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Moscow  1980: The United States imposes a boycott.

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Moscow  1980: The United States imposes a boycott.

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In December 1979 the Soviet Union had invaded to Afghanistan. This invasion led to the biggest boycott in the history of the Olympic. The boycott was proposed by the US president Jimmy Carter. The boycott was a big success as the USA led to 60 countries to not participate as well. Among those countries were: Israel, Japan, Iran, Argentina, China, Qatar and dozens more. Despite the boycott there were 81 other countries that did attend the games (which is about 5,000 athletes). During the games there was a lot of protest against the invasion all over the world and some of the participating countries chose to not show up in the opening ceremony, and when some of them medals they decided to play the Olympic anthem instead of their country one. The games didn’t go as a properly as they should as there was a lot cheating, not appropriate behavior, and security issues which led to the result of certain categories being changed. The boycott caused the level of the competition to go down. At this Olympic the record for most domination of a country was broken by the Soviet team. The record holder before was the US in ST. Louis in 1904. The Soviet team won 195 medals overall and out of the 195, 80 were gold medals.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Moscow-1980-Olympic-Games

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Moscow 1980 Olympic Games | Boycott, Cold War, USSR, & Summer Games

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The Moscow 1980 Olympic Games were an athletic festival held in Moscow that took place July 19–August 3, 1980.

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The Munich Games marked the first return of the Olympics to a German city since the 1936 Games in Berlin. (Hitler used the Olympics as a platform to spread the nazi ideology)

in the 1972 games(05.09-06.09) a  terrorists organization named "black September" sneaked into the Olympic village and 8 terrorists killed two members of the Israeli team and took nine people as hostages, they were attempting to bargain for the release of 230 Palestinian (arabs)prisoners that were  held in Israeli jails. in exchange for the hostages. the German police failed at capturing the terrorists, and as a response the terrorists killed the hostages and then the police killed five of the eight Palestinian terrorists, one officer from the German police force was killed.as a memorial the Olympic competition was suspended for 24 hours in order to hold memorial services for the athletes that were killed.

https://www.britannica.com/list/7-significant-political-events-at-the-olympic-games

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVzDVsUjRsw

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Munich massacre, terrorist attack on Israeli Olympic team members at the 1972 Summer Games in Munich orchestrated by affiliates of the Palestinian militant group Black September.

The Munich Games marked the first return of the Olympics to a German city since the 1936 Games in Berlin. Adolf Hitler's use of those Games as a platform for the propagation of Nazi ideology was roundly criticized, as was the blatant racism and anti-Semitism that characterized the Games. The West German invitation had been extended, in part at least, to offer the world a contrast to the horrifying spectacle of Berlin.

The spectre of the 1968 Mexico City Olympics also loomed over Munich. Ten days before the 1968 games opened, hundreds of students at Tlatelolco Plaza in Mexico City were gunned down by government forces, and the Mexican military was a conspicuous presence throughout the Games. In contrast, Munich organizers spent less than $2 million on security, and security personnel were to be unarmed, inconspicuous, and nonconfrontational. The XX Olympiad began on August 26, 1972, as thousands of athletes from more than 120 countries celebrated the opening ceremonies of what the organizers had dubbed Die Heiteren Spiele ("The Cheerful Games").

Attack on the Olympic Village

For more than a week, the Games unfolded without incident. The day of terror began at 4:30 am on September 5, 1972, when eight Palestinian militants affiliated with Black September-a militant offshoot of the Palestinian group Fatah-scaled a fence surrounding the Olympic Village in Munich. Disguised as athletes and using stolen keys, they forced their way into the quarters of the Israeli Olympic team at 31 Connollystrasse. As they attempted to enter Apartment 1, they were confronted by Yossef Gutfreund, a wrestling referee, and Moshe Weinberg, a wrestling coach. Weinberg was shot while fighting with the attackers, who forced him at gunpoint to lead them to the rooms of the remaining Israeli coaches and athletes. It has been proposed that Weinberg led the attackers past Apartment 2-which was also being used by the Israeli team-because he believed that the wrestlers and weightlifters in Apartment 3 would be better able to fight back. However, Black September had detailed plans of the Olympic Village and the dispositions of the Israeli athletes. Shaul Ladany, a race walker who survived the attack after escaping from Apartment 2, suggested that it was much more likely that his room was bypassed because he was housed with members of the Israeli shooting team. The terrorists had struggled to subdue the unarmed men in Apartment 1; it is unlikely that they had wished to engage in a close-quarters gun battle with world-class marksmen in the opening minutes of their operation.

