Hitler's Olympics Read Online Free PDF Page A

Games is declared open the Olympic sites come under the control of the IOC for the duration and their rules apply. Hitler would discover this twice – once at the Winter, once at the Summer Games – and he would have to compromise. It may well be, at a personal level, these were the only times between his seizure of power in 1933 and his death in a bunker in 1945 that he actually did anything somebody else told him to.
    The question of Jews in Germany was much more delicate and complicated. The IOC did not concern itself with a country’s domestic laws unless they impacted on the Games. The banishment of the Prussian school teachers would be greeted by silence in Lausanne. The banning of Jewish athletes from their own clubs which, de facto, rendered them unable to train properly for the Games was quite different.
    The Americans watched with mounting misgivings. The Jewish community in America had voice and influence. Would America send a team to a country which legally discriminated against Jews in the crudest, bluntest and most violent way? The weight of the Los Angeles statistics lay heavy: the Americans had accounted for 41 gold, 32 silver and 30 bronze medals – too sizeable a percentage to ignore.
    Baillet-Latour, and the great and good around him, had no idea what was coming and if the German delegates kept offering assurances, what else could they do but accept them?

    [Baillet-Latour] paid tribute to the Olympic spirit and to the loyalty of the German delegates who … had succeeded in putting matters sufficiently in order in time to allow the following statement to be published today:

    The President of the International Olympic Committee asked the German delegates if they would guarantee the observance of the articles in the Charter dealing with the Organising Committee and the Rules of Qualification.

    On behalf of the 3 Delegates, His Excellency Doctor Lewald replied that, with the consent of his Government,

    1   The German Olympic Committee has delegated the mandate, which had been entrusted to it, to a special Organising Committee as follows:

    Dr. Lewald – President
    Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin – Dr. Ritter von Halt
    Herr von Tschammer – President of the German Olympic Committee
    Herr Sahm – Mayor of Berlin
    Herr Diem – Secretary of the German Olympic Committee

    2   All the laws regulating the Olympic Games shall be observed.

    3   As a principle, German Jews shall not be excluded from German teams at the Games.

    After this declaration Mr. [William May] Garland wished to have it known that the American Olympic Committee who were desirous of having the United States strongly represented at the next Olympic Games in Europe would have had to give up participation altogether if German Jew Athletes had not been assured the same terms as members of the same faith in other countries. General Sherrill added that the satisfactory statement made by the President would give great pleasure in the United States. 10

    Lewald made a report, fleshed out by Diem, on the preparations. One extremely important decision concerned the actual dates of the Games, which were set at the discretion of the German organisers. ‘Following a careful study of weather charts and investigation of other circumstances, we chose the period between August 1st and 16th…. We were thus prepared to submit a printed memorandum dealing with the general programme, centres of competition and information on the accommodation for the athletes … this meeting with its complete approval.’ 11
    Professor Jigoro Kano, representing Japan, hoped that an Olympic Village would be organised because of its importance for teams ‘sent by distant countries’. Lewald explained that the Village was intended to be in military barracks at a little rural place called Döberitz. The barracks, about 20 kilometres from the stadium, were new and comfortable and intended to be in service after 15 July 1936.
    The Bavarian resorts of Garmisch and