Beyond Belief

by Deborah E. Lipstadt

  By the beginning of November the Anti-Nazi Federation had collected 30,000 protest signatures.52 Shortly after the announcement of the second phase of the Nuremberg decrees, 138 Protestant leaders called for an American withdrawal from the competition. They were joined by Ernst Jahncke, the American representative to the IOC. His decision to “do all I can to persuade my fellow Americans that they ought not take part in the Games if they are held in Nazi Germany” elicited a strong response from the press.53 It seemed to prompt many papers that had been ambivalent about American policy to take an anti-Olympic stance. The Washington Post, Philadelphia Record, Brooklyn Citizen, Troy (New York) Times Record, and other papers that were opposed to the Games, considered Jahncke’s decision the “most important” antiparticipation action. Ever the proponent of participation, the Los Angeles Times deprecated Jahncke’s opposition by casting it in a blatantly political light. Jews, columnist Warren B. Francis argued in a Los Angeles Times exclusive, were distressed by Roosevelt’s failure to intervene in Germany and the Republicans were intent on “profiting” from the situation. Therefore, “Jahncke, former Republican Assistant Secretary of the Navy,” was making “overtures” to American Jews.54

  The popular journalist and commentator Heywood Broun registered his opposition to the Games on his radio show and asked listeners to express their opinion in a postcard poll. The response was overwhelming, surprising even Broun, who, in an article in The Nation, admitted that he had “never said anything on the air in any other discourse which caught and held a single ear” as this had. Despite the unscientific nature of his poll, it is significant that responses were more than 99 percent against going to the Games.55

  The Vote

  By early December, immediately prior to the AAU meeting, an impressive list of civic, political, religious, and sports figures had joined many American newspapers in opposition to the Games. Proboycott petitions with 500,000 names and resolutions by organizations with 1.5 million members were presented to the AAU in the final days prior to its convention. After more than five hours of debate and speeches the boycott resolution lost by the tiny margin of two and a half votes. (The half vote was possible because of the AAU procedure for allocating votes.)56

  But the opponents did not give up. Mahoney announced that he would continue to fight for a boycott. The Philadelphia Record called for a continuation of the fight, as did a number of other papers. The Indianapolis Star advocated a boycott if the persecution did not cease in the period remaining prior to the Games. One of the few national newspapers to openly praise the vote was the Christian Science Monitor, which believed that “competition on the playing field (would) . . . lessen unnatural animosities.” In contrast, the Washington Post regretted “loss of this great opportunity to let the Germans see what the outside world thinks of their present rulers.”57

  Despite the fact that the fight was lost, some papers believed that significant gains had resulted. The Wheeling (West Virginia) Register observed that “no issue has been so widely discussed through the news columns and so persistently eschewed editorially as the United States’ participation in the Olympic Games” and consequently Americans had been enlightened regarding conditions in Germany.58 The Philadelphia Record expressed a similar sentiment. As a result of the Games there was now “awakening American awareness of the menace of Fascism.”59 Alan Gould, sports editor for Associated Press, predicted that the strong sentiment both within and outside the AAU would place insurmountable obstacles in the path of an American team.60 All these evaluations and predictions proved far too optimistic. The team sailed on schedule for Germany, where, instead of vanquishing the Reich’s representatives, which some proponents of participation had claimed would constitute a fitting response to Hitler, they watched the athletes of the “new” Germany claim an unexpectedly large share of the honors.

  The Philadelphia Record was probably right; many Americans were now more aware of German persecution. Discussion of the issue on both editorial and sports pages resulted in increased American exposure to German fascism. Never had there been such sustained nationwide debate about events in Nazi Germany. The boundaries between domestic and foreign policy issues had been blurred. But in all likelihood if Americans had a negative image of Germany as a result of the debate, it was obliterated by the glowing reports brought back by those Americans who attended the Games.

  The Games and Their Legacy

  In addition to winning the top medals on the field of competition, the Germans won warm praise from many of those who came to witness the events. The American press corps, many of whom were in Germany just for the Games, lauded the Reich’s accomplishments on and off the field. Much of what had been reported over the preceding years was ignored or forgotten. Newspaper and magazine readers were provided with lavish and extensive coverage of the Games. The sports competition was a massive exercise in propaganda and public relations, and many American reporters were uncritical about all that they saw. As Ambassador Dodd had predicted, Americans—particularly non-German-speaking ones who only knew Germany from the Games—departed convinced that the revolutionary upheavals, random beatings, and the murders of political opponents had been greatly exaggerated or were a thing of the past. Those bedazzled included not only the athletes and tourists, but personages such as newspaper publisher Norman Chandler and numerous American businessmen. This period marked the beginning of Charles Lindbergh’s love affair with the Reich. One reporter was convinced that as a result of the Games visitors would be

  inclined to dismiss all anti-German thought and action abroad as insipid and unjust. [The visitor] sees no Jewish heads being chopped off, or even roundly cudgeled. His popular conception of the aspect of post-revolution is shattered. The people smile, are polite and sing with gusto in beer gardens. Board and lodging are good, cheap, and abundant, and no one is swindled by grasping hotel and shop proprietors. Everything is terrifyingly clean and the visitor likes it all.61

