The Other Nazi Olympics and the Dawn of U.S. Boycott Talk

[mahatmakanejeeves]

The Other Nazi Olympics and the Dawn of U.S. Boycott Talk

Six months ahead of 1936 Berlin, Germany hosted the Winter Games. Some Americans voiced alarm.

By Rachel Bachman
https://twitter.com/Bachscore
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Updated Jan. 29, 2022 10:08 am ET

A few months before the Bavarian resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, hosted the 1936 Winter Olympics, signs posted in area parks proclaimed “Jews Not Admitted.” ... The postings, detailed in U.S. newspapers, were far from the first signs of trouble in the country that was set to stage the 1936 Winter and Summer Olympics. By 1934, Adolf Hitler. had become Germany’s absolute ruler. Yet despite evidence of troubling discrimination in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and elsewhere in Germany, preparation for the Olympics pushed ahead.

The much larger Berlin 1936 Summer Olympics receive far more attention in historical memory, punctuated by American sprinter Jesse Owens’ victories as Hitler watched. But the Nazi-hosted Winter Games six months earlier were a crucial test run.

The 1936 Winter Games also presented the first battleground in the question of whether nations, especially the United States, should participate in a global sporting event hosted by a government that had shown repeated signs of violating human rights. While the U.S. decided to compete in 1936, it later boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics over the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviet Union in turn boycotted the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

Now, the history of proposed and actual Olympic boycotts give context to the ongoing controversy about the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing. The U.S. and other prominent countries, including the U.K., Australia and Canada, are staging a “diplomatic boycott” of the Games, in which high-ranking government officials will remain at home but athletes will compete.

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On March 7, 1936, weeks after the close of the Winter Games, Nazi troops invaded the Rhineland, a demilitarized zone along the Rhine River in western Germany. The invasion violated the post-World War I Treaty of Versailles. ... With the Winter Olympics under his belt, Hitler accelerated his propaganda machine for the 1936 Summer Olympics. Especially then, they were a far bigger and more important spectacle than the Winter Games.

Write to Rachel Bachman at [e-mail]

[IbogaProject]

1. That 1980s boycott cost our athletes their chance

Carl and Carol Lewis were robbed of numerous medal opportunities at the prime of their careers. I'm from their hometown and their aunt was my gym teacher, so I have personal knowledge of that mistake. The Olympics are about peace and getting the nations together.