Berlin Games (50 page)

NB: Abbreviations for archives and publications are listed in the Bibliography. I have not annotated quotes from any of those I interviewed privately during the research for this book. Interviews with João Havelange, Charles Leonard, Iris Cummings Critchell, Velma Dunn Ploessel, Albert Washburn, Annette Rogers Kelly, Alfred Gerdes and Elfrieda Kaun are all on mp3 and I am happy to burn any or all of them on to a CD if my costs are covered. Regrettably, the files are too large to be e-mailed. I can be contacted via my website, www.guywalters.com.

PROLOGUE

‘
I looked down that field
': Jesse Owens,
Saturday Evening Post
, January/February 1936, quoted in Cohen,
The Games of '36
.

‘
The temperature was mild
': XIth Olympic Games, Berlin, 1936, Official Report.

‘
Imagine you're sprinting
': McRae,
Heroes without Country
.

‘
There never was a runner
': TMG, 4 August 1936.

‘
Ralph and I ran neck and neck
': Cohen,
The Games of '36
, p. 89.

‘
The greatest moment of all
': ibid., p. 89.

CHAPTER ONE

‘
Gathered there on the morning of Sunday, 26 April 1931
': There is some confusion as to when Berlin was awarded the Olympics. According to the
Official Bulletin of the IOC
, the meeting and vote took place on this date and the second vote took place in
Lausanne on Wednesday, 13 May 1931. Mandell, however, suggests that the decision was not announced until nearly a year later, which seems unlikely.

‘
It will be my most ardent desire to arrange the Olympic Games of 1936
': CIO JO 1936S Notice 0083817.

‘
A French educationist and historian, Coubertin believed
': For Coubertin's philosophies and revival of the Olympic Games, see Hill,
Olympic Politics
, and Guttmann,
The Olympics
.

‘
He seemed in excellent health, though he still pronounced that he wished soon to die
': CIO JO 1936S CORR (Notice 0083816).

‘
During the last few weeks the foreign press reported in many instances
': CIO JO 1936S CORR (ID Chemise 203362).

‘
On 5 May, Baillet-Latour wrote to Lewald, von Halt and the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
': CIO JO 1936S Notice 0083817.

‘
An incensed von Halt replied on 16 May
': CIO JO 1936S Notice 0083817.

‘
Baillet-Latour was clearly affronted by von Halt's attitude
': CIO JO 1936S Notice 0083817.

‘
One Jew who was affected by these measures was the eighteen-year-old Margaret “Gretel” Bergmann
': See Bergmann Lambert,
By Leaps and Bounds
.

‘
The President of the International Olympic Committee asked the German delegates if they would guarantee
':
Official Bulletin of the IOC
, CIO.

‘
There is no room in the German land for Jewish leadership
': Quoted in Mandell,
The Nazi Olympics
, p. 60.

CHAPTER TWO

‘
I am not personally fond of Jews and of the Jewish influence
': ABC Box 42.

‘
Perhaps we are about to witness the development of a new race
': Quoted in Maynard Brichford, ‘Avery Brundage and Racism', 4th ISOR, p. 130.

‘
What I believe should be a useful move
': ABC Box 42.

‘
On Saturday, 18 November 1933, the grand William Penn Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh
': See NYT issues for 19 November 1933 onwards.

‘
One of them was a German-American called Dietrich Wortmann
': For a discussion of Dietrich Wortmann see JSH, vol. 17, no. 2 (summer 1990), p. 214: ‘Devotion to Whom? German-American Loyalty on the Issue of Participation in the 1936 Olympic Games', by Wendy Gray and Robert Knight Barney.

‘
1) Neither Reich government nor I have issued any order excluding Jewish members from athletic clubs
': CIO JO 1936S CORR (ID Chemise 203362).

‘
At the American Olympic Association meeting in Washington on Wednesday 22nd
': See NYT for coverage of meeting and reaction.

‘
…knew that the Jewish athletes in Germany were being discriminated against
': JSH, vol. 11, no. 3 (winter 1984), p. 62: ‘The Voices of Sanity: American Diplomatic Reports from the 1936 Berlin Olympiad', by George Eisen.

