"The Americans should be ashamed of themselves,  letting Negroes win their medals for them.  I shall not shake hands with this Negro.....  do you really think that I will allow myself to be photographed shaking hands with a Negro?"  Balder von Shirach claimed Hitler said this after the 100m victory of Jesse Owens.
Hitler thought that only the Aryan people would dominate in the Olympics.  He didn't really like Jewish and African American basically everybody but Aryans.  Which are people with blonde hair and blue eyes.  An a bunch of innocent people were treated badly throughout this part of history.
In 1936,  Lambert tied the German woman's high jump record ( 5'3" ) less than one month before the start of the Berlin Olympics.  Despite the fact that the height would have won her the gold or silver medal at the Olympics, she was forced off the German because she was Jewish.  She expressed her anger by remarking " A hundred thousand spectators seeing a Jew win would've been heaven " Lambert is shown in Hitler's Pawn saying " I can still hear that voice calling from within Jump!  Continue to jump.  Show them what a Jew is capable of doing,  of being."  Strangely,  a stadium in which she w3as not allowed to compete (or even enter!)  was name after her in this new century.  When she was sent a photograph of Gretel Bergmann Stadium in Germany,  Gretel-now Margaret Bergmann Lambert.  Gretel (her nickname) recalled that " When I was nineteen years old, I was no longer allowed to set foot in the stadium, even as a spectator.  Bergmann remembers had vowed never to have anything to do with Germany.  But in 1996,  she was invited by the German Olympic Committee to be its guest at the Atlanta Olympics.  She turned it down at First but the committee wouldn't take no for a answer.  "I decided that I could not blame this generation for what their fathers and grandfathers did."     
Marty Glickman, a Jewish sprinter who made the U.S. Olympic team in 1936 but wasn't permitted to compete.  Signs saying No Jews allowed were taken down during the games. It was hard for Jewish people to be in the Olympics. Nazi reaction to the victories of track star Jesse Owens and other African American as well as the exclusion of German Jew high jumper Gretel Bergmann from Olympics competition.  When Jesse won Hitler didn't shake his hand.  He was mad that an African American beat him.  He had a choice to shake hands with those who won or don't shake anybodies hand at all.  He chose not to shake anybodies hand at all.  As a token gesture to calm anger opinion,  German authorities allowed the part - Jewish fencer Helene Mayer to represent Germany at the Olympic Games in Berlin.  She won silver in the woman's individual fencing and,  like all other medalists for Germany,  gave the NAZI salute on the podium Nine Jewish athletes won medals in the NAZI Olympics.
In the United States,  some Jewish athletes and Jewish organizations such as the Jewish athletes and Jewish Labor Committee supported a boycott.  However,  once the Amateur Athletes Union if the United States voted for participation in December 1935,  other countries fell in line and the boycott movement failed.  One of the largest boycott was the "People Olympiad"  planned for the summer of 1936 in Barcelona,  Spain.  It was canceled after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936,  just as thousands of athletes had begun to arrive.  Individual Jewish athletes from a number of countries also chose to boycott the Berlin Olympics.  In August 1936,  the Nazi party tried to camouflage its violent raciest policies while it host the summer Olympics.  The regime exploited the Olympics Games to present foreign spectators and Journalists with a false image of a peaceful tolerant Germany.  Some boycott proponents supported counter - Olympics. Like some of the European Jewish competitors at the Olympics many of these young men were pressured by Jewish organization to boycott said that Hitler's raciest and anti - Semitic policies were diametrically opposed to the Olympic spirit.  The exhibition features the stories of athletes who boycotted or were barred from then Games as well as those who participated in them.
