Berlin Games: How the Nazis Stole the Olympic Dream

by Guy Walters

In 1936, Hitler welcomed the world to Berlin to attend the Olympic Games. Visitors came to see not only a magnificent sporting event, but also a showcase for the rebuilt Germany. No effort was spared to present the 3rd Reich as the world's newest power. Swastikas fluttered next to Olympic rings from freshly painted buildings. Butter was hoarded weeks in advance to conceal shortages. There was a pause in the implementation of anti-Semitic measures. But beneath the surface, the 11th Olympiad came to act as a crucible for the political forces that were gathering to threaten the world. The '36 Olympics were the most political sporting event of the last century. Far from being a mere meeting of sportspersons, it was a clash between barbarism & civilization. Berlin Games is the history of those two August weeks foreshadowing the coming conflict. It's the story of athletes. It's also a tale of the Nazi machine that attempted to use the Games as a model of Aryan superiority & fascist efficiency. Furthermore, it's an indictment of the manipulative figures—politicians, diplomats & Olympic officials—who vied for power & glory in different sorts of games whose results would have profound consequences for the world. Drawing on original research & interviews with surviving participants, Walters has produced a history filled with intrigue, sport, sex & infamy--a record of a time that haunts us to this day.
Illustrations
Preface
Author's Note
Sporting Spirit
'A party in such a house may not be a pleasant experience'
A Winter Warm-up
On Their Marks
Getting Set
Iberian Interlude
Going There
The Opening
The First Week
In the Sight of the Heathen
The Second Week
The Legacy
Postscript
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Genres: History, Sports, Nonfiction, Germany, European History, World War II

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Guy Walters (born 8 August 1971) is a British author, novelist, historian, academic and journalist.

Reviews

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the one hand, it really is nice to finish one of the books on my 'borrowed from other people, must read and return at some point' shelf.

On the other hand, if you really really love the Olympics like I do, you may not want to read this book.

It's a great book, covering the historical moment of the Berlin Games, and giving a depth of insight to the debates around whether or not attendance at the games meant supporting Hitler, etc. Among other things, it's made me want to track down "Boycott", the book by Lisa Forrest who was the ridiculously young captain of the Australian swimming team for the 1980 Olympics, which Australia didn't boycott when a lot of other countries did. (Australia, Greece and the UK are the only countries who have sent athletes (not *quite* teams) to every Summer Games since 1896. Of course this is interesting given that Australia didn't exist in 1896 nor 1900, but we're still accorded that statistic. And yes, in case you hadn't realised, an Olympics geek is me...) Anyway. I'm not sure I'm going to be anywhere near so sympathetic towards Lisa when I read that book as I was when I heard her interviewed by Margaret Throsby back in the day. But I want to read it all the same. End digression.)

Two more connections from this book to others that I really appreciated: that to the 'Peoples Olympics' that was (sort of) held in Barcelona as an alternative to the Berlin games (it was interrupted and eventually canceled by the break out of the Spanish Civil War). There was a really fascinating chapter on that particular event. The other is the discussion of Son Ki-Jung, the Korean gold medallist in the marathon who raced under the Japanese flag because of the Japanese occupation of Korea at the time. He is still listed in all official records as 'Kitei Son' and his medal counts for the Japanese all-time medal count. The end of the book recounts that he lit the Olympic Flame in Seoul in 1988, the first Olympic Games that I watched at age 10. I remember watching the opening ceremony, although not that moment specifically. I wish I could remember it. I hope the Australian commentary noted the historical impact of the moment.

