1929 - 1945 The Glamor Years Jump to:
1929 - 1945 The Glamor Years Jump to:
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4 The Nazi Olympics
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The 1936 Olympics were the first Games to be televised, although only to 160,000 people in and around Berlin. They became a stage for the incitement of nationalism and ritualistic struggle of one nation against another.
In August 1936, The Times editorialized on the "failure" of the British team and the relative success of other countries: only three years after the Berlin Games Britain and Germany were at war again.
"Heroic" performance and achievement in sport has fueled the notion that individual merit is more important than national affiliation. The case of the black American athlete Jesse Owens, seen as the perfect counterbalance to Nazi propaganda, argues against this.
The conspicuous success of a black athlete dealt a serious blow to Hitler's philosophy of the natural supremacy of the Aryan race. Outside Nazi Germany, Owens' victories were celebrated as evidence that sport provided a setting for equality of opportunity and an avenue for social mobility. Owens was heralded as symbolic proof of the openness of American culture, in which ability, not color, was the sole criterion for success.
For many people the 1936 Berlin Olympics are regarded, mistakenly, as the first example of the serious intrusion of politics into sports. The Olympic Games of the modem era have consistently offered a platform for national political gesturing in various guises. The Nazi doctrines enshrined in the 1936 Games merely presented an extreme version of the Eurocentric roots of most modem sports.
Despite international concem about the Games, the official British Olympic Association report on Berlin suggested that there was only one real incident to mar the Games: the withdrawal of the whole Peruvian team following a dispute in the soccer tournament.
The writers of the report concluded that the Berlin Olympiad "Was surely one of the greatest sports festivals of all time, having made its magnificent contribution towards a fitter youth and more peaceful international relations." The diplomatic language of the British report and the optimism of these sentiments presented a familiar paradox: idealist sentiments were being expressed that sport could rise above politics, at a time when sport was undeniably politicized.
International conflict expressed in sport was not limited to the quadrennial Olympic Games. The soccer matches played between England and Germany in 1935 and 1938 became propaganda events for both sides; the British ambassador to Berlin saw England's victory in 1938 as a triumph for British prestige, not least, apparentıy, because the England team gave the Nazi salute before the game began.
The 1932-33 cricket tour of Australia by the British national team, the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) produced its own diplomatic controversy: the so-called "bodyline" series seemed to challenge the essence of the game of cricket. During the Test Match series, the MCC team adopted a particular bowling strategy - one that threatened physical injury - to minimize the effectiveness of the Australian batsman Donald Bradman.
The series was almost halted when the strategy was labeled "unsportsmanlike" by the governing body of cricket in Australia, the Australian Board of Control. The MCC captain, Douglas Jardine, and one of the bowlers, Harold Larwood, were castigated for "dangerous" bowling. After diplomatic talks between the two countries, the tour continued but with "undiminished bitterness" and the conflict between the ideals of fair play and the search for effective tactics remained unresolved.
Throughout World War ll, cricket at the highest level was encouraged by the British govemment to boost national morale, although international contacts - as in most other sports - ceased until the return of peace. Similarly, professional football continued, although subject to restrictions on traveling and on the size of the crowds, and occasionally endangered by air raids. In all sports, teams were weakened by players entering the armed forces, but spectator enthusiasm was undiminished.
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