Hitler's Olympics (25 page)

The Official Berlin Report comments:

Since the meals provided at the international physical education students’ encampment did not agree with the Indian and Chinese representatives, the camp authorities approached the household department of the North German Lloyd Company with the request that lunch be prepared at the Olympic Village for about 30 Chinese and 30 Indians, the food then being transported each day to the students’ encampment in special containers. The menus at Frisian House [Friesenhaus] and in Kopenick were in general the same as those at the Olympic Village, and the dishes were prepared in a similar manner.

THE MENUS OF THE NATIONS

Afghanistan: no pork and no sausages with a high fat content; fish and fowl demanded daily; ample quantities of fruit, principally bananas; rice and fresh vegetables.

Australia and New Zealand: beefsteaks, fowl and lamb but no pork; mostly grilled meat; salads; milk and tea as principal beverages.

Brazil: large quantities of meat, especially beef and pork; veal and lamb less popular; black beans daily (with dry rice); little butter but large quantities of olive oil; six oranges daily and one pound of bananas per person; strong coffee.

Canada: considerable quantities of beefsteak prepared in the English fashion, also roast beef and spare ribs; cold cuts seldom requested; American breakfast with all extras; salads; vegetables cooked only in water; lamb and veal as well as fowl prepared in the usual fashion, but preferably roasted; stewed fruit, tomatoes and fresh fruit constantly demanded; large quantities of honey and cream cheese.

Chile: the Chileans were moderate eaters, preferring beef and pork as well as fowl. Beefsteaks half done were popular; rice, noodles or spaghetti at every meal; large quantities of marmalade.

China: the Chinese were also moderate in their requests, pork and fowl being preferred as meats although beefsteaks were also demanded occasionally; no lamb; fish requested now and then; curry as a principal spice; large quantities of salad and fresh fruit, but few vegetables; 300 grammes of rice daily per person; iced tea and orange juice as beverages.

France: the French sportsman is also an epicure, paying less attention to practical nourishment than to tasty and varied dishes. English steaks Chateaubriand fashion with white bread and red wine preferred for the weight-lifters; all kinds of meat requested, this being prepared in the form of steaks, fillets, cutlets, roasts and ragouts; delicacies such as mushrooms, anchovies, sardines, corn on the cob, green peppers, etc. popular; stewed fruit with every meal; vegetables steamed in butter but without sauces; cheese, fruit and coffee after the principal meals.

Germany: the weight-lifters received beefsteak Tatar, chopped raw liver, cream cheese with oil and considerable quantities of eggs, often four per meal. Light refreshment before training and more substantial food afterwards. The athletes required normal meals, steaks, cutlets, pork chops, roast beef and fowl being principally requested. Large quantities of fruit; vegetables prepared with flour, potatoes but practically no rice; tomatoes and salads popular; milk with grape-sugar and fruit juices preferred as a drink; various kinds of bread with large quantities of butter.

Great Britain: moderate eaters; grilled meat, ‘medium’ done, especially popular three to four eggs, oatmeal, tea, milk, fruit and toast for breakfast; Horlicks malted milk; plainly cooked vegetables.

India: no beef or pork; principally fowl or lamb prepared in curry and eaten with rice only; few vegetables and salads; four to five eggs daily; large quantities of fruit and fruit salads. Several sportsmen were vegetarians.

Italy: the Italians’ diet was prescribed by their sporting physician. Principally soups, spaghetti, macaroni and large quantities of Parmesan cheese; noodles, ravioli and strudles of all kinds; starchy foods at every meal; the weight-lifters ate considerable quantities of meat, while the boxers consumed only bouillon with egg two days before competing; daily portions of meat average in size; normal quantities of fruit; coffee and chianti wine preferred as beverages; large quantities of rolls.

Japan: for breakfast, soup with meat, vegetables, soy and rice, then eggs, fruit and bread; for lunch, meat (pork preferred), vegetables, rice, potatoes and often a sweet dessert; for dinner, steaks, ragouts, and other similar dishes with rice; vegetables and salads always mixed with soy; preserves which the Japanese brought with them also popular.

South Africa: grilled steaks and fowl; menu in general similar to that of the English.

Switzerland: it was difficult in the beginning to prepare a menu suitable to all the members of the Swiss team, different groups preferring Italian, French and German dishes. As soon as all the kitchens were in operation however, special wishes could be gratified without difficulty.

U.S.A.: beefsteaks as well as lamb and veal daily for lunch and dinner; no form of fried meat except fowl; underdone steaks before competition; for breakfast, eggs with ham, bacon, oatmeal or hominy and orange juice; large quantities of fresh and stewed fruit; no kippered herrings; vegetables and baked potatoes with principal meals; sweet dishes including custards and ice cream.

 
6
.
 
Canada at the XI Olympiad 1936 Germany
.

 
7
.
 
Werner Schwieger; interview with Birgit Kubisch.

 
8
.
 
Canada at the XI Olympiad 1936 Germany
.

 
9
.
 
Ibid
.

10
.
 
Esther Myers; interview by Matthew Walker of
I, Witness to History
, Wichita, Kansas for this book.

11
.
 
www.wichita.edu/dt/shockermag/show/dept.asp?_s=138&_d=11
– (visited 10 October 2005).

12
.
 
The XIth Olympic Games, Berlin, 1936 Official Report.

13
.
 
Canada at the XI Olympiad 1936 Germany
.

14
.
 
Ibid
.

15
.
 
Velma Dunn; interview with author.

16
.
 
Canada at the XI Olympiad 1936 Germany
.

17
.
 