‘
On New Year's Day, 1934, Lord Aberdare wrote to Lewald
CIO JO 1936S CORR (ID Chemise 203362).

‘
He went on the attack, saying that the fate of the sportsmen Aberdare wrote about were of no consequence
': CIO JO 1936S CORR (ID Chemise 203362).

‘
On 5 February, Aberdare adopted a far more conciliatory tone
': CIO JO 1936S CORR (ID Chemise 203362).

‘
On 26 May Baillet-Latour cabled Brundage…
': ABC Box 42.

‘
His opinion was shared by the IOC's vice-president, Sigfrid Edstrom…
': ibid.

‘
Before Brundage arrived in Germany, he attended the International Association of Athletics Federations' meeting
': See Guttmann,
The Games Must Go On
.

‘
The notes for the same speech also reveal
': ABC Box 248.

‘
It came as no shock that Brundage returned to the United States
': See NYT, 27/28 September 1934.

‘
On 16 December, Lord Aberdare wrote to Lewald
': CIO JO 1936S CORR (ID Chemise 203362).

‘
Aberdare offered Lewald a pathetically simple solution
': ibid.

‘
On 14 May 1935 he wrote to the British Olympic Association, asking
'BOA.

‘
In April, Arnold Lunn had written to Temple, telling him that he would be officiating
': AL Box 2, Folder 31.

‘
One BOA member who supported Temple's letter was Harold Abrahams
'BOA.

‘
Evan Hunter informed Temple that writing to Hitler
': ibid.

‘
In August, a brief interview in the
New York Times
with the Reich's sports leader
': NYT, 12 August 1935.

‘
We felt that we had suddenly been lifted from our everyday spheres of life
': CIO JO 1936S ECRIT (Notice 0093288).

‘
In September, Gustavus Kirby wrote to Avery Brundage, stating that he had heard that Mayer
': ABC Box 29.

‘
Sherrill recalled the meeting in oozing detail
': FDR–see (c)(iii) in Bibliography.

‘
But did so later in a letter to Marguerite Lehand
': ibid.

‘
At a lunch in Berlin with Tschammer und Osten
': ibid.

‘
The Jewish proposal to boycott the Games of the Eleventh Olympiad which I thought was safely buried last year
': ABC Box 42.

‘
On 27 September, he wrote to the key members on the AOC
': ABC Box 29.

‘
In October he wrote to Garland, Sherrill and Jahncke
': CIO JO 1936S CORR (Notice 0083816).

‘
On 16 October, William Garland declared to Baillet-Latour
': CIO JO 1936S CORR (ID Chemise 203362).

‘
In a letter written on 20 October, Mahoney reminded Lewald
': CIO JO 1936S ECRIT (Notice 0093288).

‘
Lewald's response was considerably shorter than Mahoney's accusatory letter
': CIO JO 1936S COJO (Notice 0083818).

‘
He dismissed Mahoney in a letter to Coubertin
': ibid.

‘
Many would have agreed with the words expressed by sports writer John Kieran
': NYT, 27 July 1935.

‘
Baillet-Latour regarded this climb-down as a significant triumph
': ABC Box 42.

‘
Now it was the turn of Ernest Lee Jahncke to strike
': ibid.

‘
This enabled Brundage to immediately dispatch a telegram
': ibid.

‘
Baillet-Latour was not to reply, however, until after the crucial AAU vote
': ibid.

‘
At the British Olympic Association committee meeting on 3 December
': BOA.

‘
Philip Noel-Baker, who captained the British Olympic team at Antwerp in 1920
': TMG, 7 December 1935.

‘
Neville Laski, president of the Board of Deputies of British
Jews, wrote to Harold Abrahams
': LMA ACC/3121/B/05/003/010.

‘
As Evan Hunter, the secretary of the BOA, told Brundage
': ABC Box 130.

‘
In a subsequent letter, he enclosed a copy of the Association's latest minutes
': ibid.

