Germany - 1936
The Summer Olympics were held in Berlin in 1936. Hitler played the grand host. The atmosphere was light and airy and there were parties everywhere. Athletes and spectators were welcomed warmly.
Nazism never looked so good. Anti-Semitism was out of sight - almost. Anti-Jewish signs throughout Germany had been taken down and much other anti-Semitic propaganda hidden.
Nevertheless, Hitler's ideas of racial superiority took a beating at this Olympics. Finally giving in to pressure and allowing Jesse Owens and other African Americans to participate, he was stunned by their successes. Owens, a track star from Ohio State University, turned out to be one of the major highlights of these 1936 Olympic Games
Hitler believed the Aryan "race" to be fundamentally superior to all others. Thus, he attended the games confident his Aryans would defeat their lesser opponents.
That did not happen. And when these lesser opponents beat his Aryans, Hitler failed to show up for the medal ceremonies. Jesse Owens surprised not only Hitler, but the world, when he won gold medals in the 100-meter dash, the 200-meter dash, the long jump, and the 400-meter relay.
In fact, African American men won 13 medals in the track and field competition in the 1936 Olympics, spotlighting for the rest of the world the fallacy of the Nazi theories on race.
Yet, for Jews, Nazi race theories held. All Jews continued to suffer great discrimination, including Jewish athletes. Jews were banned from sports clubs and athletic facilities.
Gretl Bergmann, a Jewish athlete, matched the German women's high jump record while in training before the Olympic games began. The German Olympic Committee sent her a letter criticizing her jump as too erratic and informed her she would not be participating as part of the German track and field team.
Because of IOC pressure, however, the Nazis allowed one Jew to compete for Germany during the 1936 Summer Games. She lived in California. Her name was Helene Mayer and she agreed to return to Germany to compete for her homeland. Mayer was a half-Jew, a Mischlinge. But she was tall and blonde, a prototype of Aryanism. She won the silver medal in the women's foil competition and when presented the medal, gave the stiff-armed Nazi salute.
Many people arouind the world thought, "Hey, maybe Nazi Germany isn't all that bad."
That's exactly the message that Hitler wanted to get across.
The truth was something else, altogether:
* 1936 - Gerhard Leibholz, a "leading Jewish-German jurist," is relieved of his position at the University of Gottingen.
* 1936 - The Institute of the NSDAP to Study the Jewish Question is established by Joseph Goebbels.
* 1936 - The German-American Bund, based in the United States, funnels money to the Nazis.
* 1936 - "Following the same anti-Jewish path as German Lutherans during the Nazi regime, America's foremost Protestant journal, Christian Century, argues that America is a Christian nation with a Christian culture and has to remain that way. Many American Christians are indifferent to Jewish suffering and felt Jews deserved punishment because of their refusal to accept Jesus as the Messiah.
* February 4 - A Jewish student in Switzerland, David Frankfurter, assassinates Wilhelm Gustloff, the head of the NSDAP in Switzerland.
* February 29 - The head of the Polish Catholic Church, August Cardinal Hlong, thought by some to be less anti-Semitic than other Polish clergy, send out a pastoral letter urging discrimination against Polish Jews so long as they remain Jews. Polish Catholics should stay away from Jews, and boycott the Jewish press, but they should not "assault Jews."
* March - A variety of anti-Jewish progroms take place in Poland. Cardinal Hlond "speaks out against Jewish 'usury, fraud, and white slavery.'"
* March 3 - Jewish doctors are forbidden to practice medicine at German government hospitals.
* March 9 - A number of Jews are killed and/or injured as the result of an anti-Jewish progrom in Przytyk, Poland.
* March 29 - SS guard formations are renamed SS-Totenkopfverbande (SS-Death's Head Units). They will serve concentration camp guards.
* March 29 - A Reichstag "election" is held and Hitler's policies are upheld by 98% of the voters.
* April - French conservatives condemn French Socialist leader Leon Blum because of his Jewish ancestry and his anti-Nazi views. A popular French slogan went like this: "Better HItler than Blum."
* April 15 - Two Jews are killed in Palestine during an Arab strike against Jewish immigration.
* April 21 - Arabs in Tel Aviv and Jaffa riot to protest Jewish immigration.
More to follow.
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