Some after Hitler took power,  the drive began to exclude Jews from German sport and recreational facilities.  The German Boxing Association expelled amateur champion Eric Seelig in April 1933 because he was Jewish.  Seelig later resumed his boxing career in United States.  Another Jew,  Daniel Prenn,  Germany's top - ranked tennis player,  was removed from Germany's Davis Cup Team.  Gypsies,  including the Sinti boxer Johann "Rukelie"  Trollman,  were also purged from German sporta.  In June 1933,  Trollman,  the German middle weight boxing champion,  was banned from bowing champion,  was banned from boxing for "racial reasons"  Jewish athletes,  barred from German sports clubs,  flocked to separate Jewish sports Facilities were no match for those of the wellfunded German groups.  Gretel Bergmann was a world - class high Jumper who was expelled from her sports club in Ulm in 1933.  Afterwards, she trained briefly with the Stuttgart branch of Der Schild (The Shield),  a sports association organized under the signs of the Jewish Association of War Veterans.  
Owens's fourth Gold came in the 400x100 meter rely,  an event that wasn't even entered for until the last two American Jew to the Untied team were dropped with Owens and Sam Stoller taking their place."  The rumor for the replacement was that the Nazi hierarchy had asked U.S. officials not to humiliate Germany further by using two Jews to add to the gold medals the African Americans already had won.  Glickman blamed U.S. Olympics Committee present Avery Brundage for agreeing to the Nazi."  The new U.S. team won the gold easily.  Jesse Owens had done the impossible - he had won four gold medals in one day.  All eyes now turned to Hitler. Would he congratulate this Afro - American superstar?  Obviously,  the thought of doing so was too humiliating for the Fuerhur,  for after Owens's second win he stormed out of the stadium.  When Owen's finished competing,  the African - American son of a sharecropper and the grandson of slaves had single - handily shown Hitler's theories on Aryan supremacy to be totally twisted and unfounded,  confirming that black athletes could be as good,  if not better,  than other athletes.  his stunning victories and achievement of four gold medals including breaking three records and tying another,  at the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin has made him the best remembered of all Olympics athlete.  "His outstanding performance also affirmed that individual excellence rather then race or national origin,  distinguishes one man or woman from another."  On his return to the United States he was given a ticker tape parade. The Americans were rightly proud of their humble athlete who had shown up the pride of Nazi Aryan arrogance.  A remarkably even keeled and magnanimous human being,  Owens never rubbed it in. Just as sure as he knew fascism was evil,  he also knew his country had a ways to go too in improving life for African - Americans. 
The 1936 Olympics Games were awarded to Berlin by the International Olympic Committee as a choice to show that Germany had regained its status among European Countries following its defeat in World War I.  This decision was made in May 1931.  Two years after,  Hitler gained power and established a regime focusing on the racial policies that aimed to purity the Germanic - Aryan - population.  The Nazi Government idea of sports facilities and associations.  Observing these policies,.  United States and the other Western Democracies counties started to question the morality of supporting and participating at the upcoming Olympics.  The boycott proposals were defeated in the USA as well as in other Democracies counties.  Forty - nine teams from around the world competed in the Berlin Games.  Germany had the largest team.  The Berlin games were also the first to be broadcast and televised with the efforts to pursue a peaceful and democratic environment. There was not a single German Jew invited to participate at the Olympic games except for Helene Mayer,  who as only half Jewish.  They rationalized this elimination to the West by claiming that it was not a process of discrimination but a fact that Jewish athletes in Germany were not good enough.  On August 1,  Hitler opened the Olympics.  Eighteen African - American athletes represented the United States who won a total of 14 medals and dominated the popular track and field events.  Thirteen Jews or persons of Jewish descent won medals in the 1936 Nazi Olympics.  As a result,  Hitler failed in his attempt to use the Olympic Games to prove his theory of racial superiority as the world hailed the victories of the Non - Aryan Athletes.  German athletes won the featured sports of track and field and swimming,  the Americans dominated.  German hospitality and organization was praised by the Western Countries.  Meanwhile,  Hitler already had the plan of execution of millions of Jews and the invasion of Poland on his mind.  With the ending of the games,  Germany's expansionist and purification policies accelerated.
   
Lindsay Seele

7th Holocaust Project

Rossville Jr. High,  April 2005

Bibliography