In Apartment 3 the terrorists gathered more hostages and forced them back to Apartment 1. Wrestler Gad Tsabari broke from the group and dashed down a flight of stairs toward an underground parking garage, and Weinberg took advantage of the confusion to again fight the attackers. Weinberg had nearly gained control of a terrorist's gun when he was shot and killed. Despite being on crutches due to an injury during competition, Yossef Romano, a weightlifter, also made an attempt to disarm one of the terrorists. Romano was killed and his mutilated body was left on the floor of Apartment 1 as a warning. While two Israelis lay dead in the Olympic Village and nine others were being held hostage, International Olympic Committee (IOC) chairman Avery Brundage insisted that the games continue. The terrorists demanded the liberation of more than 200 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, the release of Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof of the Red Army Faction from German prisons, and the provision of an airplane to fly them to a safe destination in the Middle East. While negotiations were ongoing, a planned rescue attempt had to be called off when it was realized that actions of West German police were being broadcast live to nearly 1 billion people around the world and to the many televisions throughout the Olympic Village. At about 10:00 pm on September 5, believing they had reached an agreement, the terrorists led their bound and blindfolded hostages from their quarters into buses that transported them to waiting helicopters.

Massacre at Fürstenfeldbruck

The helicopters carried them to Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base, 15 miles (25 km) west of the Olympic Village, where police were lying in ambush. Although the German army had better training and equipment for such a mission, under West Germany's postwar constitution, the armed forces were forbidden from aiding the civilian police. The police snipers used in the operation had not received formal training as sharpshooters, they were improperly placed and inadequate in number, and they lacked radios to communicate with each other or with commanders. In addition, they were armed with assault rifles rather than sniper rifles, and their weapons had neither long-range scopes nor night-vision capability. On the air base tarmac was a Boeing 727 filled with 17 police officers disguised as a Lufthansa flight crew. It was intended that these officers would subdue the terrorists once they had boarded the plane, but the police unanimously chose to abandon their posts. Armoured cars that were to have aided in the rescue of the Israelis were dispatched too late and became stuck in traffic. With myriad failures in both planning and execution, the result was a disaster on virtually every level.

The helicopters arrived about 10:30 pm, and two terrorists went to inspect the jetliner. Finding it empty and becoming aware of the deception, they shouted to their comrades, at which point West German police fired upon them. A gun battle ensued, and several terrorists and one police officer were killed. The helicopter flight crews ran for cover, but the Israeli athletes were bound together and trapped. After the initial fusillade, in which the terrorists also shot out the floodlights that had been illuminating the tarmac, the scene settled into a tense stalemate punctuated by sporadic gunfire. Onlookers surrounded the airfield, and sportscaster Jim McKay, who was anchoring Olympic coverage for the U.S. network ABC, provided television viewers with preliminary updates. At midnight, a German official announced that all the hostages had been freed and all the terrorists had been killed, a report that proved to be tragically premature. Just after midnight, a terrorist tossed a hand grenade into one of the helicopters, killing all but one of the Israeli hostages aboard; David Berger, an American-born wrestler, succumbed to smoke inhalation before rescue personnel could reach him. A second terrorist sprayed the interior of the other helicopter with bullets at close range, murdering the five remaining Israelis.

Too late to aid in the rescue effort, the armoured cars finally reached the runway, but their crews had no knowledge of the deployment of police personnel in the field and no way to communicate with them. A gunman ran toward a position where one of the helicopter pilots and a police sniper had taken cover. The terrorist was shot and killed by the sniper, but the movement on the darkened runway drew fire from one of the armoured cars, and both the pilot and sniper were seriously wounded by friendly fire. By 12:30 am on September 6, the shooting had stopped, and the 20-hour reign of terror was over. Eleven Israelis had been killed, along with one Munich policeman, and five Black September terrorists lay dead. Three of the gunmen were captured. At 3:00 am McKay, who had been broadcasting from the Olympic Village for 14 straight hours, summarized the tragic outcome of the botched rescue with the words "They're all gone." For the first time in history, the Olympic Games were suspended, for 24 hours, in tribute to the murdered athletes.

