The Influence Of The 1936 Olympics

With over 200 participating countries, The Olympics Games are a way for countries to showcase their best athletes on the world stage and has been historically a time of peace between Nations. Despite this fact, with countries at high tension, political and social differences boil over into The Games. The most famous of these were the 1936 Olympic Games, hosted in Berlin, Germany, as the Nazi regime was taking control of the German government. The 3rd Reich’s idea of Aryan supremacy led to conflicts with other nations and led the US into a great controversy over their participation in the games. The Nazi Regime looked down on minority groups such as Jews and Blacks while Team USA had those minority groups as athletes. With all these issues
This was seen as a great feet by Hitler showing his Aryan people’s success against the best in the world. This increased German confidence in their own nation that they were the best. The Germans wanted to prove themselves as rivals to the Greek who started the tradition of the Olympic games. Japan and Italy, the other fascist nations, also performed very well in the games, helping promote the fascist ideals.8 To break from the ideas of Aryan supremacy, there were many successful minorities who did very well in the games. The most remarkable was Jesse Owens, a black man from the US, who swept in the track and field events. In Middle School, Owens broke the middle school 100 yard record at 10 seconds.9 This shows that it could be seen, even from a young age, that Owens was destined to be a track star. In the National Championship meet for High School, he won the 100 yard, 220 yard, and the long jump.9 He had been destined to achieve greatness in the games and when the time came, Owens performed at his height. In the Games, we won the 100m and the 200m with world records and beat the German long jumper, Luz Long, to win the long jump as well.9 Out of respect of Owens victory, Long ran a victory lap with his arms around Owens. This was a great disappointment for Hitler as not only did a minority outrun his Aryan people, but they also treated Owens with respect after the race. This show of respect created a feel as if they were equals which was against the Aryan supremacy of the Nazi Party. In a later interview, Jesse Owens was asked if he worried about Hitler. Owens replied that he had worked so hard to get where he was today and had the 7 fastest people in the world next to him all trying to cross the finish line first, “so why worry about Hitler”. Hitler never congratulated Owens on his