  Visitors to Berlin described it as a warm, hospitable place and Germany as a country well on its way to solving the economic and unemployment problems which still plagued America. Few of the descriptions of the Games touched on the darker side of the German record. Three consecutive issues of Time magazine carried extensive reports on the Games. They mentioned various nonathletic details such as the fact that the Games were covered by 1,500 reporters, which was more than generally covered the activities of the League of Nations, but never cited the Jews’ absence from German teams or from the spectator stands. While unsure whether they promoted international understanding, Time did believe that the Games, at the very least, “afford harmless amusement to participants and spectators [and] a valuable chance for ballyhoo to the nation which holds them.”62

  The general tone of the press coverage was described by Literary Digest as “mild and tolerant.” Actually it was quite tolerant and not all that mild. Sports writers, reporters, and visitors waxed rhapsodic about the Germans’ attention to detail and their concern for the athletes’ and spectators’ comfort.63 Reporters such as William Shirer and Sigrid Schultz reported that Germany used the Games to “make propaganda as never before,” but praise was far more common. The Germans’ efforts were described as “amazing” and the provisions they made for the athletes, visitors, and the press were called “luxuriant.”64 The Games and the atmosphere in which they were held were, United Press (UP) reporter Edward Beattie wrote, “certain to surpass all others” and be “rated tops for all times.” The press paid particular attention to the hospitality accorded the American team. The AP described the welcome given the Americans as the “most rousing” and declared it to have set the record for greetings to foreign teams.65

  Not surprisingly, the Los Angeles Times, a strong supporter of the Games from the outset, described Berlin as a “gala city” and paid special tribute to German efforts. Even its fashion editor exuded enthusiasm: “Zeus, in his golden days, never witnessed a show as grand as this.” Part of the press became more and more convi
nced that the competition would redound to the world’s benefit. During the Games an editorial in the Los Angeles Times expressed the conviction that the “spirit of the Olympiads” would “save the world from another purge of blood.” Immediately prior to the Games an AP dispatch predicted that the Games would help “assure peace” in Europe.66

  Foreign visitors who came to witness the sporting events saw far more than sports. Although the militaristic aspects of German life were not unduly emphasized during the winter or summer Games, they were evident nonetheless. During the week prior to the winter Games one of America’s most prominent sports writers, Paul Gallico, reported in the Washington Post that “the anxious Germans are rehearsing for the next war right next door to where the athletes are . . . practicing to win the great peace games of 1936.” The Los Angeles Times sports writer Braven Dyer dismissed Gallico’s report—one of the few to stress this theme—as a “scare story.” In Berlin Nazi military might was demonstrated to many visitors as thousands of helmeted soldiers paraded in front of spectators. Nonetheless, a UP reporter at the Games claimed that there was “nothing military about the atmosphere of these Olympic summer games,” a conviction that from all accounts was shared by most visitors to the competition.67 This view proved to Germany’s ultimate benefit, for now it had lots of vocal American support in its efforts to discount the “exaggerated” reports of its military might which were relayed to the American public by reporters stationed in Germany who, Reich leaders claimed, were anti-Nazis. How could a nation, readers may well have wondered, which went to such lengths to see to visitors’ needs be accused of preparing to precipitate war? Subsequent depictions of violence and persecution that were dispatched to America seemed to bear no relation to the Germany of the Olympic Games.

  In the general enthusiasm about the Games even Germany’s pre-Olympic elimination of all non-Nazi sporting groups and of all “non-Aryans” from competition was reinterpreted by Literary Digest as nothing more than an energetic attempt by Germany to “reorganize German sports and gymnastics.” According to this widely read magazine, it was nothing but an administrative move to eliminate disparate athletic groups and “bring them into one organization.”68

  Even the New York Times, which had opposed participation, was affected by the pageantry and atmosphere of the competition. Immediately prior to the Games it had warned readers about Germany’s intention to use the competition to resurrect its image.

  For the duration of the Olympic Games the German people . . . go upon a special regimen. A good German citizen during these two or three Olympic weeks will . . . give up reading Herr Streicher’s newspaper stories about how Jews kill little children for Passover, refuse to buy anti-Catholic cartoons, remove from hotel lobbies and village roads all signs and posters likely to give offense.