‘
Jeremiah Mahoney convened the executive committee of fifteen delegates that Friday afternoon
': See NYT, 6 December 1935 onwards.

‘
A few days later, he received a letter from the Olympic president
': ABC Box 42.

‘
A satisfied Brundage wrote back to Baillet-Latour in the new year
': ibid.

CHAPTER THREE

‘
The Olympic year was greeted by the
Reich Sports Journal
': NYT, 1 January 1936.

‘
the German Organising Committee hand-wringingly attempted to mollify the Americans
': ABC Box 35.

‘
When Robert Livermore, one of Washburn's fellow skiers, received his uniform
':
Atlantic Monthly
, n.d. (presumably 1936). In the collection of Albert Washburn, Seattle.

‘
On 6 January, Gustavus Kirby, the AOC's treasurer, wrote to Carl Diem
': ABC Box 29.

‘
The secretary of the BOA, Evan Hunter, held a pretty low opinion of the event
': ABC Box 130.

‘“
The hotels are absolutely packed,” he wrote to Brundage on 16 January
': ibid.

‘
Many were struck by the picture-postcard prettiness of the place
': NYT, February 1936.

‘
Funk laid into the foreign journalists for not presenting the “true” side of Nazi Germany
': ibid., 5 February 1936.

‘
Visitors were even welcome at Dachau concentration camp
': ibid., 3 February 1936.

‘
A few days before, Shirer had been telephoned by Wilfred Bade
': Shirer,
Berlin Diary
.

‘
The faces turned upward toward him seemed to say it was no formal courtesy
': NYT, 7 February 1936.

‘
I am informing you of a flagrant violation of Germany regarding her promise
': ABC Box 152.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘
especially when housewives found butter costing 1.6 Reichsmarks per pound…
' CAC Phipps Collection 1/17.

‘
At the end of January, Phipps wrote to Sir Robert Vansittart
': CAC Phipps Collection 2/18.

‘
a lightweight (I place him near the bottom of the handicap)
': CAC Phipps Collection 10/2.

‘
Vansittart found him “shallow, self-seeking and not really friendly
” ' CAC Vansittart Collection 1/17.

‘
I realise that in our free country the Government cannot always prevent Mayfair
': CAC Phipps Collection 10/2.

‘
The press reaction in Britain was just as Hitler would have hoped it to be
': See Reid Gannon,
The British Press and Germany 1936–1939
.

‘
[He] sat down in a corner of the room where he had never sat before
': See Churchill,
The Second World War
.

‘“
With dictators nothing succeeds like success,” Phipps wrote to Eden
': CAC Phipps Collection 1/16.

‘
Later in the month, Vansittart wrote to his brother-in-law
': CAC Phipps Collection 2/18.

‘“
WE DON'T want nigger money!” the fat man shouted
': See McRae,
Heroes without Country
.

‘
a pogrom held in July 1934 in Hirschberg
': See Dunelm,
The Yellow Spot
.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘
Let me say that I shall not resign from the International Olympic Committee
': ABC Box 58.

‘
The boycotters were badly whipped
': ABC Box 29.

‘
the words Gustavus Kirby uttered when he returned from Germany
': NYT, 18 February 1936.

‘
Brundage returned at the end of February, and was even more effusive than Kirby
': NYT.

‘
where its boys trained under banners that shouted: “Our duty is to die for Germany
” ': See Ward Price,
I Know These Dictators
.

‘“
In 1930, German youth was undersized, anaemic and undernourished
” ': See speech notes contained in ABC Box 244.

‘
the organisation was “in a hell of a hole financially
” ' ABC Box 29.

‘
Shall we allow Communists, in whatever disguise and for whatever specious reasons
': ABC Box 233.

‘
In April, Ornstein told the
New York Times
that the AOC was “representative not of the sporting spirit of American tradition
” ': See JSH, vol. 17, no. 2 (summer 1990) for an account of Wortmann's activities.

‘
Kirby, however, was convinced that the actions of the AOC
': NYT, 18 February 1936.