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NATIONAL HISTORY DAY 2016
outbreak of World War I canceled the Berlin 1916 Olympic
Games.
“I am certainly opposed to American
owever, the new Nazi regime and its persecution of
races not Aryan, especially those of Jewish descent,
were at odds with the Olympic Charter, which stated the
Olympic Games were “to conduct modern athletics in the
right way, by fostering the spirit of chivalry, love of [fair play]
reverence for true amateurism.”11 Knowledge of the German
racist policies influenced the IOC to obtain assurances from
the Berlin Olympic Committee that athletes of Jewish descent
would be allowed to participate. The IOC was able to extract
a written guarantee from Berlin that Jewish athletes could
participate and German Jews could try out for their national
team. With that assurance, 21 German Jews tried out for the
German national team; however, not a single German Jewish
athlete made the team.12
This led to discussion of an Olympic boycott by various
nations. In the United States, the president of the American
Olympic Committee [AOC], Avery Brundage, and other
members of the AOC had very different views regarding U.S.
participation at the Berlin Games. Factions developed within
the United States expressing views for and against changing
the site of the Games or forcing Berlin to allow Jewish
athletes to participate.
In 1935 the AOC produced a pamphlet titled “Fair Play for
American Athletes” that promoted American participation
in the Games. After Hitler’s rise to power, however, concern
arose regarding the American team’s participation and the
perceived agreement with Germany’s policies if the United
States sent a team to the Olympic Games.
Arguments for participation included Baron de Coubertin’s
vision and assuring the public that the AOC did not endorse
the policies of any government; it was only the desire to
compete in an atmosphere of “international amity and good
will in a world filled with intolerance, persecution, hatred
participation in the Olympic Games if
they are played in Nazi Germany.”
and war” that prompted the AOC to continue to advocate
sending a U.S. team to Berlin.13 In addition, the pamphlet
stated that those wishing the United States to boycott the
T
Games were themselves Communists and Anti-Semitic, using
propaganda to press their views upon the public.14
he other side of the issue was represented by leaders
and members of the AOC who formed the Committee on
Fair Play in Sports and presented their views in “Preserve
the Olympic Ideal: A Statement of the Case Against American
Participation in the Olympic Games at Berlin.” The IOC
argued that although Berlin guaranteed in writing Jewish
athletes could try out for the national team, these same
athletes were denied the use of training facilities in Germany.
Furthermore, the IOC stated that the policies of the Nazi
government highlighted issues of religion and race as
factors in participation in the Games, contrary to Baron de
Coubertin’s vision.15
Images of signs forbidding Jewish access in Germany were
printed along with quotes from athletes, coaches, and
community leaders expressing their desire to either move
the Olympic Games from Germany or not participate at all.
American Olympian James Bausch, 1932 Olympic Games
gold medalist in decathlon stated, “I am certainly opposed
to American participation in the Olympic Games if they are
played in Nazi Germany,” and S. Stephenson Smith from
the University of Oregon Athletic Department avowed,
“Naziism [sic] is the negation of sportsmanship, Fascism
its antithesis.”16
IOC, The International Olympic Committee Charter, 9-10.
Guttmann, The Olympics, 55-65.
13
Avery Brundage, Fair Play for American Athletes, (New York: American Olympic Committee, 1935), 1.
14
Brundage, Fair Play for American Athletes. New York: American Olympic Committee, 1935, 1-18.
15
The Committee on Fair Play in Sports. Preserve the Olympic Ideal: A Statement of the Case Against American Participation in the Olympic Games at Berlin, (New York: Committee on
Fair Play in Sports, 1936), 6.
16
Committee on Fair Play, Preserve the Olympic Ideal, 44-45.
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