At a memorial service on September 6, Brundage announced that the games would continue. He then drew parallels between the murder of 11 Israelis and an IOC decision to bar Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) from competition in Munich. Rhodesia had been banned because of its racist policies, and Brundage, who had supported Rhodesia's inclusion in the games, seemed to take the IOC's ruling as a personal attack. Many in the stadium and throughout the world were stunned by the callous statement, and Brundage later apologized. Nevertheless, the Munich massacre and Brundage's seeming refusal to grasp the significance of Jewish blood being shed on German soil would cast a pall on his two decades of service at the head of the IOC.

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Munich massacre | Facts, Victims, Terrorism, Olympics, & History

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The Munich massacre was a terrorist attack on Israeli Olympic team members at the 1972 Summer Games in Munich orchestrated by affiliates of the Palestinian militant group Black September. It occurred amid the specters of the 1936 Olympic Games, hosted by the Nazis, and of the 1968 Olympic Games, which also saw violence.

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Mexico 1968: Brutal shooting and Civil Rights Protest

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Mexico 1968: Brutal shooting and Civil Rights Protest

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The 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City were the 16th occurrence of the modern Olympic Games. At that time two political  main events took place:

The first one was Mexican student movement-Just days before the Games, Mexican students protested the government’s allocation of funds for the Olympics instead of using them for social programs. A tragic thing happened, the army surrounded the student in the Plaza of Three Cultures, resulting in over 200 deaths and thousands injured.

The other main event was a athlete political statement on the podium-During the medal ceremony for the men’s 200-meter race, American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos made a powerful statement. They raised their black-gloved fists and wore black socks to symbolize civil rights and protest the living conditions of minorities in the United States. The IOC banned both athletes from the Olympic Village and sent them home.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Mexico-City-1968-Olympic-Games

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Mexico City 1968 Olympic Games | History, Impact, Legacy, & Summer Olympics

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The Mexico City 1968 Olympic Games were an athletic festival held in Mexico City that took place October 12–27, 1968.

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London 1948: Germany & Japan were band from the games 

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London 1948: Germany & Japan were band from the games 

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In 1948, 3 years after WW2 ended, Britain faced a big economic crisis, particularly in London. The crisis was all across Europe, yet Britain was in the best finance situation out of all – so they were chosen to host the Olympic. This Olympic got the nickname: "The austerity Olympics" due to how cheap they had to be. This was the first Olympic games since the Nazi Olympic in Berlin in 1936. At the time London was still recovering from the "blitz" and was in debts. A program to help recover Britain economy was decided on a month before the start of the games. The finance situation led to them cutting short on stuff that they can't afford, for example: they drag tested only the winners of the category, couldn’t serve any meat that wasn’t whale, there was no Olympic center for the athletes to sleep in and more. Germany and Japan got banned from the games. Both of them were still considered to be an enemy because they didn’t sign the peace agreement at the end of the war. Despite all the challenges, the London Olympic is considered to be a great success.  It was the start of London to financially recover (they had a profit of almost £30,000), and was a much needed professional sporting event for both athletes and the viewers after the long war.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2012/mar/30/london-1948-olympics-austerity-games

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They converted Wembley into an athletics stadium by putting 800 tonnes of cinders over the greyhound track. They housed athletes in RAF camps. Members of the British team bulked out their meagre diets with whale meat. And the only sort of drugs testing was to see whether the medal winners had overdosed on the Horlicks tablets handed out to those taking part.

Those who organised and paid for the make-do-and-mend 1948 Olympics might raise an eyebrow at the description of the event planned for London this summer as the austerity Games. To be sure, the economic backdrop looks superficially similar: an economy in trouble; a country up to its eyeballs in debt; a chancellor counting every penny. But there the similarity ends.

The Britain of 2012 is struggling to emerge from a long and deep recession that has pushed national debt to upwards of 60% of the economy's annual output. Activity is still 4% below the peak reached in early 2008 and it will take until 2017 for living standards to return to 2004 levels, the year before London won the right to host the Games.

