VII. The Political Place of the 1936 Games in the History of National Socialism

In 1933, Hitler saw his long-term goal in the “conquest of new living space in the East and its ruthless Germanization” (commander’s briefing on February 3, 1933) as endangered primarily by the possibility of a preventive strike by France. In this “risk zone of inferior armament” (Goebbels before propagandists of the Gau Berlin on November 22, 1938), the impression of a peace-loving country was to be created abroad, of course with simultaneous secret rearmament. The Olympic Games were highly suited to document love of peace and willingness to understand. By the time they took place, the decisive blows to “release from the shackles of Versailles” (military service, establishment of the air force, reoccupation of the Rhineland—the latter between Winter and Summer Games) had already been carried out and had brought the foreign policy breakthrough. They formed the high point, but also the conclusion, of Nazi peace propaganda.

In the immediate temporal context of the Olympic Summer Games, the decisive course was set for war: while the memorandum on the Four-Year Plan, read out by Göring in the Council of Ministers just two weeks after the conclusion of the Games, which culminated in the task: “1. The German army must be operational in four years. 2. The German economy must be war-capable in four years,” has meanwhile found its way into schoolbooks, no one has yet noticed that the corresponding contribution of the Army Office for the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, which assumed a start of war on October 1, 1939, annual armament costs of nine billion Reichsmarks, and a predicted loss of 2.25 million men per year of war, was presented precisely on August 1, 1936, the day of the solemn opening of the Games. With Mommsen, one must therefore speak of a gigantic camouflage with cynical elements in connection with the XI Olympic Summer Games of 1936. Parallel to the course setting for war, 1936 saw the forced expansion to a police and concentration camp state. The “Gypsy camp” Berlin-Marzahn and the Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen concentration camp are as much products of the Games as the Reichssportfeld and the stadium. In Prussia alone, the police was increased by 1,400 men in the fiscal year 1936.

The short sequence of political highlights of 1936: Winter Games, Rhineland occupation, elections, Summer Games, all combined with the first noticeable economic upswing, strengthened Hitler’s self-confidence. These events of 1936 were culmination points of the increasingly strong Hitler cult. The departure of the Third Reich into immoderation—one need only think of the flood of celebrations and receptions—is linked to the XI Olympic Summer Games.

The organizers of the Games, whose Olympic enthusiasm and international reputation made the success of the Games possible in the first place, have always denied these connections only briefly outlined here. They have never admitted to having been co-participants in a gigantic deception maneuver. They have always adhered to the fiction of the apolitical festival. Other participants were more self-critical. In conclusion, therefore, Pastor i.R. Fritz Ullrich should be quoted, who in the run-up to the Games had helped to convince the Americans “that the news about Christian persecution spread about the 3rd Reich was lies.” On January 22, 1980, he reported to the chairman of the EKD about the entanglement of the Protestant Young Men’s Association at that time and summarized: “And now once again the question: What was the success? The success was that a few days after the return of the athletes and spectators to their home countries, the ‘Stürmer display cases’ were painted red again and contained the most repulsive anti-Jewish pamphlets, that the ‘Black Corps’ resumed its fight against the churches with increased intensity, that the disciplining and spying on churches in church services, community events, and youth work were intensified. Hitler had documented his triumph as a peace chancellor before the whole world, and we had helped him to do so. Since then, 44 years ago (!), I, who come from a strongly national, not National Socialist, home, have not been able to come to rest over the fact that we, who had embarked on these preparations and executions with the best of intentions, had fallen for the swindle.”

A similar testimony like that of this churchman is not known from the field of sports or the Olympic Movement.