Berlin Games (29 page)

Also in abundance at the Friesian House were Germans in uniforms. ‘The biggest thing that I noticed right away was that every man and boy was in uniform and it was all “Heil Hitler”,' recalled Velma Dunn. ‘We were not used to that.' The militarism could be heard as well as seen. ‘We woke every morning to the sound of marching feet,' Dorothy Odam said. ‘When I got to the window, I could see young people with shovels held like rifles over their shoulders. I learned that they were Hitler Youth.' In the main, both the female and male athletes regarded the uniforms, the swastikas and the regimentation with amusement. As Lou Zamperini was to write, ‘in 1936 we still thought of Hitler only as a dangerous clown'.

Making light of the Nazi regime was common among the rowers, who were accommodated in a place that was now the Koepenick Police Officers' School near the Grunau regatta course. ‘It was impressive,
comfortable and bare,' said Martin Bristow. ‘But there was good service and good food. However, there was a picture of Hitler in the dining-room, and we used to throw bread pellets at him. The waiters accepted it, but it must have been very hard for them. There were no repercussions or protest of any sort.' Such undergraduate tomfoolery was confined to the dining room. ‘When we got out on to the street, we didn't laugh at the police–we weren't that badly behaved!'

Not all the visiting athletes, however, regarded the regime with such amusement. Some, such as the South African boxer Robey Leibbrandt, were ardent supporters of the Nazis. Leibbrandt's father, Meyder, was of German descent and had fought against the British during the Boer War. His twenty-three-year-old son had a profound hatred for the British, compounded by the fact that his mother, Susan Joyce, was of Irish descent. Her cousin was none other than William Joyce, who was later to find infamy during the war as Lord Haw-Haw. Leibbrandt was a phenomenal boxer in the light heavyweight class, and by the age of nineteen he had become the South African champion. He looked the part too–his chin square, his hair closely cropped, his eyes staring menacingly from under a broad brow. Owing to a broken thumb, Leibbrandt missed the 1932 Games, but his chance for international glory beckoned at the 1934 Empire Games in Britain. He was not to disappoint, because in his bout with the British champion, George Brennan, Leibbrandt knocked out his opponent in the first round. The result was declared void, however, because the judges deemed that Leibbrandt had punched low. Despite the result, Leibbrandt managed to win bronze, although his hatred for the British was magnified.

By 1936, Leibbrandt's boxing ability and his political beliefs had brought him to the attention of German agents in Cape Town. One of these agents approached him, and found the boxer to be a potentially useful figure. The agent's report was glowing:

The Olympics proved an ideal opportunity to woo Leibbrandt. Although there is nothing to suggest that the German officers attached to the teams had orders to assess the athletes as suitable agents, the officer with the South African team, Lieutenant von Vietinghoff, was certainly aware of Leibbrandt's political sympathies, and had been ordered by Ernst Bohle of the Auslands organisation–which was tasked with spreading Nazism overseas–to pay the boxer special attention. What Vietinghoff found was a man who displayed an asceticism similar to Hitler's. Not only was Leibbrandt a vegetarian, an almost unprecedented diet for an Afrikaner, let alone an Afrikaner boxer, but he also insisted on sleeping on a bare wooden board. In fact, Leibbrandt was a ‘physical culture fanatic', as one South African newspaper described him. He would get up at five every morning, and run along the steep road near the village, rather than on the level practice track. In his first spar, he had knocked out his professional partner in less than a minute. ‘He is mauling his sparring partners like a sadistic tiger,' it was reported. Had Leibbrandt wanted to become a German citizen, then doubtless he would have been readily accepted, and then picked up by either the SA or SS. It was Vietinghoff's task, however, to introduce Leibbrandt to those who wanted him to go back to South Africa to further the reach of Nazism. He would find the boxer to be more than receptive.

 

One German who Robey Leibbrandt would not have liked was Werner Seelenbinder. Since winning the championship earlier in the year, the wrestler had been devoting every spare hour to training, determined to win a medal, not just for himself, but for the chance to make that vital live radio broadcast to the world. If everything went well, then Seelenbinder's words would be transmitted to the world on the evening of 9 August. All around Europe, people would be tuning into their wirelesses that Sunday, people whose attention would be
grabbed by an athlete spouting not just the normal sporting platitudes, but instead denouncing Nazism and its evils.

