Australia and the Olympic Games the Berlin Olympics 1936 the Games

Australia and the Olympic Games The Berlin Olympics 1936 The Games

Jessie Owens and the Berlin Olympics

One athlete in particular in Berlin became the focus of the Stadium crowds and the world media. Jessie Owens, a 22 year old African-American student from Ohio State University. This was Jessie Owens first Olympic Games. Like other African-Americans Jessie had experienced prejudice and discrimination in his own country so he wasn’t phased by the known race and colour prejudice in Hitler’s Germany. He had the opportunity to win four gold medals. His success made him a world celebrity and sporting hero for generations his supposed snub by Hitler, his relationship with his German long jump rival and a team selection issue have become a part of the history of the Berlin Olympics and the question of fact or myth.

Focus

Jessie Owens experiences and contribution at the Berlin Olympic Games

Activities

Examine the sources and use you own research to consider the following issues:

 Was Jessie Owens snubbed by Adolph Hitler- fact or Olympic myth?  Jessie Owens and Luz Long.  The controversy about the 4X100 metre US Relay Team.

Jessie Owens and Hitler

The IOC officials expected Hitler to acknowledge the victories of all competitors. His Aryan bias and hatred of African Americans and Jews meant that he was watched carefully by Count Baillet-Latour and the foreign media. Reports appeared of Hitler avoiding contact with some athletes and that he snubbed Jessie Owens after his 100 metre gold performance. But was Jessie Owens snubbed by Hitler – myth or reality?

Consider the following extracts. The second extract gives an Australian eye witness account.

One of the most controversial episodes of the 1936 Games, which developed into an enduring legend, related to the alleged snubbing of Owens by Hitler. Several versions exist, and they continue to be debated. The ﬁrst is embodied in Peter Wilson’s contribution to The Olympic Games, edited by Lord Killanin and john Rodda. He wrote: “Early in the Games the German leader had summoned to his box the ﬁrst two Germans to win medals in the Games so that he could personally congratulate them. But, markedly, there were no congratulations for Owens or any of the other black athletes who were so embarrassingly proving the fallacy of the theory of Aryan supremacy.”8

On the opening day of competition, Hitler did congratulate the ﬁrst two German gold medallists, the shot-putter Hans Wollke and the javelin thrower Tilly Fleischer, summoning them to his box and shaking hands with them

ostentatiously. The black American to whom he did not offer congratulations on that day was the high-jump winner Cornelius Johnson; in fact, Hitler left the stadium rather pointedly before the high jump had formally ended, but the result was known. Since Owens did not win a gold medal on the ﬁrst day, that snub was obviously delivered not to him but to Johnson. Count Baillet-Latour sent a gentle reprimand; he pointed out that, since the Fuhrer was patron of the Games, he had the option of congratulating every winner or none.

On the second day, Owens won the 100 metres from another black American, Ralph Metcalfe, with the Dutchman Martinus Osendarp third. The medal-award ceremonies for the hammer throw, which had been won by the German Karl Hein, and the 100 metres were consecutive. First Hein ascended the vvinner’s dais; as he straightened up after receiving a symbolic wreath, he gave Hitler the Nazi salute. The band played “Deutschland Uber Alles”, the crowd sang, and a great forest of hands went up in the Nazi salute. Then it was Owens’ turn; he, too, was crowned, and as the band began “The Star-Spangled Banner” he bowed to Hitler, who gave a formal Nazi salute and turned away. His brusqueness, and his failure to offer personal congratulations to the greatest athlete of the Games, created the legend of the snub.

It could be argued that Hitler was obeying Baillet-Latour’s direction, but the historian Duff Hart-Davis, in his excellent study Hitler’s Games, argued that there was strong evidence to show that he had fallen victim to his own racial propaganda, and was “not going to demean himself by shaking hands with the sub-human which he considered Owens to be”. Hart-Davis quoted Balder von Schirach’s record of dialogue in Hitler's box. Schirach wrote that Hitler told him: “The Americans should be ashamed of themselves, letting Negroes win medals for them. I shall not shake hands with this Negro." Later, when Schirach tried to reason with him, Hitler reacted violently. “Do you really think," he yelled, “that I will allow myself to be photographed shaking hands with a Negro?”

Harry Gordon, Australia and the Olympic Games, Queensland University Press, 1996 (3rd edition), p158-159.

An Australian Eyewitness perspective

Edgar ‘Dunc’ Gray was the Australian cyclist and team flag-bearer at the Berlin Games and had won a gold medal at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. Doris Carter was an Australian high jumper.