This week the IOC president, Jacques Rogge, completed his last pre-games inspection visit and the IOC's co-ordination commission said London was "ready to welcome the world". If the economic backdrop has made the organisers' job more difficult, it is nothing compared to the scale of the challenge faced by the organisers in 1948.

The Britain of 1948 was struggling to recover from six years of total war that had emptied the Treasury's coffers, forced Churchill to go cap in hand to Roosevelt for help and pushed the national debt to 250% of GDP. In 2012, Britain is hard up; in 1948 it was flat broke and there was no question of the Labour government of Clement Attlee committing the sort of sums to a sporting event that will be spent this year.

This month the Commons public accounts committee expressed concern that once the cost of the security lockdown of London was taken into account, the final bill for the 2012 Games would be a little shy of £11bn, a fourfold increase since London put in its bid seven years ago, and almost equivalent to Britain's gross domestic product in 1948.

By contrast, the cash-strapped Attlee government, which at one stage considered ceding the right to hold the Games to the United States, earmarked just under £750,000 for the Olympics. Even when inflation and more than six decades of growth are taken into account, the disparity in spending between the 1948 and the 2012 Games is marked: about 0.7% of GDP in 2012; less than 0.01% of GDP in 1948.

The organisers in 1948 faced a different challenge from those in 1908, who were able to showcase the capital of the empire at a time when the value of the pound was rigidly set by a gold standard policed by the Bank of England. Britain was still (just about) the world's most powerful nation and the Liberal government could afford to wage a naval arms race with Germany while planning to lay the foundations of the welfare state.

In 1948, the US was clearly the world's most powerful nation, the dollar had supplanted sterling as the global reserve currency of choice, and the Attlee government was trying to juggle Britain's expensive defence commitments with its pledge to build the New Jerusalem. London basked in a heatwave in the summer of 1948 but, as films such as the Ealing comedy Passport to Pimlico showed, it still bore the physical scars of the blitz. Labour's priorities were to find jobs for the millions of demobilised servicemen, convert factories back to peacetime use, rebuild Britain's shattered infrastructure and find the resources for the welfare state. The NHS was launched less than a month before George VI opened the Games.

Even so, other European countries were in worse state than Britain, and London agreed to host the first Games since Hitler's carefully orchestrated Berlin Olympics 12 years earlier. The 1948 event was short on bombast, the finale to the opening ceremony being the release of thousands of pigeons above north London. Only a strings-attached loan from Washington had rescued Britain from an economic Dunkirk after the fighting stopped in 1945.

Not only was there no new Olympic stadium, there was no new velodrome, aquatics centre or handball arena either. Nor was there a purpose-built Olympic village: male athletes were billeted in RAF camps in Uxbridge, West Drayton and Richmond; female athletes were housed in London colleges. The organisers laid on bedding but asked contestants to bring their own towels.

The frugality was harsh but deemed necessary by Sir Stafford Cripps, who set the benchmark for all subsequent austerity chancellors. Cripps, who would rise before dawn and take a cold bath to prepare himself for the rigours of the day ahead, encapsulated the spirit of the age and presided over an economy where rationing was even tougher than it had been during the war. A concession to the UK team was that their rations were increased to those of a heavy industrial worker while the Games were on. "It was very hard to get hold of meat, although there was unrationed whale meat," the British runner Sylvia Cheeseman said of her preparations for the 200 metres. "It was horrible but I was so intent on getting my protein that I ate it." Many teams brought in their own food and, in the case of the French, their own wine as well.

The previous year had begun with one of the coldest winters of the century, with power cuts to industry and a big loss of exports. Under the terms of the loan negotiated with the Americans, sterling had to be convertible into dollars from the summer of 1947, a move that prompted a full-scale sterling crisis. To cap an annus horribilis, Cripps's predecessor as chancellor, Hugh Dalton, was forced to resign after he let slip some of the details of his budget to a journalist on his way into the Commons.

As a result, the government was determined to do the Games on the cheap. It scrounged gymnastic equipment, food and mineral water from other governments. The Canadians even donated a couple of planks of springy pine for the diving boards at Wembley's Empire pool.

Germany and Japan were not allowed to take part in the Games but even with the Soviet Union also absent, the British team won a meagre haul of three gold medals, two of them in the rowing at Henley. The face of the Games was Dutch athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen, with four golds.

