The1936 Winter Olympics, officially known as theIV Olympic Winter Games (German:IV. Olympische Winterspiele) and commonly known asGarmisch-Partenkirchen 1936, were a wintermulti-sport event held from 6 to 16 February 1936 in themarket town ofGarmisch-Partenkirchen,Germany. Later that year, the country also hosted the1936 Summer Olympics, which were held inBerlin. It was the last year in which the Summer and Winter Games both took place in the same country (the cancelled 1940 Olympics would have been held inJapan, withTokyo hosting theSummer Games andSapporo hosting theWinter Games).
While the1936 Summer Olympics held inBerlin months later have attracted extensive examination for theNazi Party's spectacles and the accompanying racial controversies, including the exclusion of mostJewish athletes andJesse Owens's achievements, the Winter Games took place five months earlier and saw some of the same efforts byAdolf Hitler's propaganda machine.
Winter sports were only accepted by the Nazi Party because the Italian dictatorMussolini promoted skiing. Themiddle class was encouraged to visitski resorts. In 1936 more than 550,000 winter sports tourists visited Italy.[1] Stylish skiing with Aryan looks was graphic designed by the propaganda artistLudwig Hohlwein.[2] Globally, there had been efforts to initiate boycotts from different countries, and a number of Jewish athletes faced pressure not to participate in an event held in a nation ruled by a blatantlyantisemitic regime.[3]
The Nazis took steps to soften the appearance of their harsher policies before visitors from other nations arrived, such as removing antisemitic signage that was common in Germany, and – under pressure from a potential American boycott and Olympic officials – allowing the Jewish athleteRudi Ball to play on Germany's ice hockey team.[4] German troops moved back into the demilitarizedRhineland for the Winter Games.[5] A few weeks before the Games began,William L. Shirer, the Berlin correspondent for the Universal wire service, wrote a series of articles describing preparations for the competition. He concluded, "that the Nazis at Garmisch had pulled down all the signs saying that Jews are unwanted (they're all over Germany) and that the Olympic visitors would thus be spared any signs of the kind of treatment meted out to Jews in this country."[6]
None of the member nations boycotted the Winter Games, and 49 in all participated, the greatest number at that time.[7] The Games were completed with a minimum of political controversy, although the Canadianskiing team raised their arms in what appeared to be a Nazi salute as they entered the opening ceremonies.[8] The German crowd erupted in applause at the salute, which was later explained as the "Olympic Salute" that was identical to theNazi version but with the arm extended laterally instead of forward.[7]
However, even Shirer was impressed by the effectiveness of the Nazis' efforts, writing:
This has been a more pleasant interlude than I expected. ... On the whole the Nazis have done a wonderful propaganda job. They've greatly impressed most of the visiting foreigners with the lavish but smooth way in which they've run the games and with their kind manners, which to us who came from Berlin of course seemed staged. I was so alarmed at this that I gave a luncheon for some of our businessmen and invited Douglas Miller, our commercial attaché in Berlin, and the best-informed man on Germany we have in our embassy, to enlighten them a little. But they toldhim what things were like, and Doug scarcely got a word in. ... Back to Berlin tomorrow to the grind of covering Nazi politics."[9]
Twelve days after the Games closed, Hitler sent German troops toremilitarize the Rhineland, his first territorial violation of theTreaty of Versailles and a critical test of European resolve to resist Germany's military expansion. None of the Western powers lifted a finger and Europe's first steps towardsWorld War Two were taken.
Alpine skiing made its first appearance in the Winter Olympics as thecombined, which added a skier's results in both thedownhill andslalom. German athletesFranz Pfnür andChristl Cranz won the men's and women's alpine events, respectively.
Norway won the overall games with a total of seven gold medals, five silver medals and three bronze medals.
The 1936 Winter Olympics presented the largest and heaviest medals ever awarded to athletes: 100 mm (3.9 in) diameter, 4 mm (0.16 in) thick and weighing 324 g (11.4 oz).
^The 1936 Olympic Logo comprises the Olympic rings in the foreground and the summit of the Garmisch-Partenkirchen Alps with a ski track leading to the mountains in the background. Around, there is the inscription "IV. OLYMPISCHE WINTERSPIELE 1936 GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN"
Citations
^Anrd Krüger; William Murray, eds. (2003).The Nazi Olympics: Sport, Politics, and Appeasement in the 1930s. University of Illinois Press. p. 117.ISBN9780252091643.
