Jesse Owens and Hitler

As mentioned previously, I can read your mind. Or rather, Google can read your mind, and then gives me your data. Thus, I can tell you that by far the most common search term that lands people on this little piece of bloguette* is "jesse owens and hitler." Mostly because of this picture:

 

I feel like I owe it to Jesse Owens to tell his story. As always, I owe Hitler nothing.

What makes the story of Hitler and Jesse Owens so resonant? Well, let's get a bit of context.

1936: A little background

1936 was not JUST the year Peter and the Wolf debuted in Moscow. Hitler, who had been elected in 1933, was quickly turning Nazi Germany into a force to be reckoned with. He had rejected the Treaty of Versailles and had begun to re-arm. Nazi Germany took over the Saar, a territory governed by the League of Nations, in 1935.

On March 7, 1936 Germany reoccupied the Rhineland.

On August 1, the Games of the XI Olympiad opened in Berlin.

Hitler and the Nazis only allowed members of the Aryan race to compete in the games.

America, knowing better (but, really, not that much better) chose our best athletes, including Jesse Owens. As an athlete at Ohio State, Jesse Owens had proven his incredible athletic prowess. At one period of 45 minutes in 1935, Owens broke three world records and tied a fourth (some sources say he may have also broken the fourth, but still).

Can you imagine breaking an average of one world record every fifteen minutes? Incredible.

The 1930s was not a decade made up only of fun and sports, however. It was the decade of the Great Depression, and the United States was a shockingly prejudiced nation. Coming out of the 1920s, the KKK's numbers were as high as they'd ever been. Segregation was common and Jim Crow laws were in full effect throughout the South.

Jesse Owens was the grandson of slaves and grew up sharecropping. And he was faster than anyone.

The 1936 Olympics: A Whole Lotta Nazis

 In 1931-- a year before the Nazis began to rise to power and two years before Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany-- only two cities bid for the 1936 Olympics: Barcelona and Berlin. Unlike other bidding wars, this only lasted one round. Berlin basically beat Barcelona to a pulp.** After the first round was counted, Berlin had 43 votes to Barcelona's 16. The Olympics were going to Germany!

Here's where the spoilsport action begins.

The Reichssportführer (translated it means the head of the Reich's sports ministry, but it just sounds sinister) decided that the Olympics in specific and sports in general would be a perfect way to "weed out the weak, Jewish, and other undesirables."

The Nazis decided to go all out. As previously discussed, the 1936 Olympics began many of our proudest modern Olympic traditions, like the torch relay and vandalizing ancient Greek artifacts. After all, this would be an incredibly public demonstration of a resurgent German power. Or so he thought?

Hitler and Jesse Owens:

Here's the story that everyone likes to tell: Jesse Owens won the gold medal for the 100m sprint, the long jump, the 200m sprint, and the 4 x 100m relay. And Hitler flat out refused to shake his hand because he was black.

This is one of those stories that's true in that everyone believes it, it makes narrative sense, and it sums up the general emotions of the time in a concise way. It's not true, per se, in terms of what actually happened.

On the first day of the ceremonies, Hitler made a special effort to congratulate all the German gold medalists. The IOC decided that his congratulations were outside the bounds of good sportsmanship and showed favoritism. Hitler either had to congratulate everyone or congratulate no one. 

He chose no one.

FDR: Also Kind of a Spoilsport

Did Hitler snub Jesse Owens? The only answer here is "sorta." Given the chance, he surely would have snubbed Jesse Owens, but he also would have snubbed every other non-German athlete. In his memoirs Inside the Third Reich, Albert Speer wrote:

"Each of the German victories, and there were a surprising number of these, made him happy, but he was highly annoyed by the series of triumphs by the marvelous colored American runner, Jesse Owens. People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive, Hitler said with a shrug; their physiques were stronger than those of civilized whites and hence should be excluded from future games."

That said, Hitler never snubbed Jesse Owens to his face. The President of the United States, though, that's a different story.

In Owens's own words: "Hitler didn't snub me—it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram."