Stephanie Daniels and Anita Tedder,
‘A Proper Spectacle’ – Women Olympians 1900–1936
(Houghton Conquest, Beds., ZeNaNa Press, 2000), p. 109.

18
.
 
Ibid
.

19
.
 
Esther Myers; interview by Walker of
I, Witness to History
for this book.

20
.
 
‘A Proper Spectacle’
, p. 109.

21
.
 
Canada at the XI Olympiad 1936 Germany
.

22
.
 
Ibid
.

23
.
 
Ibid
.

24
.
 
Ibid
.

25
.
 
www.athletics.mcgill.ca/varsity_sports_player_profile.ch2?athlete_id=959
- 39K (visited 19 October 2005).

26
.
 
Official US Olympic report.

27
.
 
Marty Glickman and Stan Isaacs,
The Fastest Kid on the Block
(Syracuse, NY, Syracuse University Press, 1996).

28
.
 
www.olympicwomen.co.uk/Berline.htm
(visited 22 September 2005).

29
.
 
Velma Dunn; interview with author.

30
.
 
The
New York Times
(3 August 1936) reported that there was a ‘foolish controversy’ over whether the Americans gave the salute or lowered their flag. This may have been fuelled by the singular fact that the Americans in the crowd whistled – which to an American means venting approval and enthusiasm, but to a European signals derision.

The paper added that the talk of the town since the Opening Ceremony had been who did and who did not give the salute. The Germans were delighted because they thought – ‘erroneously’ – that the French did. The paper sought to clarify the situation. The Nazi salute involved throwing the right arm forward, the Olympic involved lifting the arm sideways to shoulder height. However, it added, to people on the move telling the difference is not easy.

31
.
 
This reconstruction of the parade is of necessity speculative in places. We know what some teams did (and did not do). Of others there is no record. The Official Berlin Report naturally stayed away from that in its text but did carry photographs of the teams passing by and, presumably, their photographers took pictures of any giving the Nazi salute. From that, I have deduced that the photographs showing no salute reflect the fact that those depicted did not give one. The Riefenstahl film is grainy, incomplete and taken from a distance.

The reader may regard this as arcane, but
nothing
about Hitler in the 1930s was that, and here, in microcosm, were how so many of the family of nations were trying to cope with him, standing there in his box looking down on them, and his Germany.

Incidentally, Russia – to become an Olympic powerhouse as the USSR after Hitler’s war – competed in the 1912 Games, but after the October Revolution the Communists regarded them as bourgeois and stayed away until Helsinki, 1952. No doubt the absence was partly due to the pathological fear of Soviet citizens being exposed to contact with foreigners, especially from the West. Even in Finland they had their own Olympic village, near the Russian border, and chaperones kept foreign contacts to an absolute minimum where they could not be completely avoided.

32
.
 
www.cishsydney2005.org/images/ST25-PAPER%20FOR%20ICHSC%20(SAKAUE).doc
-

33
.
 
The Times
, London, 1 August 1936.

34
.
 
www.tvhistory.tv/1936%20German%20Olympics%20TV%20Program.htm
(visited 25 October 2005).

35
.
 
Paul Yogi Mayer,
Jews and the Olympic Games
(London, Vallentine Mitchell, 2005), p. 103.

36
.
 
The Official Report on the Games is, as we have seen, an astonishingly comprehensive and detailed record but – to use the word astonishing again – there are errors in the relay run statistics. I am indebted to a friend, Reg Plummer, for casting his knowing eye over them. To be pedantic (and why not, just this once?): the total for 24 July is out by 3 kilometres; a distance on 25 July needs to be increased by 10 kilometres to match the time allocated for its completion; 26 July is out by 0.2 of a kilometre; 29–30 July figures are out by 9 kilometres. I have, however, left the original totals alone for authenticity and simplicity – both valuable commodities when examining Hitler’s Reich.

Do you really think that I will allow myself to be photographed shaking hands with a Negro?

Hitler to Baldur von Schirach

C
loud covered Berlin on that humid Sunday morning of 2 August as the thousands trekked towards the stadium, the gymnast Werner Schwieger among them. The sun tried to break through but never quite managed it.

A track and field competition is quite unlike anything else in sport because so many different events are contested, sometimes simultaneously. An Olympics is even more different because other sports are going on, inevitably scattered over a wide area, as well as the track and field. In the case of Berlin, that made the enormous results board at one end of the stadium invaluable.

Schwieger intended to savour as much as he could, coming every day. He travelled on the S-Bahn to the Reich Sports Field station. His competitor's badge permitted free travel and entry to the various events, including the stadium, and he decided to take the week off work and studied the programme so he would know what was on each day. ‘I even smuggled in a workmate who had no pass. He was from my company and I managed to get him in. Section E [Block E] was especially reserved for participants so everyone who had an Olympic pass was allowed to sit there.'
¹

This Sunday, the fencers began their probing, reflexive art form; the modern pentathlon – the event that made perhaps the greatest demands on the athlete – the wrestling and the weight-lifting began, too, although the yachting at Kiel did not get under way until the Monday, a flame being taken there in an extension to the relay run.

In scale and variety this profusion can be slightly disconcerting, somewhat overwhelming, but centre stage, the heart, is always the Olympic stadium, that loop of track for the runners, that level infield enclosed within it for the throwers and jumpers. Almost every event is so simple that spectators barely need to know the rules, a simplicity that makes all the drama instantly accessible to every spectator. It generates a special sense of anticipation and those who trekked in, coming from the Reich Sports Field station and walking towards the stadium so large it seemed to fill the horizon, must have felt that. They were familiar with the full variety of what they were to witness from the morning's newspapers and the incessant radio coverage.