In some ways it was the final chapter that hit me hardest. As I'd been reading I'd noted with a sense of horror the number of things that are now staples of the Olympic symbolism, particularly the opening ceremony, that were introduced by the Berlin games as part of Hitler and his regime's attempts to link the Ancient Greek ideal with Germany specifically. This includes things like the torch run, the release of doves/pigeons, and the Olympic Hymn. In the final chapter the reason for this came fairly clear. Avery Brundage, the head of the US Olympic Committee at the time of Berlin was avidly anti-boycott, and became pretty pro-Hitler over the course of things. At Berlin he was elected to the IOC, and in 1952 he became President of the IOC, the predecessor to men like Juan-Antonio Samaranch and Jaques Rogge. Brundage was IOC President during the Munich games of 1972, and insisted that the 'games must go on' after the terrorist attack on the Israeli team and the botched rescue attempt that killed so many of the hostages. Guy Walters, the author of Berlin Games, has by this point built up the reader's distaste for Avery Brundage over the boycott and some of his other actions (in getting pro-Boycott, Jewish members of the IOC dumped from the IOC, amongst other things) that his actions as IOC President come as logical progression from a rather narrow-minded man. Harold Abrahams (of Chariots of Fire fame) came to regret his (eventual) support for the British team attending Berlin. Brundage never looked back.

It's a fabulous book. But if you non-ironically love the Olympic Games and what (you thought) it stands for, as I do, I'm not sure I can recommend reading this. It leaves a sour taste in the mouth; not about the book but about the Olympic movement. And I just generally don't like that. Because I want to still non-ironically love the Olympics, and I'm not sure I can any more.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gives a good overview of how the Nazis hijacked the Olympics and used it as a tool for political propaganda, and how the rest of the world let them do it.

Being a British writer, the author naturally spent extra time and space on British athletes and British results. This was time undeserved as they finished a dismal 10th in the medal standings, with only four golds. Speaking of which, I felt the author spent far too much time describing the actual competitions, getting caught up in the sporting moment while, at times, ignoring the point of his book: the Nazification of the Olympics. I'm not saying he should have ignored the athletes, but he should have spent his time exclusively on those whose performances had political implications rather than merely athletic.

What many people have seemed to have forgotten is that the Winter Olympics also took place in Germany, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The Nazis used this as a dry run for their jewel, the Summer Olympics in Berlin. While discussing the winter competition, The author again marks himself as British by insisting on referring to hockey as "ice hockey", and reinforces this in describing the summer event as hockey, rather than field hockey. Perhaps it's my perspective as a Canadian, but for most people in North America, field hockey is little more than a curiosity, played with a stick that looks like a hybrid of a cricket bat and a walking cane, and held at the wrong end.

For me, this book was just OK, but I do appreciate that the author exposes Avery Brundedge as the pompous, anti-Semitic hypocrite that he was.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

In reviewing other works by Walters listed in the GoodReads database I was surprised to see that he has concentrated on Nazi Germany. Having read this book of his I had come to the erroneous conclusion that his primary interest was in the sports, not in the politics, of 1936. While this suggests that readers primarily interested in the history of the Olympics will not be disappointed, it also indicates that the book was a bit weak about the political context within which Germany sponsored both the Winter and Summer Olympics of '36. But then I'm generally more interested in politics and ideology than I am in athletics and it is to Walters' credit that I was able to get through his sometimes detailed desriptions of particular contests without falling asleep.

[Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting read.

However, the book should have focused either on the politics or the athletics. The first half of the book is pure politics, and the second half is pure retelling the results. The 10 pages at the end recapping everyone's lifes after the Olympics is far too short. The aftermath is what is important for this theory.

Also, the author tends to drop in way too many editorializing comments. We get it, you think Nazis were bad. It is a pretty common belief, you don't need to insert comments about it while describing their policies.

[Scott Manze · Rating 4 out of 5]

An in-depth look from start to finish of the original act of “sports washing”. While some of the details and names were hard to follow at times, the thoroughness, complete with many first person accounts, really showed how Germany came to get the games, host the games, and the fall-out from the main characters involved. In the wake of the Olympic stadium in Berlin getting a national showcase during Euro 2024 and it being an Olympic summer, it was the perfect read for now.

[John Gurney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Filled with anecdotes from the 1936 Summer and Winter Olympics Games in Germany, author Guy Walters is readable and interesting. His thesis is that the 1936 Olympics should not have been held in Germany, and a number of myopic men in the USA, Britain and France gave the German Nazis everything they could hope for and more. Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, Ribbentrop and the rest of that nasty crew successfully hid anti-Semitic prosecution for that fortnight in 1936, while they staged a propaganda tour-de-force.

