate about whether to take part. Judge Jeremiah T. Mahoney, president of the Amateur Athletic Union, argued that racial discrimination broke Olympic rules and that taking part would support the Nazi government. Avery Brundage argued that politics had no place in sport, and he won the debate, so the Amateur Athletic Union voted to send a team. Most African-American newspapers, including the Chicago Defender, supported taking part. In Spain, the government boycotted the Games, and the Government of Catalonia organized the People's Olympiad in Barcelona as a parallel event, but it was cancelled when the Spanish Civil War broke out one day before it was due to start. The Soviet Union did not take part in the Olympics at that time, and it had attended the left-wing Spartakiad instead. In France, the Jewish fencer Albert Wolff qualified for the national team but withdrew on principle.

Legacy and aftermath

Historians widely regard the Berlin Games as a major propaganda success for the Nazi regime, though they disagree about how far that success reached. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum called them "a resounding propaganda success" that showed a peaceful, tolerant Germany. Many visitors and foreign newspapers were impressed, although some diplomats and correspondents in Germany were less easily fooled. Henri de Baillet-Latour, the IOC president, told Hitler to greet all medalists or none, so the story that Hitler publicly snubbed Owens is not supported by the evidence. Owens's four gold medals became the most lasting memory of the Games and were seen as a rebuke to Nazi racial theory, though Germany still finished well clear at the top of the medal table. Owens said he was treated cordially in Germany, but he faced segregation when he returned home, where President Franklin D. Roosevelt neither received nor congratulated him.

The image of a tolerant Germany did not last. After the foreign visitors left, anti-Jewish measures resumed and persecution grew, leading to the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 1938 and the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939. Several 1936 Olympians were later murdered in the Holocaust, including the Polish competitors Roman Kantor and Ilia Szrajbman, both killed at Majdanek. The war forced the cancellation of the 1940 and 1944 Games, and the Olympics did not resume until London 1948. The Games left a lasting mark on culture and sport. Leni Riefenstahl's film Olympia (1938) is seen both as a landmark in filmmaking and as state propaganda, and the Olympic Stadium was later renovated for the 2006 FIFA World Cup final. Owens's story has been told on film in Race (2016). The Berlin Games are now often cited as an example of "sportswashing," which means using a prestigious sporting event to improve the image of an authoritarian government.