A few days before the Games were due to open, however, the Gestapo struck. They arrested over ninety worker-sportsmen, including many members of the Uhrig Group. Also seized were many of the radio technicians who were going to ensure that Seelenbinder's speech was aired. Now that they were incarcerated, Seelenbinder knew that his words would never be heard. He was not only dejected, but also frightened and confused. Why was he the only such worker-sportsman not to be arrested? Was the Gestapo trying to make it appear that he had betrayed his comrades? When would he be arrested? Only after he had won a medal? Seelenbinder knew there was nothing he could do but to continue to train. Even though he would not be able to make his speech, he would still be able to refuse to salute when he stood on the podium. All he had to do now was make sure he got on it. The competition would be tough, but Seelenbinder knew that he had a good chance.

 

It was not just sportsmen and diplomats who were travelling to Berlin that July. As well as thousands of ordinary tourists–some estimates put the number as high as 1,200,000–there were many society figures from all over the world who were attending the Games. Many went to Berlin not to enjoy the sports, but more to revel in fascism
en fête
, there to join their fellow travellers and others whose sympathies for Germany transcended a mere love of peace. One of these was Diana Guinness, the third of the six daughters of Lord Redesdale, who was sympathetic to the German cause. Redesdale's daughters would soon be celebrated as the ‘Mitford Girls', noted for their combination of beauty, charm, intelligence and effervescence. Of the six, Diana was considered the most beautiful, a classically cool blonde, her face exquisite and normally set in an expression that combined repose and aristocratic hauteur. Diana's eldest sister was Nancy Mitford, who had published three novels, including
Wigs on the Green
, which satirised the blackshirted antics of Diana and Unity Mitford, the fourth sister, who had developed a passion not only for Nazism, but also for Hitler himself. Diana had a similar love of fascism, but her attachment to the cause was not just political, but also romantic. Her lover was Sir Oswald Mosley, the
leader of the British Union of Fascists (BUF). Her marriage to Bryan Guinness had ended three years earlier, and since then she had been living openly as Mosley's mistress. Mosley had founded the BUF in 1932, and although he claimed that its membership was as high as 50,000, it had enjoyed no electoral success. Nevertheless, what it had attracted was a significant amount of attention, not least for its public meetings, which often ended in violent battles between the Blackshirts and communists.

Mosley saw Germany as an ally, a message he often preached. On 22 March, at the Albert Hall in London, Mosley had advocated ‘[…] the closest possible friendship with Germany, a nation with a blood brotherhood. Germany is a nation with us, which can and will maintain for all time the peace of mankind. Why should we not have peace with Germany? What interests come between us?' A voice from the audience was heard to murmur ‘Hitler', but Mosley ignored it and carried on, saying that Germany and Britain had ‘almost every interest the same'.

Although Mosley was wealthy, one of his biggest problems with the BUF was raising money. Financial support for his British brand of fascism had dwindled, particularly after the Night of the Long Knives in Germany at the end of June 1934, which saw Hitler murder as many as four hundred of his political enemies, including the leader of the SA, Ernst Roehm. The brutality, it could be said, had helped to give fascism a bad name. Mosley had to look abroad for money, and in January of that year he had visited Mussolini in Italy. He returned with £20,000 (today worth approximately £900,000 or $1.5 million) in the gangsterish form of used notes in different currencies. It was not the first donation the Italians had made–since 1933, the BUF had been receiving some £60,000 a year, always in the form of used notes. The money was soon exhausted, however, and by 1936 an increasingly desperate Mosley was forced to look elsewhere. Germany was a likely source of income, and although Mosley himself had met Hitler only briefly once, Diana had done so on several occasions. His lover, then, became the ideal vehicle through which the British fascist leader could beg secretly for more funds.