Despite the austerity and the air of shabbiness, London 1948 was considered a remarkable success. After six years without professional football or cricket between 1939 and 1945, there was an appetite for sport and those who took part noted how the Games were faithful to the original Olympian ideal that the important thing was not winning but taking part. By today's standards the austerity Games were not commercialised, the TV rights were sold to the BBC for £1,000.

What's more, they made money. The economist Stefan Szymanski has noted that it is a myth that the Olympics pay for themselves, either through Keynesian pump-priming or a surge of tourism. But if hosting the Games has bankrupted some cities and left others with white-elephant stadiums, that was not true of London in 1948.

Spending came in at £732,268, below the budget of £743,000, while receipts (mostly from ticket sales) were £761,688. The taxpayer will be footing the bill for London 2012, but that was not the case 64 years ago. The austerity Games made a profit of almost £30,000 - of which the taxman received £9,000.

Then and now

Standing ticket to watch athletics - 3s 6d (17.5p). Now: £202.

Average wage in the UK in 1948 - £455.77 a year. Now: £26,000.

Average cost of a new house in 1948 - £1,751. Now: £163,000.

Yearly UK inflation: 6.6%. Now 3.4%.Number of TV viewers: more than 500,000, most living within 50 miles of London, for 64 hours of Olympic programming. The 2012 games will be broadcast in 200 countries with 5,000 hours of live coverage available and an estimated audience of up to 4 billion.

1948 London Olympics GB medals - three gold, 14 silver, six bronze.

Now: UK Sport chief Liz Nicholl told the BBC recently: "We will be top four in the medal table at the Olympics and second at the Paralympics."

Who was there: Although defeated Axis powers Japan and Germany were not allowed to participate in the 1948 games, Italy (which had signed an armistice with the allies in 1943) did compete. It came fifth in the table with eight gold, 11 silver and eight bronze medals.

A total of 59 countries took part in the 1948 summer Olympic games in London: Afghanistan Argentina Australia Austria Belgium Bermuda Brazil British Guiana Burma Canada Ceylon Chile Republic of China Colombia Cuba Czechoslovakia Denmark Egypt Finland France Great Britain Greece Hungary Iceland India Iran Iraq Ireland Italy Jamaica South Korea Lebanon Liechtenstein Luxembourg Malta Mexico Monaco Netherlands New Zealand Norway Pakistan Panama Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Singapore South Africa Spain Sweden Switzerland Syria Trinidad and Tobago Turkey United States Uruguay Venezuela Yugoslavia.

How many countries this time? 216.

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London's 1948 Olympics: the real austerity Games

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Despite the air of shabbiness, London 1948 was considered a remarkable success - and made a profit of almost £30,000

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The 1936 Summer Olympic Games were held in Berlin For two weeks ,At that time, Hitler was the leader and he ruled Germany with anti-democratic and anti-Jewish policies.

The Nazis' use the Olympic Games for propaganda purposes, to promote their ideology and to create an image completely different from the reality, an image in which Germany is united and peaceful. During the two weeks of the Olympics Hitler stops the anti-Jewish activity and evil towards the Jews' ,he didn't want the world to know what was really happening in Germany , he removed signs forbidding Jews from entering public places and every sign that shows that there is a discriminatory attitude towards Jews. As part of the Nazi policy, the Jews were excluded from German sports, but in the Olympics the Nazis didn't want to be noticed that Jews were not participating so they allowed the star fencer "Helen Mayer" to participate and represent Germany even though the Nazis saw her as Jewish because her father was Jew.

The harsh attitude of the Nazis to the Jews that violates the human rights, Jews, Jews athletes and people in the United States and Europe called for a boycott the Olympics in Berlin.

In addition, at the Berlin Olympics, the tradition of opening the Olympics with a torch race begging.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-nazi-olympics-berlin-1936?series=22

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Introduction
The Nazi Olympics Berlin 1936
For two weeks in August 1936, Adolf Hitler's Nazi dictatorship camouflaged its racist, militaristic character while hosting the Summer Olympics. Softpedaling its antisemitic agenda and plans for territorial expansion, the regime exploited the Games to bedazzle many foreign spectators and journalists with an image of a peaceful, tolerant Germany.

