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
The Olympics have shown over the decades that they can be affected by political conflict. However, it seems that this is the point of the Olympics, to illustrate national pride, by competition. Bloodshed should not be the way for pride of one’s country to be shown, but it should be shown through competition, in the words of the founder of the modern Olympic movement, Pierre de
because of how the Olympics were broadcasted around the world. A visitor to Berlin during this time
Ever since its inception in 1896, the Modern Olympics has hosted an invisible sport: politics. The Olympics calls for “a halt to all conflicts … [and to] strive towards a more peaceful world,” but politics soon spoiled its biennial message. “As the Olympics continue to dissolve into … a political competition … they no longer … justify the time and trouble,” Dave Anderson, Pulitzer Prize winner for his sports column, wrote in the New York Times in 1984. The Olympic spirit has routinely been used as an outlet for political agendas. With political and Olympic ambitions intersected, the great international sports festivity negatively affects all nations involved.
The 1972 Olympics basketball finals in Munich remains one of the most controversial Olympic games in history. Controversies of this match took both a sporting and political angle at the time because the two finalists, team USA and team USSR, came from a background of political competitions by virtue of them being the two most powerful nations on earth. The controversy happened in three “final three seconds.” Whatever happened to the medals remain equally controversial.
The 1972 Olympics were supposed to show that Germany had changed as a country. They were supposed to be “The Happy Games” but instead are remembered for the massacre of the Israeli athletes. The Munich Massacre has changed how terrorism is dealt with in different countries and in the Olympics as a whole.
The olympics were shaped due to social reasons. Document 1’s author, Pierre de Coubertin, who is the founder of the modern Olympics, is a reliable asset to pursuing ideal peace with many other countries. The reason why he wants peace is because he wants to have the “disappearance of war” to be “utopians” which shows that he believes that the olympics one of the best answers to his goal. Similarly, in document 6, the Soviet Union’s Olympic organizing Committee also want to take part with “peace, democracy, and social progress.” This shows how more and more countries, even those with bad ties with others,
As a sporting mega-event, the Olympic Games have numerous social impacts on the people, not only on those from the host country, but on individuals all over the globe.
So Hitler took on the task of building new stadiums and rest houses for the athletes. They were big, lavish, and of course had giant swastikas down the sides. They were also in the perfect location, a small recluse area so they didn’t have contact with the outside. Hitler did all this in an effort to show that he cared for them. Around this time the Holocaust also started, and all of the Jews were publicly persecuted and killed. But Hitler was smarter than that, so he told everyone to take down Anti-Jew signs and stop persecuting the Jews, so that when the foreign athletes would be in Germany, they wouldn't see the massacres or the hatred. Therefore the foreigners would bring back good comments about Germany to their
The Nazi Olympics in Berlin in 1936 destroyed Hitler’s master race history. "There was very definitely a special feeling in winning the gold medal and being a black man," Woodruff said. "We destroyed [Hitler's] master race theory whenever we started winning those gold medals,” said runner John Woodruff (7). John Woodruff was a black man who won a gold medal. Another African American Jesse Owens won four track and field gold medals. These two people defied the Aryan ideal that Hitler believed that Aryan dominated the world. Another important impact the Olympic brought happened in 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia. In that Olympics, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon refused to participate because of a dispute over the Suez Canal; Spain, Switzerland, and the Netherlands boycotted the Games in protest over the Soviet Union's invasion of Hungary; China boycotted the Games because a flag of Taiwan was raised in the Olympic Village. The original purpose of the Olympics was to make the countries collaborate, however, it also brought negative impacts. Another example is that Olympics in Mexico city in 1968. Americans politicised the Games by letting two African Americans, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, represent the United States. Tommie Smith and John Carlos placed first and third in the track and field. During their medal ceremony, they raised a clenched fist above their
“No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas” (Advertising, Demonstrations, Propaganda* 98). This rule shows just what the Germans were hoping for, a peaceful, passive, war-free environment in which countries can get together and compete. Although we all know that quite the antithesis was upon the 1972 Olympics in Munich between September the fifth and September the sixth. The Munich Massacre, one of the worst massacres of all time, was driven by the vengefulness of the Palestinian group known as Black September, towards the people of Israel, or more relevantly, towards their Olympic team (Rosenberg). Since this confrontation between Palestine and
"...Sport is prostituted when sport loses its independent and democratic character and becomes a political institution...Nazi Germany is endeavoring to use the Eleventh Olympiad to serve the necessities and interests of the Nazi regime rather than the Olympic ideals."
Soon after Hitler took power in 1933, questions began to arise from the United States and other Western democracies of whether or not they should support the idea of the Olympic Games hosted by the Nazi Regime. America was particularly concerned about the persecution of Jewish athletes that lived in Germany in 1933. In the United States, debate over participation in the 1936 Olympics was a hot topic. The U.S. always sent one of the largest teams to the Olympics. Groups on either side of the debate stated strong views of whether the United States should participate in the Olympics in Hitler’s Nazi Germany.
The 1972 Summer Olympics were an international multi-sport event. Another name for that Olympic Game was the 1972 Olympics Massacre. It was the 20th Olympic Games. It was held in Munich, Germany from August 26, 1972 to September 11, 1972.The 1972 Olympics were the second Olympics to be held in Germany. The first Olympic Games that were held in Germany occur in 1936 in Berlin, which occurred during the Nazi regime. The Olympic Committee in West Germany was hoping to get rid of the military image of Germany. They were tired of the image that was portrayed by the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which Hitler used for his own benefit. Also, tensions were high due to the fact that the last games occurred during the Nazi regime. The Israeli athletes and
Most Germans hoped that the 1972 Olympics would help to heal the racial damage caused by the 1936 Olympics. It was the first time the games had returned to the state since Nazism
The lenient security was a part of the West German Olympic Organizing Committee’s push to a friendly and open atmosphere within the village. Germany’s goal of diminishing the images of militaristic wartime Germany, under Nazi dictator Hitler, disregarded the overall safety of the athletes participating in the games. The intentionally relaxed security used as a propaganda strategy by Germany, allowed athletes to enter the village without proper identification or by climbing over a chain-link fence. The lack of armed