Why Hitler Won The Nazi Olympics?
Introduction The Nazi Olympics of 1936 provided Adolf Hitler with an unprecedented opportunity to publicly obscure his militarism and racism.
At this time, Hitler submerged his anti-Semitic policies and plans for enlarging Germany in order to exploit the immediate opportunity to portray
Germany as more tolerant and peaceful than it actually was in reality. Despite calls for a boycott of the games, the United States and most Western democracies ignored them. Rather, democracies maintained that Western participation in the games would expose the false nature of Nazi Aryan racist policies and propaganda. Unfortunately, in the wake of the games, Germany returned to and accelerated its expansionist policies and its persecution of the Jewish …show more content…
At first glance, it would seem that African-American athletic runner Jesse Owens had stolen the show at the Nazi Olympics when he won four gold medals. According to this view, this left Hitler outraged and infuriated when he rudely snubbed Owens and refused to acknowledge the athletes' accomplishment. The Owens triumph proved the fallacy of Nazi racial theories and equated to a victory for the United States team over their German counterparts. Unfortunately, this may be more spin than history.
The only real fact in this narrative is that Owens won four gold medals. The reality is much more complicated. When Owens won the first of his gold medals, the public was surprised when personal congratulations were not issued by the fuehrer. The open speculation was that the dictator's motivation for this outright snub was embarrassment and rage for having been embarrassed by the superior performance of a so-called racial inferior on the soil of the fatherland. In some ways, the 1936 Berlin Olympics were a propaganda coup for the Nazis. This was because they placed a great emphasis upon physical
At this time, Hitler submerged his anti-Semitic policies and plans for enlarging Germany in order to exploit the immediate opportunity to portray
Germany as more tolerant and peaceful than it actually was in reality. Despite calls for a boycott of the games, the United States and most Western democracies ignored them. Rather, democracies maintained that Western participation in the games would expose the false nature of Nazi Aryan racist policies and propaganda. Unfortunately, in the wake of the games, Germany returned to and accelerated its expansionist policies and its persecution of the Jewish …show more content…
At first glance, it would seem that African-American athletic runner Jesse Owens had stolen the show at the Nazi Olympics when he won four gold medals. According to this view, this left Hitler outraged and infuriated when he rudely snubbed Owens and refused to acknowledge the athletes' accomplishment. The Owens triumph proved the fallacy of Nazi racial theories and equated to a victory for the United States team over their German counterparts. Unfortunately, this may be more spin than history.
The only real fact in this narrative is that Owens won four gold medals. The reality is much more complicated. When Owens won the first of his gold medals, the public was surprised when personal congratulations were not issued by the fuehrer. The open speculation was that the dictator's motivation for this outright snub was embarrassment and rage for having been embarrassed by the superior performance of a so-called racial inferior on the soil of the fatherland. In some ways, the 1936 Berlin Olympics were a propaganda coup for the Nazis. This was because they placed a great emphasis upon physical