Five Brothers and a War

XI Olympiad—1936 Summer Games

The 1936 Olympic Summer Games were held in Germany’s capital city, Berlin, from August 1-16. It is interesting that the other time the games were to be held in Berlin was in 1916, but they were cancelled due to World War I. It is also interesting that the Olympics after the 1936 Berlin games were supposed to be in the other major axis power’s capital, Tokyo, Japan. The games were first and foremost Nazi games, meant to demonstrate the benefits of the new Nazi Germany to the world. On August 1, 1936, the opening ceremonies of the Berlin Olympics were held. Hitler marched into the stadium as Deutchland Über Alles and the Horst-Wessel-Lied played.

nazi germany

The Germans expected the 50 participating nations to pay respect to Hitler through the straight-arm Hitler salute and the dipping of each nation’s flag as it passed Hitler’s review stand. Some nations, such as Bulgaria went all out by not only doing what was asked of them, but also goose-stepping. The American team offended the German hosts by only doing the “eyes right” as they passed Hitler, and not dipping the flag, in keeping with American tradition of only dipping the Stars and Stripes when passing an American president. The British team refused to offer the Olympic salute because of its similarity to the Nazi salute, but did dip the Union Jack as it passed Hitler.

Five Brothers and a War

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