  Once the Olympic flame was extinguished and the visitors were gone, then, the paper predicted, the good German citizen could “get right back to normal.”69 During the event itself, though New York Times reporters recognized that the competitions were designed to effect Germany’s “rehabilitation in the eyes of a still largely hostile world,” the tone of both its editorials and its news dispatches changed. Fred Birchall, Arthur Daley, and Albion Ross sent extensive reports to the paper describing in great detail German hospitality, enthusiasm, and, above all, efforts to transform the contest from a “sporting event into a world pageant and international spectacle.” Even when some reporters, such as Ross, acknowledged that Germany might be “abusing” the Games, they still could not contain their own enthusiasm. On the eve of the winter Games Fred Birchall declared not only that the Germans were doing “a pretty close to perfect job” as hosts, but that “not the slightest evidence of religious, political or racial prejudice is outwardly visible here.” Time magazine was quick to cite Birchall’s observations and to note that Birchall worked for the paper which gave “the loudest bursts of publicity” to the boycott movement. Obviously his praise of Germany carried even greater weight than it would have if it had come from a paper with a record of support for the Games. By the end of the summer Games New York Times reporters had become even more generous in their praise as they predicted that the event would further “the undoubted improvement of world relations and general amiability.”70 The New York Times had succumbed to the very propaganda it had warned readers about. An editorial expressed the hope that the Games “may come to be one of the greatest of all agencies in the promotion of fairness in all human relations.” At the end of the Games Birchall praised Germany’s “good will” and “flawless hospitality” and called attention to the fact that people were leaving with a “bright hope.”71

  Even Paul Gallico, who had been so pessimistic, was impressed. On the eve of the opening of the Berlin competition he observed that “Berlin is magnificently dressed for the great show. Every house on every street is beflagged and the decorated streets are jammed with people. The Germans are being wonderfully polite and cordial and helpful to the Americans. The English language is the passport to all the courtesy and consideration possible.”72Alan Gould, AP’s sports editor, was so taken with the German hospitality that he questioned the American team’s refusal to give the Nazi salute at the opening ceremony, as many other foreign teams had done. According to Gould, the Americans would have received an even warmer welcome had they adhered to the rule “when in Rome do as the Romans do.”73

  The critics were not entirely silenced. The Washington Post described the winter Games as the “biggest publicity stunt in recent history.” On the eve of the summer Games the San Francisco Chronicle published a cartoon, which the Washington Post reprinted, showing Hitler hanging a sign which read “We Stand for Racial Equality! No Discrimination!” The caption underneath read “Just During the Olympics.”74 During the summer competition Westbrook Pegler continued to fulminate about the mix of sports and politics. According to him, the Games were “degenerating into a Sporting League of Nations,” and the same calculations which stopped America from joining the League should have prevented America from participating in the Games.75

  Pegler and Shirley Povich of the Washington Post were particularly critical of the Germans’ treatment of American black athletes. On the day that Jesse Owens won his third gold medal, the German paper Der Angriff, which was published by Goebbels’s Propaganda Ministry, wrote that America had been compelled to “enlist her black auxiliary forces” in order to withstand German competition. Povich believed such “race insult” marred the Games and wondered “what price Olympic glory?”76

  Owens’s accomplishments received front-page attention in many papers, including the New York Times and Washington Post. Time dubbed him “no. 1 hero of the world’s no. 1 sports event,” and Gallico described him as the “coolest and best-prepared party on the American team.” Even before the Games were over, Owens’s mythic identity as the man who confounded Hitler’s “Aryan” principles had firmly taken root.77 It was as if his victories alone validated America’s decision to participate. The truth was that Ambassador Dodd’s predictions, made over eight months before the Games, that they would “rehabilitate and enhance” Germany’s reputation and that foreigners, including the American visitors, would dismiss as “libel” the reports of persecution, were correct. The laudatory stories and press reports proved more significant than Owens’s victories. The returning Americans even managed to impress Roosevelt with their laudatory reports. Revealing an incongruous degree of innocence, the President told Stephen Wise that the tourists who had been to Germany “tell me that they saw that the synagogues were crowded and apparently there is nothing very wrong.” Wise explained to him that the Nazis had told people not to “let foreigners see anything wrong in the relations of the people to the Jews.” Wise doubted whether he had convinced Roosevelt that all was not in order and appealed to Felix Frankfurter to write a special report for the President because the “tourists had made an impression on him.”78

  William Shirer bemoaned his inability to persuade Amer
ican visitors who were charmed by the splendor of the Games and the Nazi system that “behind the glittering appearances [was] a regimented antisemitic militaristic nation.”79 Recently in an interview Howard K. Smith, who broadcast for CBS from Berlin, described the Olympics as a “triumph for Hitler,” possibly his greatest prewar propaganda triumph.80 Rare was the mention of Jews or of their absence from the Games in any of the reports which American newspaper readers received. The press was impressed. Visitors were beguiled. The world was becalmed. And Hitler’s conviction that the other nations of the world, America in particular, would adhere to their noninterventionist behavior was strengthened.

  Hitler had reinstated conscription in March 1935 and begun a program of rearmament shortly thereafter. He disenfranchised an entire portion of his population in the fall of 1935 and reoccupied the Rhineland in March 1936, thereby committing a casus foederis under the treaties Germany had signed.81 Despite all this the world came to compete and Hitler drew the correct conclusion.