The reader enjoys the backstory about the incredible Jesse Owens. Owens and a handful of other 'subhuman' athletes embarrassed Hitler by winning, yet, Walters argues the benefit was far outweighed by Germany's propaganda successes. There are fascinating and troubling forays into IOC politics. The long-time IOC President Avery Brundage is shown as a small-minded, selfish man who was fantastically opposed to the potential boycott of the 1936 Games. A few IOC members were bribed- and Brundage benefited financially from a German construction contract after the games. While the goal is to cover the Nazi theft of the games, the book is filled with factoids. I didn't know the Olympic torch and several other contemporary Olympic traditions were actually created by Hollywood at the 1932 Los Angeles Games. The book gives at least some coverage to every 1936 Olympic event, and many were filled with human drama.

Berlin Games is a fairly sad book, but a rewarding read.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is rather had to rate - because it feels like two books joined together. One book is about the politics of the Olympics and how things went on behind closed (and sometimes open) doors. That was quite interesting, and a bit scary. The other book is an account of the Berlin Olympics (well, to be fair, there is a bit about the Winter Games too). And that other part is SO full of details - including results, lane numbers, who said what to whom, who thought who cheated etcetera. It got really boring really fast.

The problem with that 'second' book is also that you really get the impression that the Olympics was just a competition between Germany on one side (the evil ones) and the US and Britain (the good guys) on the other - and then some other athletes from other countries were just thrown in to the mix for good measure. Still, at the end of the book it is revealed that Britain just ended up as number 10 in the total medal score from the game (Germany and the US were 1 and 2 - but it could have been nice to know at least the name of some of the countries in places 3 to 9).

It is a matter of personal taste that I prefer my Göring with Ö and the Führer with ü - that the author prefers not to do so is up to him. But that Sigfrid Edström throughout the book is spelled as Edstrøm is just wrong (and I very much doubt that Edström had a villa called Vestoraäs - that's just a jumble of letters with no meaning whatsoever in Swedish).

[Adrian]

In 1936 Germany had both Olympics. Before the winter games in Garmisch Partenkirken countries had to decide if they were going. The USOC under pro-German Avery Brundage were always going. Soon the Brits got on board. Walters believes that without the big western powers showing up the Nazis march into the Rhineland months later might not have happened. For the summer games, a boycott movement amounted to nothing. The Nazis bribed Baron de Coubertin with money and western diplomats with fancy dinners. Walters is good on the sporting angle too. There are plenty of interesting athletic stories; Jesse Owens' escapades on and off track, Jewish fencer Helene Mayer's conflicted Games, the courage of wrestler Werner Seelenbinder, and the curious case of Glickman and Stoller being replaced on the US 4x100 relay the night before the final. Was it because they were Jews? Fascinating history.

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing earthshaking here, but it deserves an average ranking higher than 3.3 stars, so it gets 4 from me. Realistically, this is one of those 3.5-star books.

I knew Avery Brundage was snooty and elitist, but this book confirms the roots of that, as well as of his anti-Semitism.

There are some interesting ironies. First, Hitler, of course, remilitarized the Rhineland in 1935. France might have stood up to him, if Britain had backed it. The British Olympic Committee seriously considered an Olympic boycott for a while, but would only do so if ... the Americans would back it.

Under Brundage's dissembling about the Third Reich, that never happened.

[Ptera Hunter]

Most people have heard of the Berlin Olympics of 1936 and the outstanding running performance of Jesse Owens. This book will give you a glimpse of the rest of the story. And even Hitler’s “snub” of Mr. Owens is shown in a broader light. He detested the idea that a person of African descent could participate in the games, and yes, he refused to shake Owen’s hand. However, he refused to shake the hands of any winners who were not German.

Berlin Games starts with the first Olympics of the modern era, Pierre de Courbertin’s dream of games that brought together the peoples of the world. It looks at the early controversies surrounding the game and their rapid politicalization. Despite a final unanimous vote to hold the games in Berlin, the IOC was initially very divided. As in times of conflict today, many athletes opposed their country’s attendance at the games while others supported the games on various pretexts.

