1936: the 'Nazi Olympics': three years before World War II, Adolf Hitler turned the Berlin Games into a tense spectacle designed to showcase 'Aryan superiority'.

• Author: Potts, Courtney
• Position: TIMES PAST

On Aug. 2, 1936, the first day of competition in that year's Summer Olympics, a record 110,000 spectators packed the Olympic stadium in Berlin. Among them, seated in a private box, was German Chancellor Adolf Hitler. Throughout the day's events, Hitler was seen personally congratulating the winners. However, when three Americans stepped forward to receive medals for the high jump, the Fuhrer was noticeably absent.

According to The New York Times story the next day, for those who "chose to put two and two together," the cause of Hitler's disappearance seemed obvious: Two of the American athletes were black.

HITLER'S RISE

Seventy years later, this incident has come to symbolize what became known as the "Nazi Olympics." Spectacular in terms of both pageantry and athleticism--including the feats of the black American track and field star Jesse Owens--the 1936 Games are remembered for the racial and political tension that surrounded them, just three years before Germany invaded Poland to start World War II.

Germany had been selected to host the 1936 Olympics in 1931, when it had a democratic government known as the Weimar (VY-mahr) Republic, installed after Germany's defeat in World War I.

But Hitler, the charismatic and anti-Semitic leader of the National Socialist (Nazi) Party, would soon turn Germany into a police state. A persuasive speaker who believed in the genetic superiority of blond-haired, blue-eyed "Aryans," Hitler built his political movement from the ground up, starting in the 1920s. He promised a return to the powerful, militaristic Germany of the past, and blamed many of Germany's current ills, especially its ailing economy, on Jews.

Through careful maneuvering, he was appointed chancellor (similar to prime minister) in January 1933. He forced through legislation effectively making him dictator in March.

Once in power, Hitler wasted no time in remilitarizing Germany and carrying out his anti-Semitic program. In April 1933, the Nazi Party called for a boycott of Jewish businesses. Less than a week later, the Reichstag (parliament) passed the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service," requiring the removal of Jews and other non-Aryans from government jobs.

NUREMBERG LAWS

In 1935, the Nuremberg Race Laws stripped Jews of their citizenship and prohibited them from marrying non-Jews. Hundreds of similar laws were also passed, with the goal of excluding Jews from German society.

Fearing that Jewish athletes would not be treated fairly at the 1936 Games, the International Olympic Committee (I.O.C.) considered moving the Olympics to Rome or Tokyo. However, committee members were placated by German promises of fair competition for all athletes.

In the U.S., President Franklin D...