Berlin Games (47 page)

The majority of athletes, however, were not as sensitive to such matters. As Alfred Gerdes said, ‘The Games gave Germany a big push–the visitors almost forgot that Hitler stuff.' Adolph Kiefer thought that the Nazis had done nothing but good for the Games. ‘It made the Olympics more popular,' he said. ‘It brought it to the attention of the public.' What was more, the hosts had succeeding in making a good impression: ‘Germany was encouraging health, sports, exercise for all ages, and it was obvious that it was having an effect on the morale of the people.' Iris Cummings denied that she had taken part in a ‘piece of political propaganda'. ‘We didn't feel that way,' she said. ‘And we didn't come across anyone else who felt that way. We were not the pawns of anybody. The idea of being used like that is counter to the Olympic ideal. The Olympic spirit and the competitors are not there to support a particular regime. If there is a violation of the rules of the Olympics, then it is up to the IOC to deal with it. They're not always very strong, but that's what they're operating under.'

The problem with Cummings' argument is that just by being in Berlin–even in good faith–the athletes participated in a show that helped the hosts to promote Nazism. There were no gas chambers as yet, but there were certainly pogroms, political murders and concentration camps, all of which were widely known and reported in every newspaper in the democracies. This is why Adolph Kiefer is wrong when he claims that it was ‘a few years after the Games that things went wrong'. Things were already going very badly wrong, and yet the athletes chose to ignore it, or thought it too sanctimonious if they
cared. João Havelange put it bluntly when he said, ‘At that age we didn't think about people. As Olympic athletes we were never disturbed [by such matters] and we had a very good life.'

Most of the athletes were of course very young. Not only were many of them apolitical, but they also had a hunger to achieve some personal sporting glory. If older and supposedly wiser heads had deemed that going to Berlin was acceptable, then who were they to contradict that? And once they had returned, the last thing they would admit to was that they had been used as pawns by the Nazis. They had been there only for the sport, and that was all. For them, the Olympics were above politics, and therefore by being an Olympian they were running over hallowed moral high ground above the mire of grubby talk of boycotts and propaganda. The only problem was that Olympism had been dirtied and sullied as well, which resulted in a drastic lowering of that high ground. The Nazis had defaced Olympism by corrupting its leaders, who had been bribed, had lied and had actively taken part in the discrimination against Jews.

When Coubertin was interviewed after the Games about the question of propaganda, he replied by asking, ‘What's the difference between propaganda for tourism–like in the Los Angeles Olympics of 1932–or for a political regime? The most important thing is that the Olympic movement made a successful step forward.' Leaving aside the issue of the massive difference between promoting tourism and promoting Nazism, Coubertin's response was extraordinary. All that mattered to him by now was that his beloved Olympics were safe. What good they stood for no longer mattered–they were now little more than a circus, or rather a flea circus. Besides, Coubertin was in no position to say anything critical of the Games, for fear that the Nazis would reveal his dirty little secret. If the athletes had known it, how many would have felt comfortable about going to the Games? With the athletes being presented with only a sanitised version of the truth, they were not in a good position to judge. As Thomas Wolfe wrote, ‘There have been too many false stories–too many distortions of fact, twisting of evidence, and just plain lies.' Despite Jesse Owens, the Games did propagandise the regime, and they did it well. ‘I'm afraid the Nazis have succeeded with their propaganda,' wrote William Shirer on 16 August. ‘First, the Nazis have run the Games on
a lavish scale never before experienced, and this has appealed to the athletes. Second, the Nazis have put up a very good front for the general visitors, especially the big businessmen.' Owens may have shown the world that Hitler was wrong–and the world had a good laugh at the dictator's expense–but Hitler laughed last. Germany had not just won the athletic games, it had also won the political games.

It would take many years for some of the participants to realise what their attendance represented. In 1974, thirty-eight years after the Games, Harold Abrahams was interviewed about going to Berlin. ‘I wasn't happy–being Jewish–about going at all,' he replied, ‘but it was an enormous temptation being asked by the BBC–the first time they'd broadcast the Olympics. I went, I'm not sure I was right…it's rather…you know…I was advised by Lord Vansittart that it was a good thing to go, to let the Germans see that over here Jewish people were treated just like anyone else. But I'm not terribly happy about having been there.'