The Nazi Government, which initially condemned the games as degenerate events controlled by Jews, communists, and Freemasons, soon saw the propaganda value and used the games to showcase their society and to show how it was misrepresented. The government took care to hide the antisemitic policies, even removing the exclusionary signage in the areas surrounding the Olympics and letting a limited number of Jewish athletes compete on the German team. The propaganda machine took advantage of the similarity between the Fascist and Olympic salutes, claiming that some countries were giving the former when they gave the latter.

And if you believe that the issue of transgendered women competing in women’s sports is new, you’ll be surprised. The book documents complaints about “masculine” women and men disguised as women competing as women in 1936, long before gender reassignment surgery was possible.

These are just a taste of the issues surrounding the games. The author explores far more, including the lead-ups in Fascist Spain. These are balanced with information on the athletes themselves, their decisions to participate or boycott the games, what they endured, how they were treated, and what happened after the competition.

If you’re looking for a complementary read for the (currently) upcoming Paris Olympics, are a sports fan (which I am not), or have an interest in propaganda or human cruelty, you may find Berlin Games fascinating.

[Kristi Thielen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Berlin in 1936 was a city in a country on the brink: Hitler had transformed Germany and there were uneasy if often unspoken concerns about what kind of a country he was remaking. But the devastation he would wreck upon the world was not yet in sight.

So, athletes gathered for an Olympic Games that had been born of complex negotiations between international entities that wanted to prevent Germany from hosting them, for ethical and moral reasons, and those that wanted to bask in the reflected prestige of the event, with no regard for the message it was sending.

That repellant people like Hitler, Goebels and Gehring played an unsavory role in all this is no surprise. But figures like Avery Brundage, head of the American Olympic Committee prove no less disturbing as he and leaders like him pushed to provide Hitler with just the kind of powerful propaganda opportunity he craved. And he made the most of the opportunity, shamelessly perverting Olympic “ideals” to his purposes.

Walters provides extensive information about the preparation for the Games, the athletes who participated (including the famous African American Jesse Owens) and how they fared in their events as well as what they experienced away from the games.

Athlete attitudes ran the gamut. There were those wary of Hitler’s Germany, including some who hoped to use it as a platform to protest Nazi policies about Jews. (These efforts were foiled or withered away.) There were Jews who were not permitted to participate and those who were “forgiven” their religious preferences in order to perform for athletic glory. And there were athletes who seemed oblivious to the political tensions of the time and focused strictly on their achievements.

Of those interviewed years later, few had changed their views. Those who were uneasy or appalled or angry about their participation remained so; those who were unconflicted about their participation in 1936 were still unconflicted, despite the subsequent world war and the Holocaust.

How might history have been changed if the Olympic Games had not been permitted to be a showcase for Nazism in 1936? And who can still believe that politics is not a significant part of any Olympics Games, ever?

[Reid · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the internet blurb: "In 1936, Hitler welcomed the world to Berlin to attend the Olympic Games. Visitors came to see not only a magnificent sporting event, but also a showcase for the rebuilt Germany. No effort was spared to present the 3rd Reich as the world's newest power. Swastikas fluttered next to Olympic rings from freshly painted buildings. Butter was hoarded weeks in advance to conceal shortages. There was a pause in the implementation of anti-Semitic measures. But beneath the surface, the 11th Olympiad came to act as a crucible for the political forces that were gathering to threaten the world. The '36 Olympics were the most political sporting event of the last century. Far from being a mere meeting of sportspersons, it was a clash between barbarism & civilization. Berlin Games is the history of those two August weeks foreshadowing the coming conflict. It's the story of athletes. It's also a tale of the Nazi machine that attempted to use the Games as a model of Aryan superiority & fascist efficiency. Furthermore, it's an indictment of the manipulative figures—politicians, diplomats & Olympic officials—who vied for power & glory in different sorts of games whose results would have profound consequences for the world. Drawing on original research & interviews with surviving participants, Walters has produced a history filled with intrigue, sport, sex & infamy--a record of a time that haunts us to this day."

[Mark Adkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a strange book to review as I found the book while interesting seemed to have a split personality. It jumped back and forth from two themes. The first was how the Nazi government corrupted the Olympics and turned it into a massive propaganda event which was the main focus of the book. The second theme was a sporting history of the games, how the athletes performed during the events.

While hearing how the individual participants did in their event was interesting it did not really contribute to explaining how the Nazis took over the spirit of the Olympics.