Diana had first met Hitler with her sister Unity at the Osteria Bavaria restaurant in Munich in 1935. Unity's obsession with Hitler
had seen her stalk the Fuehrer, to the extent of sitting in the restaurant on numerous occasions, waiting for the day when the subject of her yearnings would ask the mysterious English girl to come and join him. On 9 February 1935, he did so, and soon Unity fell under his spell. After the initial meeting, she wrote in a letter to her father that she was so happy that she ‘wouldn't mind a bit dying'. ‘I suppose I am the luckiest girl in the world […] you remember that for me, he is the greatest man of all time.' By the time Diana met him, her sister and Hitler enjoyed a rapport that verged on the flirtatious, with Unity addressing Hitler in a familiar way that bordered on insubordination and which astonished the Fuehrer's lackeys. Like her sister, Diana found Hitler good company. ‘He was extremely polite to women,' she recalled, ‘he bowed and kissed hands as is the custom in Germany and France, and he never sat down until they did.' As well as coming across as the respectable bourgeois, Hitler ‘could be very funny; he did imitations of marvellous drollery which showed how acutely observant he was'. Diana and Unity's friendship with Hitler blossomed very publicly. He invited them to the party rallies in Nuremberg, and later the Olympic Games, during which the two women would stay with the Goebbels family in Berlin. Soon the relationship between the Mitford sisters and Hitler was the talk of Mayfair. Was Unity Hitler's lover? Everyone knew who Diana's lover was, and a gossipy need for social symmetry wanted to pair the two sisters off with the two fascist leaders. It is unlikely, however, that Unity's relationship with Hitler ever mutated beyond a schoolgirlish infatuation. For Hitler, Unity and Diana were English versions of Wagnerian Rhine maidens, their features pressed from the archetype Aryan cast. He liked their company, and saw them as a conduit into British society.

On 19 June 1936 Goebbels took Diana and Unity to see Hitler. This time, the visit was not a social call, but an appeal for funds. Diana baldly told the Nazi leader that Mosley required £100,000 (today worth £4.1 million or just over $7 million) to continue his activities. Hitler may have liked Diana and Unity, but his attitude to Mosley was lukewarm. He rightly suspected that Mosley's star was dimming, but he nevertheless told Diana that the BUF could have £10,000, which was still a considerable sum.
Mosley was disappointed, and he asked his lover to request more funds during the Olympic Games. Diana knew that it would be difficult, but Mosley was hoping that her charm would appeal to the Nazis.

The Goebbels family occupied a lakeside villa on the Schwanenwerder outside Berlin. The house had belonged to a Jewish family that had since emigrated, and it had been given to Goebbels by Hitler. Diana warmed to her hosts, becoming fond of Magda Goebbels and her seven children, one of whom was the product of her previous marriage. She found their father ‘intelligent, witty and sarcastic' with an ‘exceptionally beautiful speaking voice'. Diana knew that she had to be as gracious a guest as possible in order to raise more money, but she also had another favour to ask of the Nazis, one that would eventually cause a scandal when it was discovered in Britain.

 

The British did not have the monopoly on German sympathisers travelling to Berlin that summer. The Americans had them too, and none was more famous that the aviator Charles Lindbergh, who had become a national hero after successfully flying across the Atlantic non-stop in May 1927. Two years later, he married Anne Morrow, the daughter of the diplomat Dwight Morrow. Their first child, Charles, was born in 1930, but was kidnapped on 1 March 1932 when he was just twenty months old. The ten-week hunt for the child made sensational news, and when the child's body was found on 12 May, the nation mourned along with the parents. It was not until September 1935 that a suspect was found, in the form of a German immigrant called Bruno Hauptmann, a former robber and carpenter living in the Bronx. The subsequent trial made for even more sensational news, and Hauptmann was found guilty and sentenced to death. There were doubts about the safety of his conviction, but in the public mind the German was guilty. In December the Lindberghs, tired of the publicity, fled the United States and made a temporary home in Kent in south-east England. There, they were able to live relatively undisturbed, apart from one occasion when some newspaper reporters threw stones at Lindbergh's dog when his master refused to be interviewed or to pose for photographs.