The Third Reich invented the modern Olympics

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The XI Olympic Games have become a kind of turning point in the history of modern mankind. Despite the very difficult political situation and the obvious aggressive intentions of Adolf Hitler, the international committee chose Berlin for the competition.

The Fuehrer was not going to miss such a gift of fate: the Olympics gave him an excellent opportunity to clearly demonstrate the supposedly peaceful intentions of the Third Reich. And to make the ruse work in the best possible way, the leader of the National Socialist Party devised the perfect maneuver. Like a magician who used props to distract the viewer from a coin disappearing in his pocket, Adolf Hitler filled the Olympic Games with catchy rituals. And maybe this is really strange - but since that very summer of 1936, the competitions are still held according to the rules that were developed by the most cruel tyrant in the history of mankind.

Prologue

Hitler opened the XI Olympic Games personally, as befits the leader of the host country. His speeches to the assembled press became a model of skillful political eloquence. The dictator extolled the importance of competition: an honest fight that awakens the best human qualities, the spirit of a knightly duel, where the winner communicates on an equal footing with the loser. These Olympic Games, according to Hitler, will become a factor that will contribute to the settlement of the turbulent political situation. Seems a little far-fetched? It doesn't seem to you. The entire Olympiad, from start to finish, was developed exclusively as a PR-action of the authoritarian regime of the Third Reich - and this operation, unfortunately, was quite a success.

Olympic torch

Like any theatrical monologue, Hitler's speeches needed decent scenery - otherwise magic would not work. Of course, everything was ready long before the start of the Games. The first (and very striking) symbol of German sincerity was the revived ritual of passing the torch from Olympia to Germany. Its eternal flame symbolized the inner unity of all the peoples of the world. The historical background was obvious: centuries ago, a lone runner with a torch inaugurated the very first Games in Greece. German athletes carried the torch lit in the Greek Olympia to Berlin in a relay race - this is how the tradition that still exists today.

Who invented the baton

Brilliant in its simplicity, the idea to revive the Olympic relay belonged to the main organizer of the games. Karl Dim managed to build a logical connection in the subconscious of people with the only detail: classical Greece (as everyone knows, inhabited by wise philosophers and invincible athletes) is the Aryan forerunner of the modern German Reich. As a bonus, Dim made the already traditional torchlight processions of Nazi propagandists especially attractive for growing up German youth.

Public reaction

Imagine 1936. The states of the whole world already understand the inevitability of the coming confrontation - but irrationally continue to hope for a miraculous peaceful deliverance. The XI Olympic Games in Germany are becoming a kind of final test: forty-nine participating countries see the Third Reich as "a modern, economically dynamic state with growing international influence" - a direct quote from the BBC report.

Prank was a success

The regulations of the XI Olympiad, developed under the control of Adolf Hitler - all these processions, the nation meeting the leader with a single impulse, torches and other entourage - pursued only one goal: to impress foreign guests by showing them a calm and confident Germany. The idea of the bloody dictator was fully successful. The heads of the largest European countries happily seized on this legend of a "peacefully developing state", pulling with their authority and almost the rest of the world.

I see nothing, I hear nothing

Despite loud statements about the equality of the athletes-participants, Hitler could not just allow the appearance of "Untermensch" in the capital of the Reich. He vehemently protested against black athletes from the United States, while Jews even endangered the entire operation. Even such obvious inconsistencies in the words and actions of the leader of the National Socialist Party, the governments of the participating countries chose to ignore. The American journalist William Shearer, who lived in Berlin at the time, sent home enthusiastic notes about how the German Olympics equalized all the races of the world.

Outcome

World War II officially began just over three years after the end of the Olympics. In 1939, the Earth shook at the ease with which the Fuhrer of the "civilized state" made the whole of Europe feel what a real triumph of will is. Despite the sad memory of those events, the surroundings of the Olympics have remained practically unchanged since then - we still look at the rituals invented by Karl Diem under the strict guidance of Adolf Hitler.