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1936 Summer Olympics

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Before the 1936 Olympics

The U.S. almost boycotted the Olympics because they were to take place in Berlin. An opinion poll taken in March of 1935 showed that 43% of Americans wanted to boycott Berlin because of the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party. The Olympic Committee explored the idea of moving them to Barcelona, but Spain was becoming unstable during this time. In the end, the American teams went to Berlin.1


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Berlin 1936 Films

Propaganda film from 1936 showcasing the city and the location of the Olympics. (in German, 8:24)

Opening ceremonies in Berlin. (w/English subtitles, 8:33)

Jesse Owens

Watch a video of Jeremy Schaap, author of Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics,2 talking about his book and Owens' experience in the 1936 Olympics. This interview is rather long (55 minutes) but is a great resource with lots of old video clips of the Berlin Olympics.

From: "Abroad." New York Times. Aug 9, 1936. p E2.
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John Woodruff, won the 800 meter gold medal in the 1936 Olympics.

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  • One of the biggest stories of the 1936 Olympics was the defeat of a number of Hitler's choice athletes by African-Americans Jesse Owens, John Woodruff, and Cornelius Johnson. Reports were that the German crowds were friendly and receptive to these Olympians, but that they were officially snubbed by the German government.
  • The article excerpt to the left reads strangly to us in the 21st century, but gives a sense of the mindset of the American press, and the racial climate of 1930s Germany.

Bibliography

1 Dictators, Democracy, and American Public Culture: Envisioning the Totalitarian Enemy, 1920s-1950s Cultural Studies of the United States. Chapel Hill University of North Carolina Press, 2003. (p. 78)

2 Triumph : the Untold story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics by Jeremy Schaap. Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 2007.

3 Hitler's Olympics : the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games by Christopher Hilton. Stroud : Sutton, 2006.

4 Hitler's Games : The 1936 Olympics by Duff Hart-Davis. London : Century, 1986.

5 The Olympiad. (videorecording) by Leni Riefenstahl. North Hollywood, Calif. : Hollywood Select Video : Distributed by Timeless Video Inc., 1995.

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