Berlin was chosen to host the 1936 Summer Olympics. After Hitler rose to power in Germany, he initially wanted to cancel the Olympics but was convinced to host them to showcase the "new Germany". However, Hitler instituted racist policies that excluded Jewish athletes from the German team. Despite concerns over Nazi persecution, the Olympics went ahead. African American athlete Jesse Owens won 4 gold medals, countering Nazi ideology of Aryan supremacy. The Olympics were a propaganda success for Hitler but Germany would later withdraw from hosting the 1940 Games due to World War 2.

2. • Berlin chosen
May 13th, 1931
• Won bid with 43
votes for Berlin
and 16 votes for
Barcelona, Spain.
• Berlin supposed
to hold Olympics
in 1916

3. • Cancelled because
of World War 1
• 1920 games held
in Belgium, and
they didn’t invite
teams from
Germany or any
of it’s allies
• 10 years before
they were invited
back

4. • 2 years
after Berlin
won bid,
Hitler took
over
Germany

5. • Hitler wanted
to cancel
Olympics
• But was
convinced
Olympics would
show off “new
Germany”
• He paid
20,000,000
Reichsmark
($8,000,000)

6. • No more Jews, blacks, or gypsies

7. •Ethical Cleansing was happening all around Germany
•Hitler decided to do the same with the Games
•Nobody of Jewish decent was allowed to compete in the
Olympics for the German team
•That decision ultimately cost the Germans many gold metals

9. • Responding to reports of the
persecution of Jewish athletes in
1933, Avery Brundage, president
of the American Olympic
Committee inspected Berlin
•After a brief and tightly
managed inspection of
German sports facilities in
1934, Brundage stated
publicly that Jewish athletes
were being treated fairly and
that the Games should go
on, as planned.

10. •Many American
newspaper editors and
anti-Nazi groups, led by,
president of the Amateur
Athletic Union, were
unwilling to be duped by
Nazi Germany
•But a determined Avery
Brundage maneuvered the
Amateur Athletic Union to
a close vote in favor of
sending an American team
to Berlin

11. •President Franklin
D. Roosevelt didn’t
become involved in
the boycott issue
•He didn’t listen to
many advisors or
diplomats
•Roosevelt continued
a 40-year tradition in
which the American
Olympic Committee
operated
independently of
outside influence

12. However bad the
Jews were being
treated, Olympic
officials were
promised by German
leaders to treat
African Americans
fairly.
Jessie Owens and
Eulace Metcalfe
They felt that their
victories would show
that the Nazi ideals were
wrong
Metcalfe sprained his
ankle, and never went

13. •Newspapers argued that
victories by Blacks would
show Nazis that their Aryan
views were wrong.
•18 African Americans -- 16
men and 2 women -- went to
Berlin, 3 times as many as the
1932 Olympics
•All of these athletes came
from white universities, and
showed many Black
journalists the poor conditions
of training equipment and
facilities at black colleges
where the vast majority of
African American students
were at

14. Many Olympians from all over the world
chose to boycott the Olympics.
Sammy Luftspring,
the top-ranked
Herman Neugass, lightweight boxer in
an American Jewish Canada
sprinter
Milton Green
Ruth Langer, (left), captain of
an Austrian the Harvard
swimmer University track
team

15. •49 Teams Competed
•Germany had the most athletes, 348
•America had the second highest amount, at 312
Afghanistan Colombia Iceland Norway
Argentina Costa Rica India Peru
Australia Czechosloki Italy The
Austria Denmark Japan Philippines
Belgium Egypt Latvia Poland
Bermuda Estonia Liechtensten Portugal
Bolivia Finland Romania
Brazil France Luxembourg South Africa
Bulgaria Germany Sweden
Canada Great Britain Malta Switzerland
Chile Mexico Turkey
China Greece Monaco United
Hungary The States
Netherlands Uruguay
New Zealand Yugoslavia

16. •February 6 to
February 16, 1936,
Germany hosted the
Winter Olympics in the
Bavarian Alps.
•Olympic leaders'
insisted on "fair play,"
so German officials
allowed half-Jewish
Rudi Ball to compete
on the nation's hockey
team.
•Anti-Jewish signs
were temporarily
removed from the
public

17. The presence of the
German military at the
Winter Games made the
games a little less light
hearted

18. •Germany promoted the
Olympics with colorful
posters and magazine
spreads.
Photograph •imagery drew a link
#14914 between Nazi Germany
and ancient Greece.
•The Nazis reduced their
vision of classical
antiquity to ideal
"Aryan" racial types:
heroic, blue-eyed blonds
with finely-chiseled
features.

19. In August 1936 Olympic flags
and swastikas bedecked the
monuments and houses of a
crowded Berlin.
Most tourists were unaware that
the Nazi regime had temporarily
removed anti-Jewish signs.
Tourists wouldn’t have known of a
police "clean up" that swept
Gypsies off the streets and kept
them in a camp at the edge of
Berlin.

20. • During the
Olympics, the
Germans were
secretly building a
concentration camp
18 miles north of
Berlin
•liberals, socialists,
and Communists,
and Jehovah's
Witnesses were
imprisoned there
Sachsenhausen

21. • August 1st, 1936
Summer Olympics
begin
• They started a new
ritual, having a single
runner run the
Olympic torch from
Olympia, Greece

22. Jessie Owens
"the fastest human being"
• Hero of the Olympics
• Won 4 Gold Metals
• 100 meters, the 200 meters,
the long jump, and part of the
4x100 meter relay
• Olympic Record on Long
Jump
• Despite claims Hitler snubbed
him, he wasn’t mad or angry
“Hitler didn’t snub me- it was FDR who snubbed me. he didn’t send me a
telegram”

23. •African
American
athletes won 14
medals,
• That is about
one-fourth of the
56 medals
awarded the
U.S. team in all
events

24. Thirteen Jews
or people of
Jewish
descent won
medals in the
Nazi
Olympics,
including six
Hungarians

25. •Germany was very
successful during
these Olympics.
•Its athletes captured
the most medals
overall
•German hospitality
and organization won
the praises of visitors
•Hitler made plans to
keep the Olympics in
Germany for eternity.
"In 1940 the Olympic Games will take place in Tokyo. But thereafter
they will take place in Germany for all time to come, in this stadium."
Adolf Hitler

26. •In 1937, Hitler inspected a design for a stadium
that would host the Olympics for forever.
•It was a 400,000-seat stadium that exemplified
German supremacy.
•The 1940 Winter Games were supposed to be
held in Switzerland, but plans fell through.
•In 1939, the committee voted unanimously to
return to Germany for the 1940 Olympics
•In November 1939, two months before invading
Poland, Germany withdrew.