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Essay about The Nazi Olympics of 1936

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Most people would classify the Berlin Olympic Games of 1936 as just another Olympics, and they would be right because the Games did have the classic triumphs and upsets that occur at all Olympic Games. What most people did not see, behind the spectacle of the proceedings, was the effect the Nazi party had on every aspect of the Games including the results. Despite Nazi Germany’s determination to come off as the superior nation in the 1936 Olympics, their efforts were almost crushed by the very people they were trying to exclude. Germany made it very clear prior to the Olympics that they were in fact an anti-Semitic race. Before the Olympics there were anti-Jewish signs hung around and newspapers had a harsh rhetoric. During the Games, …show more content…

Three hundred microphones and twenty transmitting vans were made available to the foreign media . Radio coverage of the Games was broadcast in twenty-eight different languages (Trueman 2). The film Olympishe Spiele was a documentary of the Berlin Games directed by Leni Riefenstahl (Jane 69). Even though the documentary was clearly anticipated to be created for propaganda, the film resulted in becoming a noteworthy film and an embodiment of the human spirit (Wallechinsky 11). Germany skillfully promoted the Olympics with colorful posters and magazine spreads. Athletic imagery drew a link between Nazi Germany and ancient Greece, symbolizing the Nazi racial myth that a superior German civilization was the rightful heir of an “Aryan” culture or classical antiquity emphasized ideal “Aryan” racial types: heroic, blue-eyed blonds with finely chiseled features. (“Nazi” 3) Another aspect Germany excelled at was the amount of effort that went into the construction of buildings for the Berlin Olympics. Germany spent thirty million dollars erecting buildings for the 1936 Games. Athletic buildings created for the games were four stadiums, a twenty thousand seat swimming facility, a polo field, and gymnasium, and basketball courts (Associated 152, 155). The main stadium held one hundred thousand spectators, and there were one hundred fifty other buildings constructed for these Olympics (Trueman 2). The Olympic Village fabricated in Berlin was

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