The story of the 1936 Olympics is without a doubt mostly about Hitler and the Nazis. But Jesse Owens's story is more complicated. It gets to the very roots of American discrimination in the 20th Century. And it's a much harder story to tell than the story of Hitler refusing to shake Owens's hand.


It might just be more important. Alas, I am out of time and attention span.

Jesse Owens at start of record breaking 200 meter race

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*Get it? Like a baguette, only in blog form? No? Hm.
**Which, in retrospect, kind of reads like foreshadowing.

Read more!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Owens
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_Summer_Olympics
http://www.jesseowens.com/about/
And crack a dang book!

Figure Skating: A History

This book: it exists.

I tried to check this book out from the library, but it turns out the library does not have a copy of it. "All right," I thought, "screw research." As such, this post will be light on the history, heavy on the Wikipedia, and exhaustive on the skaters in silly costumes.

This is as it should be.

We begin our journey in 1772 when an Englishman named Robert Jones published A Treatise on Skating. He described ice skating as a formal and stiff affair-- that is to say totally and completely English in every way. (To review, the Irish dancers keep their arms rigid because the English tried to root out free-wheeling Irish culture and make everything as staid and inelastic as possible.) This "English Style" of ice skating would not last long, though.

In the mid-1860s, instead of, you know, defending freedom and justice in the American Civil War, Jackson Haines was developing the figure skating style we now know and love. He was a ballet dancer, and he worked to incorporate the same grace and performance into his figure skating performances. He was the first to incorporate much of what we now understand figure skating to be-- the first to incorporate music, the first to actually attach the blades to his boots (instead of, you know, strapping them on), and the first to really do athletic moves in skating. As it turns out, it was hard to stick your landing when your skates were attached with what was basically twine.

Also please note the early introduction of ridiculous costumes.

Then some history happened. It mostly did not involve ridiculous costumes. Pity.

Meet Madge and Edgar Syers. Madge is, to date, the oldest Ladies' gold medalist at age 27.

Also, what is going on with her hat (head cake)?

Join us next time as we bring skating into the modern era with all kinds of technological advancements. Mostly? Sequins.

Winter Olympics

Snow! Chill in the air! People sledding down incredibly slick tracks face first! It can only mean one thing: the Winter Games are almost upon us!

The first Winter Games were held in Chamonix in 1924, but nobody knew it at the time. What?

It appears we are at the Winter Olympics, my dear.

Basically, the IOC held a "Nordic week" at the 1924 Olympic Games. Previously, figure skating and hockey had both appeared at the Olympics, but it had become clear that a new approach was needed. Perhaps a week all to themselves? How about eleven days that we'll call a week? Perfect.

Bobsledding was a lot more dangerous back in those days. For one thing, there were GIANT EAGLES clearly bent on killing. Also, no helmets.

From there, it was only a matter of time before the Winter Games became their own event. And once that had happened, why not retroactively declare that "Nordic Week" had actually been the first Winter Games? In fact, why not retroactively declare Pierre de Coubertin King of Everything Forever?

YEAAAAAH!

However they began, we here at Mount Olymics are glad the Winter Games persevered. (And not just because I gets a huge crush on the speed skaters every single time.) Winter sports showcase a rare instance of athleticism in sync with the natural (or semi-natural) world. You can't ski without snow. You can't skate without ice. And you can't win without understanding that your fate is, in some inextricable way, tied to that of the natural world. Fantastic.

See you there.

Photo credits:
Gillis Gafstrom, a Swedish figure skater Gillis Grafström and Norwegian Sonja Henie, 1924.
Poster from Chamonix games, complete with terrifying eagle.

LOLFLOTUS

In honor of yesterday's post...

Another America-centric post

Old news: Chicago did not win its bid for the 2016 Olympics.

New news: World makes up for it by awarding Obama the Nobel Peace Prize.*

Okay, so even the new news is a week old. But still! We here at Mount Olympics find it pretty darn exciting. Also, the ChicagoNow blog, a major proponent of Chicago's bid, calls it a "consolation prize." Ha.

Also, all this talk of Presidents and Olympics got us at Mount Olympics pretty darn excited. Piped straight to you from Emily, our trampoline loving co-blogger, here is a possible outline of what would happen if we invented both a time-machine and won the bid for the Trans-Temporal Heads of State Olympics (our bid only barely eked out the Martian one):

PRESIDENTAL OLYMPICS!!