I still recommend this book as it had a lot of interesting facts that I was not aware of. One fact was that prior to and during the 1936 Olympics there was an actual Olympics salute. Unfortunately, it was very similar to the German Nazi salute, some athletes were performing the Olympic salute but due to the angle the people or camera saw them at it looked like they were giving the Nazi salute.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came across this book recently while browsing in the NOOK store. I had seen Guy Walters on some TV programs as an expert on Nazi Germany and World War II, so I decided to give this book a try. This was quite a fine work on the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin and the political maneuvers surrounding it. This had lots of information I had not read of before reading this book, including some coverage of the 1936 Olympic Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (a sort-of dress rehearsal for the Summer Games), arguments made for and against a boycott of the Berlin Games in the US and Britain, and profiles of some of the athletes competing in Berlin. Wonderful work that I would recommend for fans of Olympic history and Nazi German history.

[Bowen Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was very informative amongst the accounts of athletes, politicians, and Olympic committee members during the Inter-War period in regards to the Berlin Games. It showed that most of the international players played ignorant when it came to the things that the Nazis were doing in order to promote their ideologies. Discrimination ran rampant throughout the world and tokenism became second nature.

The book started to stray away from the big picture on multiple occasions and could’ve been shorter and more concise. For me, this ruined the flow of the book and I found myself troubling to focus when passages like what I described became more frequent.

3/5

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book fairly quickly, though I could probably have spent a week on it! For the research I'm doing I found it valuable mostly for the anecdotes about the athletes. I learned quite a bit about the games themselves and how important they were to Nazism. Hitler had started out opposed to the Olympics; he thought it had been thought up by "Jews and Freemasons." He became convinced of the value the Games had as propaganda and he had big plans for the Olympics becoming controlled by Germany and being permanently held in Berlin beginning in 1944. I was fascinated by this story.

[Lorraine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book confirmed for me that the Olympics have been corrupt since Coubertin reintroduced them in the late 19th century. In spite of all the talk about the Olympic ideals, everything could be sacrificed to the political realities of the day. This was especially obvious with the Berlin games. Jewish and leftist groups were calling for a boycott of the Olympics in 1936 but the IOC co-opted any opposition. The first part of the book detailed the political machinations which led to the Games being held in Berlin and being a political coup for the Nazi party. This and the last part of the book in which the legacy of the games are outlined were interesting. Surprisingly, the section on the games themselves were the least interesting. The athletes, who should be the centre pieces of the event, were almost an afterthought. Jesse Owens' astounding victory was not developed as the ultimate insult to Nazism, which it was. For that reason, I felt that Walters has not created a true history of this important historical event.

[Michael Ritchie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I searched this out because I saw a recent PBS special on "The Nazi Games" and found it fairly interesting, and Walters was interviewed and was also interesting. But this book is problematic. When Walters sticks to his subtitle and is examining how Hitler and the Nazis used the Games as propaganda, how the Olympics Committee helped them do it, and how things occasionally backfired, it's good reading. But he too often steers away from that topic. It sounds churlish to complain that a book about an Olympics event spends too much time on sports description, but that's what happens here, both when he writes about the winter and the summer games. His narrative was ultimately too broad to keep my interest from flagging at times. Still, there is a lot of information here that I had never heard before, and buffs of the games and of the pre-WWII times in Europe will like this.

[Ian · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read Berlin Games prior to the Beijing Olympics and was surprised to find so many similarities between Nazi Germany and modern China. I'm not so sure we learned how to apply the lessons learned in the Holocaust when we still allow a nation to silence the voices of its people.
I give Berlin Games only 3 stars because (though extremely applicable) large parts of the book (ex. olympic planning committe meeting minutes, etc.) were rather boring.

[Lyndsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is not quite what I have expected. It's not the political tale I imagined it to be, it contains more pages dedicated to sport than anything else. I am no follower of the Olympics, but the book is alright I suppose.

[VaughanPL]

Click here to find it in the catalogue.

[Sherrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book. It bounced between the politics and the sport and that kept it fresh throughout. The author clearly did a ton of research, but presented it in a fascinating way that didn't feel dry.