The Olympic Games may be the biggest competition in the world, but it also serves as a way to reunite world in the particular sports that athletes love and strive at. Athletes work as hard as they can to compete with the best of the best. The Olympic Games are special no doubt about that, but there is one Olympic Game that changed futures games forever. The 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany was a game changer for future games in many ways, it sparked new traditions and showed the world that Nazi Germany was not so bad after all. This all seems great, but the Nazis had staged it all. They wanted to use these games to their own benefit and to show that their way was the best way. The goal for Nazi Germany was to get the world on their side and to show them they could be peaceful, what a better place for that than the 1936 Olympics.
World War I had just ended and Germany had become isolated and Nazi Germany wanted not only their power back, but more. The 1936 Olympics were coming up and Nazi Germany decided that hosting the games would be a great way to get back into power. They decided to put in a bid to host the games and won over Barcelona, Spain. Adolph Hitler became chancellor and ran Nazi Germany by dictatorship. Hitler wanted to make sure that his Nazi party and racial supremacy was promoted throughout the games. Hitler had written the official papers for the Olympics and wanted to make sure that Jews and Blacks could not participate in the Berlin Games. This did not go well for Hitler as The Amateur Athletic Union were planning on boycotting this decision and he later agreed to let them participate.
Now, Since Hitler had a plan of peace he decided to let Helene Mayer participate on his fencing team. Mayer was known as a Misc...
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...nt for the general visitors, especially the big businessmen”
Hiter had many ideas on how to take control and one idea included on hosting all of the Olympic Games for the end of time. Here is an actual quote from the conversation that Hitler had with Albert Speer in spring of 1937, “In 1940 the Olympic Games will take place in Tokyo. But thereafter they will take place in Germany for all time to come, in this stadium.” Clearly, that never happened since Germany has only hosted two Olympic Games.
In conclusion, Nazi Germany had an excellent plan on how to get back with the rest of the world and they executed it very well. They were able to mind trick everyone into thinking they were not as racist, controlling, and inhumane as everyone thought they were. By getting nations on their side they thought they would be able to control all, it is all just pretty twisted.
In 1931, before the Weimar Republic was seized by National Socialists, Berlin was announced by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to be the location of the 11th Olympic Games. Since the Games origins in Athens, the Olympics have evolved to introduce the code of equality of all races and faiths for nations- all of which was controversial during the Third Reich. However, because of the aftermath of World War I, many accounts suggest that the Nazi regime used the 1936 Olympic games as a showcase of the transformation of the country. But due to many restrictions placed around committees, historians can trace that anti-Semitic ideas and beliefs were abundant during the Games. Due to much controversy, some of the restrictions were to be revoked
The controversy in Berlin Olympic Games was that the some of the Jews excluded from the Olympic team were actually world class athletes. The athletes left Germany, along with other Jewish athletes, to resume their sports careers abroad.The Nazis also disqualified Gypsies.The Olympics were intended to be an exercise in goodwill among all nations emphasizing racial equality in the area of sports competition. But the Nazis thought that only the Aryans should participate in the Olympics games to represent Germany.Then after that controversy then the committee of the Games wanted to move the Olympic Games to another country.This was because usually the U.S. got the most medals because they sent the most athletes.
Hitler blamed the Jews for the evils of the world. He believed a democracy would lead to communism. Therefore, in Hitler’s eyes, a dictatorship was the only way to save Germany from the threats of communism and Jewish treason. The Program of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party was the instrument for the Nazis to convince the German people to put Hitler into power. Point one of the document states, “We demand the union of all Germans in a great Germany on the basis of the principle of self-determination of all peoples.” 1 This point explicates the Nazi proposition that Germany will only contain German citizens and also, that these citizens would display his or her self-determination towards Germany to the fullest.
Since 776 BCE, the Olympics have been a way for people of different cultures to come together and compete in friendly competition. In 1892 the first modern Olympics were held in Athens, although it had been over a thousand years since the last game it still had brought together an assortment of different religions and ethnic groups together. Many factors shaping the Olympic Games reflect the changes that have taken place in our world since the last game in 393 CE in Greece such changes include woman’s suffrage, global economy, world wars, and proving competency.
Berlin was chosen as the site of the 1936 Olympics in 1931, five years before the actual event, and two years before Adolf Hitler came to power (Bachrach 9). World War I had caused the 1916 Olympics in Berlin to be canceled (Bachrach 11), and Germany was not invited back to the Olympics after World War I until 1928 (Bachrach 12). Hitler and the Nazis started gaining power in the 1930s (Bachrach 16), with their ultimate goal to create one big German community composed of Germany and German-speaking people in surrounding countries, and conquer eastern countries to “gain more land for this united Germanic population…” (Bachrach 17). The Nazi’s persecution began with opponents of Hitler, who they arrested and put in prison or concentration camps (Bachrach 18). This persecution extended to other races as well, mainly Jews (“Hitler”). Hitler’s “purification” of the German race encompassed every part of the culture, including sports. Jews were excluded from participating on the German team, destroying many athlete’s careers (Streissguth 38). The United...