George Washington v. Teddy Roosevelt in track and field, or possibly marital arts! Abe Lincoln v. every other pioneer western president in an epic rail-splitting contest! Henry Clay and William Jennings Bryan pouting in the corner because they didn't make the team! Ronald Reagan on a teflon skeleton! Abe Lincoln cleaning up everything in the marksmanship tournament! Thomas Jefferson turning out to be an amazing gymnast on top of everything else!** William Henry Harrison's ridiculous fangirls with TIPPECANOE tshirts! FDR playing murder-parapalegic-whatever-the-heck that was!*** Abe Lincoln's Great Emancipators vs. Barack Obama's Fired Up Death Panelists For Change in the most anticipated basketball championship tournament of EPIC and WIN in Olympics history!!!!

And while THEY'RE doing THAT, you have Jackie O. over on the sidelines being all, WHAT SAY YOU LADIES and Eleanor Roosevelt being like ALL OVER THAT and Abigail Adams like GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO REMEMBER YALL and Dolly Madison busting out her figure skates and Michelle Obama being like THESE BICEPS SENT CARLA BRUNI RUNNING IN TERROR, POINT ME AT THE SHOT PUT.

So there's automatic sequel territory there.

And it could branch out, I can see some of the crowned heads of Europe getting in on this action. Or Enlightenment scientists. Romantic poets. Tyrants, Despots and Dictators for the politically incorrect.

Although to be very honest I don't think anything could possibly beat the whole idea of trash-talking first ladies, I'm just saying there is potential here. Do you think Kate Beaton would illustrate it? We could do a Canadian Explorers edition.

*Original typo: Nobel Peach Prize. Most delicious international award EVER.
**Of COURSE he would. You know this to be true.
***Murderball. And FDR would RULE it.

A Look Back: London '08!

Where were you in 1908? The Olympics were in London!

Queen Elizabeth II hosted a reception at Windsor Castle today to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the IV Olympiad. Of course, it's only roughly the 100th anniversary, as the games were held between April and October, 1908. (They were serious about endurance back in those days.)

We here at Mount Olympics are going to celebrate the only way we know how: showing silly photos and telling entertaining stories. Happy 100 years, 1908 Olympics!

First, we must look at why the games were held in London in the first place. It was the first time in the history of the Olympic Games that two cities, Rome and London were vying to host Unfortunately for Rome, Italy decided that 1908 was a fairly good year to explode.

Vesuvius BLOWS UP!

The Italian government decided that it should probably allocate its funds to, you know, rebuilding Naples rather than hosting an Olympic Games. So London it was!

London! Totally manly! Indubitably!

From the beginning, the Games were controversial. But it wasn't genocide/severe human rights violations/Communism/terrorism controversy. No, this was the adorable type of controversy. It mainly involved flags. According to a list from Wikipedia, the controversies included:

• The Finnish team was expected to march under the Russian flag rather than the proud Finnish one. Many on the Finnish team chose to march in the Opening Ceremonies without a flag at all.
• The Swedish team decided not to march in the Opening Ceremonies at all after the Swedish flag was not displayed above the stadium.
• The US flag was also snubbed from the display above the stadium (that must have been some kind of an awesome display for people to get so worked up about it!) In retaliation, the American flag bearer refused to dip the flag to the royal box. And the proud tradition of not dipping the American flag to nobody was begun. (At least they didn't sing Toby Keith songs, that's all I'm saying.)
  

Enough controversy! Let's get on with the silly pictures!

Remember how Tug of War was totally a sport?

In 1908, the Gold Medal was awarded to a British team from the City of London Police Club. A small part of me can't help but think of the Ankh Morpork City Watch.

Let's hear it for the British Lady Archers!


It doesn't matter that they were the only female archery team in the games! They totally rocked.

The winners' certificate.

The games were again held in London in 1948 and will be held there in 2012. Luckily enough, they've unveiled their logo, so we can see how far we've come.

Good lord, it burns.

Sources:
Olympic.org, BBC.co.uk, Wikipedia, NYTimes