Having rejected a proposed boycott of the 1936 Olympics, the sponsoring athletic and Olympic organizations of the United States and other western democracies missed the opportunity to take a stand that-some observers at the time claimed-might have given Hitler pause and bolstered international resistance to Nazi tyranny.

With the conclusion of the Games, Germany's expansionist policies and the persecution of Jews and other "enemies of the state" accelerated, culminating in World War II and the Holocaust.

The 1936 Summer Olympic Games

In 1931, the International Olympic Committee awarded the 1936 Summer Olympics to Berlin. The choice signaled Germany's return to the world community after its isolation in the aftermath of defeat in World War I.

Two years later, Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany and quickly turned the nation's fragile democracy into a one-party dictatorship that persecuted Jews, Roma (Gypsies), all political opponents, and others. The Nazi claim to control all aspects of German life also extended to sports.

German sports imagery of the 1930s served to promote the myth of "Aryan" racial superiority and physical prowess. In sculpture and in other forms, German artists idealized athletes' well-developed muscle tone and heroic strength and accentuated ostensibly Aryan facial features. Such imagery also reflected the importance the Nazi regime placed on physical fitness, a prerequisite for military service.

Exclusion from German Sports

In April 1933, an "Aryans only" policy was instituted in all German athletic organizations. "Non-Aryans"-Jews or individuals with Jewish parents and Roma (Gypsies)-were systematically excluded from German sports facilities and associations. The German Boxing Association expelled professional light heavyweight champion Erich Seelig in April 1933 because he was Jewish. (Seelig later resumed his boxing career in the United States.) Another Jewish athlete, Daniel Prenn-Germany's top-ranked tennis player-was removed from Germany's Davis Cup Team. Gretel Bergmann, a world-class high jumper, was expelled from her German club in 1933 and excluded from the German Olympic team in 1936.

Jewish athletes barred from German sports clubs flocked to separate Jewish associations, including the Maccabee and Shield groups, and to improvised segregated facilities. But these Jewish sports facilities were not comparable to well-funded German groups. Roma (Gypsies), including the Sinti boxer Johann Rukelie Trollmann, were also excluded from German sports.

Jewish Athletes

As a token gesture to placate international opinion, German authorities allowed the star fencer Helene Mayer to represent Germany at the Olympic Games in Berlin. Mayer was viewed as a "non-Aryan" because her father was Jewish. She won a silver medal in women's individual fencing and, like all other medalists for Germany, gave the Nazi salute on the podium. No other Jewish athlete competed for Germany in the Summer Games.

Still, nine athletes who were Jewish or of Jewish parentage won medals in the Nazi Olympics, including Mayer and five Hungarians. Seven Jewish male athletes from the United States went to Berlin. Like some of the European Jewish competitors at the Olympics, many of these young men were pressured by Jewish organizations to boycott the Games. These athletes chose to compete for a variety of reasons. Most did not fully grasp at the time the extent and purpose of Nazi persecution of Jews and other groups.

In August 1936, the Nazi regime tried to camouflage its violent racist policies while it hosted the Summer Olympics. Most anti-Jewish signs were temporarily removed and newspapers toned down their harsh rhetoric, in line with directives from the Propaganda Ministry, headed by Joseph Goebbels. Thus, the regime exploited the Olympic Games to present foreign spectators and journalists with a false image of a peaceful, tolerant Germany.

Boycott Movements

Movements to boycott the 1936 Berlin Olympics surfaced in the United States, Great Britain, France, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, and the Netherlands. Debate over participation in the 1936 Olympics was most intense in the United States, which traditionally sent one of the largest teams to the Games. Some boycott proponents supported counter-Olympics. One of the largest was the "People's Olympiad" planned for the summer of 1936 in Barcelona, Spain. It was canceled after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936, just as thousands of athletes had begun to arrive.

Individual Jewish athletes from a number of countries also chose to boycott the Berlin Olympics or Olympic qualifying trials. In the United States, some Jewish athletes and Jewish organizations such as the American Jewish Congress and the Jewish Labor Committee supported a boycott, as did a number of liberal Catholic politicians and many college presidents. However, once the Amateur Athletic Union of the United States opted in a close vote to participate in December 1935, other countries fell in line and the boycott movement failed.