 

Jesse Owens may have been the hero of the Olympic fortnight, but he was rarely treated as one. The first sign that all would not be well came immediately after the Games, when along with the rest of the team he was invited to compete in Sweden. Owens, who had no regular income, had decided, however, that he needed to capitalise on his success by going back to the United States to take up some of the numerous and lucrative offers he was receiving. Avery Brundage was furious and threw him out of the AAU, thereby ending Owens' career. The normally mild-mannered athlete was livid: ‘All we athletes get out of this Olympic business is a view out of a train or airplane window,' he told reporters. ‘It gets tiresome, it really does. This track business is becoming one of the biggest rackets in the world. It doesn't mean a darned thing to us athletes. The AAU gets the money. It gets all the money collected in the United States and then comes over to Europe and takes half the proceeds. A fellow desires something for himself.'

Despite numerous appeals against his expulsion, Owens was never to regain his amateur status. The lucrative offers that had flooded in never quite materialised, and Owens was reduced to running against racehorses up and down the country. If that was not
infra dig
enough for the world's fastest man, he soon found himself fronting a dry-cleaning
business and then working as a petrol pump attendant. Owens eventually filed for bankruptcy, and matters improved as he set about reinventing himself as a United States ‘goodwill ambassador', travelling round the world preaching the American way and demonstrating his still-considerable athletic prowess. His espousal of what his fellow blacks regarded as ‘white values' led to accusations that he was an Uncle Tom, a charge that Owens frequently refuted.

In 1966, Owens was successfully prosecuted for tax evasion. His problems with the IRS were similar to those experienced by his great friend Joe Louis, although Owens merely had to pay a small fine rather than suffer anything like Louis's ignominious return to the ring in order to finance the interest on his tax debt. By the 1970s, Owens was partly rehabilitated. A grand old man, he made countless appearances at awards dinners and various functions, telling and retelling tales of his time in Berlin, tales that grew slightly taller on each occasion. His health was rapidly failing, however, chiefly because he was a heavy smoker–a habit he had acquired at the age of thirty-two. Switching to a pipe made little difference, and in 1980 Jesse Owens died of lung cancer. At least he lived to a good age. His fellow gold-winning African-American, Cornelius Johnson, contracted bronchial pneumonia while working as a ship's baker in 1946. He died while being taken from the ship to a California hospital. He was only thirty-two.

Owens returned to the scene of his glories just once, in 1951. At his hotel in Berlin, he was met by a woman and a young boy. They explained that they were the family of Luz Long–the young boy being Long's son, Karl, who had seen his father only three times before he had been killed fighting in Italy during the war. Owens and Karl wrote to each other until Owens' death, the former considering Karl to be one of his best friends.

 

Glenn Morris did have an affair with Leni Riefenstahl that August. ‘We couldn't control our feelings,' the director recalled. ‘They were so powerful that Morris did not rejoin his team, and I imagined that he was the man I could marry. I had lost my head completely. I forgot almost everything, even my work.' Morris returned to the United States, leading the ticker-tape parade through New York. The black athletes–including Owens–were crammed into two cars, but Morris
had a car to himself. Although he married Charlotte, he continued to write to Riefenstahl. She sent him dramatic photographs that she had taken, photographs that helped Morris win the part of Tarzan starring opposite the beautiful Eleanor Holm.

The film,
Tarzan's Revenge
, was made in 1938, and it was a spectacular turkey. There was no chemistry between him and his co-star, who regarded him as ‘a dull country boy'.
Variety
magazine was damning: ‘Even the youngsters, at which this type of production is aimed, will not be much impressed.' With his Hollywood career stillborn, Morris found himself confronting failure for the first time. He was not good at it, and he and Charlotte got divorced just three years after they married.

With the outbreak of war, Morris joined the navy. As a lieutenant, he was assigned to the USS
Banner
, an attack transport ship. Morris's job was to act as the beachmaster, which involved getting the men from the ship on to solid ground during an attack. Being a beachmaster was not an easy task, but Morris appeared to perform his duties well. On 9 January 1945, however, Morris snapped during a landing on the Philippines. ‘Lieutenant Morris ran up behind me and a couple of others on the beach brandishing a submachine gun,' recalled Jim Larson, one of Morris's comrades, ‘swinging it around and shouting, “Where's my gas mask? I'm going to shoot whoever took my gas mask!” He was yelling wildly, pointing the submachine gun at all of us.' Larson found the gas mask back in the landing craft, and gave it to the wild-eyed Morris. ‘I don't know what would have happened if the gas mask had not been there,' said Larson.

