 |
The last of 3000 runners that carried the Olympic torch from Olympia, Greece,
arrives in the Lustgarten in Berlin to light the Olympic Flame and start
the 11th Summer Olympic Games. 1936 Corbis-Bettmann
Photograph
#21674 |
|
For
two weeks in August 1936, Adolf Hitler's Nazi dictatorship camouflaged
its racist, militaristic character while hosting the Summer Olympics. Softpedaling
its antisemitic agenda and plans for territorial expansion, the regime
exploited the Games to bedazzle many foreign spectators and journalists
with an image of a peaceful, tolerant Germany. Having rejected a proposed
boycott of the 1936 Olympics, the United States and other western democracies
missed the opportunity to take a stand that--some observers at the time
claimed--might have given Hitler pause and bolstered international resistance
to Nazi tyranny. With the conclusion of the Games, Germany's expansionist
policies and the persecution of Jews and other "enemies of the state" accelerated,
culminating in World War II and the Holocaust. |