As the base of this essay is on how the Olympics have been used in the
Tensions were very high at these Olympics, mainly because that these were the first Olympic Games held in Germany since the Nazis hosted the Games in 1936 (Rosenberg). Though for some, it was never going to be easy to forget the recent, and quite frankly, horrific past. The Olympic Park had been built just six miles from the Dachau concentration camp, one of the largest concentration camps ever (Burnton). For all 42 representatives of Israel, these Olympics had a deeper meaning than everyone else. Citizens of Israel, many of them Holocaust survivors themselves, or their children, were returning to the Germany. Whose government had, only one generation ago, set out to wipe their people from the earth, and marching with pride...
The Olympics are supposed to be a time of peace and a time where countries could come together and be free from politics. The Olympics are also a time where nations should put away their differences and celebrate the reason why they came to participate in the games, which was to play sports. Throughout history, many of the Olympics have lived up to this expectation. At the same time, there have also been some Olympics that have not lived up to this expectation because they have been experienced boycotts, political protests, and even violence. The politics in the Olympics need to be kept out because it there is no place for it. The 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow is an example of one Olympics that was not free from politics because of the boycott started by the U.S.
Hitler wanted to demonstrate two concepts at the 1936 Summer Olympics: 1. An all White Nordic Christian Olympic Team could come in first place. 2. Working Class Participants could raise their status in the world through their own efforts.
Modern Day Olympics are a huge tradition that sweeps the screens of televisions across the world. Competitors take the arena with uniforms that dawn their countries colors and designs that are meant to resemble their designated flag. For months the news is centered around the games; the preparation, the athletes, and of course the competition. Countries aren 't obsessed, they are inspired and full of pride seeing athletes from their country compete and show their incredible skill. This tradition dates back to ancient Greece where the games began. Tony Perrottet writes about the traditions of the ancient game in his book The Naked Olympics.
In 1936 the summer olympics ventured to Berlin, Germany the center of Nazi Power. The race laws were put on hold during that two week period, almost to send the rest of the world that Nazi Germany is a great place that is equal for everyone. As the world ventured through Berlin all signs of racism and discrimination were taken down to hide the dark truth. They tried to portray themselves as a nice friend...
After Germany lost World War I, it was in a national state of humiliation. Their economy was in the drain, and they had their hands full paying for the reparations from the war. Then a man named Adolf Hitler rose to the position of Chancellor and realized his potential to inspire people to follow. Hitler promised the people of Germany a new age; an age of prosperity with the country back as a superpower in Europe. Hitler had a vision, and this vision was that not only the country be dominant in a political sense, but that his ‘perfect race’, the ‘Aryans,’ would be dominant in a cultural sense. His steps to achieving his goal came in the form of the Holocaust. The most well known victims of the Holocaust were of course, the Jews. However, approximately 11 million people were killed in the holocaust, and of those, there were only 6 million Jews killed. The other 5 million people were the Gypsies, Pols, Political Dissidents, Handicapped, Jehovah’s witnesses, Homosexuals and even those of African-German descent. Those who were believed to be enemies of the state were sent to camps where they were worked or starved to death.
In 1935, the U.S. decided to attend the ‘36 Berlin games, even though the United States knew how Hitler was persecuting the Jews. By July 1933, at least 27,000 people had been placed in what Hitler liked to call “detention camps” (Hart-Davis 16). In early 1932 at an IOC meeting in Barcelona, the committee decided to grant Germany the right to the 1936 Olympic Games, which allowed Germany to restore their athletic reputation that they lost because of the outbreak of World War I. All over the world, there was an outcry to boycott or at least change the location of the ‘36 Olympics. The IOC’s first response was that they had granted Germany the Olympic site before the Nazis’ came to power.
The Olympic Games plays a significant role in the world. The relationship between it and host countries is important to investigate for comprehending cultural studies. According to Xu and Kirby (2008), the Olympic Games has a considerable impact on the expression of national identity. For example, London applied this approach to promote its national identity. This can be discovered from the BBC video called James Bond escorts The Queen to the opening ceremony in 2012 (2012): an amiable identity is perceived by the audience through presenting corgi at Buckingham Palace. Moreover, China is no exception. There is an image about the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics, it shows a spectacular drumming performance. In addition, an article about
In conclusion, I believe that the Olympic Games were undeniably a political event, and they were clearly a sporting event too – although religion, I have found, dominated the festival as opposed to sports or politics. The Olympic Games was much more of a religious festival than a political event or a sporting contest, although on the whole, the Games were in reality a blend of all three.