Morris was never to recover from the war. Suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, although it was never diagnosed as such, he spent his remaining three decades drifting, like Owens, from menial job to menial job. He was a steel rigger, a construction worker, a security guard and even a parking attendant before he was committed to a veteran's hospital suffering from severe psychological problems. A heavy smoker, he died in 1974 from heart disease. The descent from Olympus had been especially harsh.

 

Rie Mastenbroek was another star of Berlin for whom post-Olympic happiness was to prove elusive. After the welcoming Rotterdam crowds had dissipated, Mastenbroek found that her trainer, ‘Ma'
Braun, wanted to take control of more than just her life in the pool. ‘She tried to get my mother out of official parenthood over me,' said Mastenbroek. ‘This was meant to bring me completely under Ma's influence.' Braun even took the case to court, claiming that Mrs Mastenbroek was an unfit mother, evidenced by the fact that Rie had been born out of wedlock. (Mastenbroek's parents in fact remained together for forty-six years.) The judge ruled against Braun, with the result that Mastenbroek's links with her trainer were severed.

The experience deterred the Queen of Berlin from competitive swimming, and Mastenbroek became a swimming instructor, a decision that she was soon to regret. On 16 August 1937, just a year and a day after she had won her last gold medal, the Dutch Swimming Association ruled that she now had to be considered a professional, and would no longer be allowed to compete. Mastenbroek protested, as she did not have a teaching diploma, but the Association was adamant. A succession of jobs as a nanny followed, until she married in 1939 and had two children, a boy and a girl. The marriage ended in 1945, however, and in order to raise the children she worked as an interpreter, a bookkeeper in a doctor's clinic and even as a building inspector. She married again, this time happily, and bore another son.

Mastenbroek never enjoyed good health, however. Even as early as 1935 she had suffered from breathlessness in races, which the doctors diagnosed as being due to a problem with her thyroid gland. Some thought she had a mysterious blood disease, although she was later to discover that the most likely explanation was that she suffered from extremely low blood pressure. One doctor said to her, ‘We certainly would like to know what your achievements in sport would have been if you had performed in a healthy and normal body!' Mastenbroek died in November 2003, a forgotten and undervalued figure.

Eleanor Holm retained her bumptiousness until she died in January 2004. After the Games, as well as appearing in the abysmal
Tarzan's Revenge
, Holm also starred in many of Billy Rose's aquacades alongside Buster Crabbe and Johnny Weissmuller, which earned her some $4,000 ($50,000 in 2005) a week. Holm married Rose after divorcing Art Jarrett, and she gave up swimming just before the war. Her marriage to Rose ended in a spectacular divorce case in the early 1950s, which was famously referred to as the ‘War of the Roses'. Holm later
married her true love, oil executive Tom Whalen. She spent her days playing tennis and perusing the
Wall Street Journal
, but still retained her flirtatiousness even into old age. In 1999, at a reception at the White House, she said to Bill Clinton, ‘Mr President, you're really a good-looking dude.'

 

Jack Lovelock gave up running shortly after the Olympics and concentrated on his medical training. During the war, he served as a major in Northern Ireland, and then moved to New York with his American wife, Cynthia James. However, he regularly suffered from dizzy spells after being thrown from a horse in 1940, an accident in which he had broken a leg and an arm, as well as damaging an eye. On the afternoon of 28 December 1949, Lovelock called his wife and two daughters to say that he would be returning home from work at the Manhattan Hospital early, as he was feeling dizzy. Instead of taking a taxi, he went on the subway. Standing at the platform at Church Avenue station, the dizziness grew worse, and Lovelock collapsed, falling into the path of an oncoming train. He was killed instantly, just a few days before his fortieth birthday. Although he had spent much of his adult life away from New Zealand, the country rightly regards him as one of its heroes. Bars, streets and playing fields are named after him, and he has been the subject of a novel and a play. ‘New Zealand doesn't have any myths yet, other than the Maori ones,' said Roger Robinson, an English professor at Victoria University. ‘I believe Lovelock has the makings of a mythic figure.'