The Berlin 1936 Olympics occurred at the time of the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany. It is the Games that most attracts the interests of scholars, researchers and academics, and it does so because it acted as a meeting point of many things: of sport and politics, good and evil, integrity and propaganda, individual skill and national fervour.
Two men dominate the memory of the 1936 Games: Hitler, because it provided the world with a disturbing vision of the Nazi-controlled society he was creating in Germany, and Jesse Owens, the outstanding American athlete many believe is the greatest Olympian of all time. Owens, an African-American, won four gold medals: the 100m, 200m, 4x100m relay and the long jump. In doing so, he destroyed Hitler’s hopes that the Games would prove the superiority of the Germanic races. Germany, with a record number of athletes in its team, did lead the medal table with 33 gold.
Basketball and canoe / kayak were both introduced to the Olympic program in Berlin, as was outdoor handball, which would next appear at the Games as an indoor sport in 1972. Doctor James Naismith, who invented basketball in 1881, was in Berlin to see his sport’s Olympic debut. Marjorie Gestring, a 13-year-old American, won the women’s springboard diving event. She remains the youngest women’s gold medallist in Olympic history.
An innovation of the 1936 Games was the Torch Relay, now one of the most popular Olympic traditions. The torch was lit in Olympia, Greece, and travelled through seven countries in less than a fortnight before reaching Berlin for the Opening Ceremony. |
