Olympic flags and swastikas bedecked the monuments and houses of a festive, crowded Berlin. Most tourists were unaware that the Nazi regime had temporarily removed anti-Jewish signs, nor did they know of a police roundup of Roma in Berlin, ordered by the German Ministry of the Interior. On July 16, , some Roma residing in Berlin and its environs were arrested and interned under police guard in a special camp in the Berlin suburb of Marzahn.
Nazi officials also ordered that foreign visitors should not be subjected to the criminal penalties of German anti-homosexuality laws.
Musical fanfares directed by the famous composer Richard Strauss announced the dictator's arrival to the largely German crowd. Hundreds of athletes in opening day regalia marched into the stadium, team by team in alphabetical order. Inaugurating a new Olympic ritual, a lone runner arrived bearing a torch carried by relay from the site of the ancient Games in Olympia, Greece. Forty-nine athletic teams from around the world competed in the Berlin Olympics, more than in any previous Olympics.
Germany fielded the largest team with athletes. The US team was the second largest, with members, including 18 African Americans. The Soviet Union did not participate in the Berlin Games or any Olympics until the Helsinki Games, when many politicians, journalists, and competitors regarded the Olympics as an important battle in the Cold War.
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 of classical antiquity. This vision of classical antiquity emphasized ideal "Aryan" racial types: heroic, blue-eyed blonds with finely chiseled features.
Concerted propaganda efforts continued well after the Olympics with the international release in of Olympia , the controversial documentary directed by German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. Renowned for her earlier propaganda film, Triumph of the Will depicting Nazi Party rallies at Nuremberg, Riefenstahl was commissioned by the Nazi regime to produce this film about the Summer Games.
Germany emerged victorious from the XIth Olympiad. German athletes captured the most medals, and German hospitality and organization won the praises of visitors. Most newspaper accounts echoed the New York Times report that the Games put Germany "back in the fold of nations," and even made the Germans "more human again. Only a few reporters, such as the American William Shirer , understood that the Berlin glitter was merely a facade hiding a racist and violently oppressive regime.
As post-Games reports were filed, Hitler pressed on with grandiose plans for German expansion. Persecution of Jews resumed. Two days after the Olympics, Captain Wolfgang Fuerstner, head of the Olympic village, killed himself when he was dismissed from military service because of his Jewish ancestry. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, Within just three years of the Olympiad, the "hospitable" and "peaceable" sponsor of the Games unleashed World War II, a conflict that resulted in untold destruction.
With the conclusion of the Games, Germany's expansionist policies and the persecution of Jews and other "enemies of the state" accelerated, culminating in the Holocaust. We would like to thank Crown Family Philanthropies and the Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for the Holocaust Encyclopedia.
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The Museum's commemoration ceremony, including remarks by the German ambassador and a Holocaust survivor, is happening now. Previous Next. A map displays the route of the torch relay from the site of the ancient Olympics in Olympia, Greece, to Berlin.
The Olympics were the first to employ the torch run. Hitler's favorite filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl, was commissioned by the Nazi regime to produce a film of the Summer Games. The resulting propaganda documentary, Olympia , won first prize at the Venice Film Festival in
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