Dunc Gray had another recollection from the same day. He claimed that the three placegetters in the 1OO metres did spend some time in the same enclosure as Hitler, but not with him, that afternoon. “The competitors’ enclosure adjoined the one occupied by Hitler and other VIPs,” he said. “I’d invited a German girl to watch the athletics with me. Hitler was walking back to his seat from somewhere outside. He spoke to the third placegetter, who was white, and shook hands with him, but didn’t acknowledge the presence of the two Negroes. The girl I was with, who’d been so excited about seeing Hitler in the ﬂesh, was disappointed by him.” Doris Carter, also in the competitors’ enclosure that day, veriﬁed Gray’s version. “It wasn’t a refusal to shake hands," she said, “[it was] just that he walked right by them.”

Harry Gordon, Australia and the Olympic Games, Queensland University Press, 1996 (3rd edition),p159.

Other sources Rippon A, Hitler’s Olympics – The story of the 1936 Nazi Games, Pen and Sword Books Ltd., South Yorkshire, 2006. Chapter 11, Myth and Reality, p 143-152.

Also http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205572/Hitler-shook-hands-black-1936-Olympic-hero- Jesse-Owens.html

Jessie Owens and Luz Long

Jessie Owens and Carl Ludwig ‘’Luz’ Long were rivals in the Olympic long jump. Owens made a mistake in his first European rules stated that you couldn’t walk through the track to the long jump pit during the event and when he did this it was called as his first attempt. On Owen’s second attempt he was short of qualifying for the final. This just left his final jump to qualify. Luz Long had some advice for Jessie.

Focus There are different versions of their conversation about the long jump, whether Luz used his towel or Jessie’s sweatshirt to help Jessie avoid disqualification on his last qualifying jump or whether Luz just gave advice which Jessie accepted. Their story from just a few days as competitors has become an Olympic legend.

Activity  Who was Carl Ludwig ‘’Luz’ Long?  How did Luz Long and Jessie Owens reflect the Olympic spirit at the controversial Berlin Olympics?  What happened to Luz Long after the Berlin Olympics? o What favour did he ask of Jessie Owens?

Luz Long and Jessie Owens in the Olympic Stadium

Source: IOC

Watch the video clip of Jessie Owens on the Official IOC site front page (2min 25 sec). http://www.olympic.org/berlin-1936-summer-olympics

Read the eyewitness recollections of two Australian Olympians, Dunc Gray and Doris Carter.

Review below the document about Jessie Owens and Luz Long – an Australian perspective. http://www.duhaime.org/LawFun/LawArticle-669/Luz-Long-1913-1943.aspx

Was Jesse Owens' 1936 Long-Jump Story A Myth? http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111878822 . This includes an audio podcast (3min and 51 sec)

Olympic Men’s Long Jump Medal Ceremony: Jessie Owens (gold), Luz Long (silver)

Books

Schaap, J, Triumph - The Untold story of Jesse Owens and Hitler’s Olympics, First Mariner Books, New York, 2008,, p199-205.

Rippon A, Hitler’s Olympics – The story of the 1936 Nazi Games, Pen and Sword Books Ltd., South Yorkshire, 2006. Chapter 11, Myth and Reality, p 143-152.

Jessie Owens and Luz Long – an Australian perspective

Jack Metcalfe was a triple jump world recorder holder and long jumper. He was in the field area in the Olympic Stadium when the Olympic long jump competition unfolded.

How does this eye witness account match other recollections?

Amid such ugliness, Jack Metcalfe saw at close range many instances of Goodwill. During the qualification trials for the broad jump, Owens overstepped the board at his first two tries. He had one more go, and if his spikes came over the board again, he’d have been out. Luz Long, his German rival, came up to him and said in English, “Look, Jesse, this is silly. You’re the world record-holder. If you foul once more, you’re not even in the event. Why don’t you take off behind the board and still qualify?" Owens made a mark behind the board for his third attempt. He did qualify, and went on to win. The first to congratulate him was Long. I know that they met that night to celebrate, and they corresponded regularly, right through into the war. Jesse eventually received news that Long had been killed.

Metcalfe was well aware that racism was practised outside Germany, even in the American team. One of his abiding memories of Berlin was of joining Cornelius Johnson - “a very shy man, not the sort to make friends easily”- in a restaurant at the village. “ He had won a gold medal that day, and he was sitting all alone. You’d think he’d have friends around him at that time but there was an attitude in the US team.”

Harry Gordon, Australia and the Olympic Games, Queensland University Press, 1996 (3rd edition),p159-160.

The US Relay Controversy

Focus

The change to the US men’s 4X100 metres relay team before the event.

Activity

What happened with the team selection for the 4X100 metres US relay? Was this an appeasement of Hitler and the host city or a justified change?

Podcast: Marty Glickman talks about his Olympic experiences, including the US 4X100 metre relay team controversy. http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/olympics/detail.php?content=jewish_athletes_mor e&lang=en#audio

A last Word - Jessie Owens Memories about the 1936 Olympics and the issues

Explore the Canadian Broadcasting Digital Archives (1976 Audio Interview) at the weblink below. http://archives.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/clips/15553/

In this CBC Radio interview 40 years later, Owens talks about the 4 X 100 relay issue, the Hitler issue and his experience.