Preparation for the Games

The Nazis made elaborate preparations for the August 1-16 Summer Games. A huge sports complex was constructed, including a new stadium and state-of-the art Olympic village for housing the athletes. Olympic flags and swastikas bedecked the monuments and houses of a festive, crowded Berlin.

Most tourists were unaware that the Nazi regime had temporarily removed anti-Jewish signs, nor did they know of a police roundup of Roma in Berlin, ordered by the German Ministry of the Interior. On July 16, 1936, some 800 Roma residing in Berlin and its environs were arrested and interned under police guard in a special camp in the Berlin suburb of Marzahn.

Nazi officials also ordered that foreign visitors should not be subjected to the criminal penalties of Paragraph 175, a German statute that criminalized sexual relations between men.

Opening of the Games

On August 1, 1936, Hitler opened the XIth Olympiad. Musical fanfares directed by the famous composer Richard Strauss announced the dictator's arrival to the largely German crowd. Hundreds of athletes in opening day regalia marched into the stadium, team by team in alphabetical order. Inaugurating a new Olympic ritual, a lone runner arrived bearing a torch carried by relay from the site of the ancient Games in Olympia, Greece.

Forty-nine athletic teams from around the world competed in the Berlin Olympics, more than in any previous Olympics. Germany fielded the largest team with 348 athletes. The US team was the second largest, with 312 members, including 18 African Americans. American Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage led the delegation. The Soviet Union did not participate in the Berlin Games (or any Olympics until the 1952 Helsinki Games, when many politicians, journalists, and competitors regarded the Olympics as an important battle in the Cold War).

Propaganda

Germany skillfully promoted the Olympics with colorful posters and magazine spreads. Athletic imagery drew a link between Nazi Germany and ancient Greece, symbolizing the Nazi racial myth that a superior German civilization was the rightful heir of an "Aryan" culture of classical antiquity. This vision of classical antiquity emphasized ideal "Aryan" racial types: heroic, blue-eyed blonds with finely chiseled features.

Concerted propaganda efforts continued well after the Olympics with the international release in 1938 of Olympia, the controversial documentary directed by German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. Renowned for her earlier propaganda film, Triumph of the Will (1934) depicting Nazi Party rallies at Nuremberg, Riefenstahl was commissioned by the Nazi regime to produce this film about the 1936 Summer Games.

German Victories

Germany emerged victorious from the XIth Olympiad. German athletes captured the most medals, and German hospitality and organization won the praises of visitors. Most newspaper accounts echoed the New York Times report that the Games put Germany "back in the fold of nations," and even made the Germans "more human again." Some even found reason to hope that this peaceable interlude would endure. Only a few reporters, such as the American William Shirer, understood that the Berlin glitter was merely a facade hiding a racist and violently oppressive regime.

After the Games

As post-Games reports were filed, Hitler pressed on with grandiose plans for German expansion. Persecution of Jews resumed. Two days after the Olympics, Captain Wolfgang Fuerstner, head of the Olympic village, killed himself when he was dismissed from military service because of his Jewish ancestry.

Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Within just three years of the Olympiad, the "hospitable" and "peaceable" sponsor of the Games unleashed World War II, a conflict that resulted in untold destruction. With the conclusion of the Games, Germany's expansionist policies and the persecution of Jews and other "enemies of the state" accelerated, culminating in the Holocaust.

Last Edited: Aug 22, 2023

Author(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

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The Nazi Olympics -1936 Berlin Olympic Games

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The 1936 Olympics in Berlin under Adolf Hitler's Nazi dictatorship were more than just a worldwide sporting event, they were also a show of Nazi propaganda.

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This topic should be researched because it is one of the biggest sporting events all over the world and one of the world most important one.

This topic is significant for research because it has developed over thousands of years. The Olympic first started in ancient Greece and got a lot of changes during the years.

The personal position for choosing this topic because it is because we enjoy watching sports ,each of us doing an sport activity in our free time plus we got interested  especially in  political event because we related to 2 of the events we talks about.

the reason we choose the topic is because we feel those events have impact in our time too

I expect to find out what’s really happened behind every event plus we want to see if there is something interesting and related for our people, Jewish people, Israelis, or matters that are important to talk about and bring up.