Convenient Myth for War Mongering
 

This is the first time I've read anything about this.

The facts are simple. Hitler did not congratulate Owens, but that day he didn't congratulate anybody else either, not even the German winners. As a matter of fact, Hitler didn't congratulate anyone after the first day of the competition. That first day he had shaken hands with all the German victors, but that had gotten him in trouble with the members of the Olympic Committee. They told him that to maintain Olympic neutrality, he would have to congratulate everyone or no one. Hitler chose to honor no one.


Several other misconceptions about the 1936 Olympics are prevalent. Not only was Owens not rebuffed by Hitler, Owens wasn't shunned by the German audience at the Berlin stadium either. Baker reports that Owens so captured the imagination of the crowd it gave him several ear-shattering ovations. Owens had been prepared for a hostile reception; a coach had warned him in advance not to be upset by anything that might happen in the stands. "Ignore the insults," Owens was told, "and you'll be all right." Later Owens recalled that he had gotten the greatest ovations of his career at Berlin.

I especially like the second bit. It was easy to hate Hitler but shifting that hate onto the German people so we could pound them, now that was a trick.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar; and sometimes there is no conspiracy. Assuming that the facts stated in the article are true, I suspect that it was done to make a good story and not for the purposes of war-mongering.

Recall that the US did not enter the war until we got nailed by the Japanese in 1941. In fact, it wasn't until 1939 that Britain, France, et al. declared war.

hmmmmm. I don't seem to recall that we went to war with Germany because they boo-ed Owens. Now lets see, why did we go .... hmmm ....


Oh, right. Because the German people took up arms and walked through Austria, Czechoslovakia, the Rhine-land, Poland, Belgium, France, and were on their way to merry old England.

You can’t reduce the moral culpability of a people to the directive of their leader. Just ask Radar on this one.

-sm

I'm not saying conspiracy. It was a good story, reflecting the growing fear of Germany... unfortunately that particular story may have been false.

As far as the other part, the individual Germans are responsible for their actions but story telling in our media helped make it easier for us to kill them.

The WMD story was a good one as well.

the media story didn't make it easier to kill them. the deployment of the M4 Sherman Tank made it easier to kill them.

-sm

Nice. :thumbsup: :beer:

I watched Hitler's Pawn last month. It's the story of Margaret Lambert, a Jewish athlete who was forced to return to Germany to compete in the 1936 olympics to prevent a boycott.

Two other interesting items were that the Germans dressed a male athlete as a woman and that Avery Brundage , a US olympic official and later head of the International Olympic Committee, was instrumental in preventing a boycott and was rewarded with the construction contract for the German embassy in the US.

HBO is still showing it this month.

Details being details, I still think it was pretty cool that Hitler's well-known and highly touted claim that only the Aryan race could be superior was shot to hell by Owens' performance. You don't *need* to propagandize that. His performance was a fact, and it put Hitler's theory right in the dumper.

Pish-posh! Any half-assed demagogue knows that you don't let facts get in the way of ideology!

One possibly aberrant case, called an outlyer in statistical jargon, doesn't ruin a theory.

Is there a site that keeps all of the data to date?

There is an author, John Entine, who goes into great detail about the genetic aspects that correlate with the geographic heritage of athletes. He gets shit on a lot about being a racist and such but he covers the whole spectrum of athletes.