IT'S 75 years this month since the Nazi party issued a diktat: no Jews in Germany's 1936 Olympic Games team.
With Beijing throwing human rights into sharp profile, sport as a political tool is again in focus. But 1930's Germany was not the first politicising of the Olympics. That, surely, was Germany's exclusion after World War I. They were not readmitted until awarded the 1936 Berlin event (a vote taken before Hitler came to power). It was seen as global endorsement of German readmission to the global community, and it is hard to escape comparisons drawn with the perceived international rehabilitation confered on China as Olympic hosts following Tiananmen Square.
Prior to the 1936 Berlin Olympics a boycott was sought because of Germany's anti-Semitic policies. Parallels echo today in the rumblings regarding Tibet, Darfur, and the Beijing torch relay.
Within months of Hitler's election success, the Third Reich sports leader, Hans von Tschammer und Osten, banned Jews from the 1936 team. The SA colonel became president of the German Olympic Committee in 1934.
German boxing champion Eric Seelig was Jewish. He was stripped of his titles and warned not to box again. He fled to the US. Johann Trollmann, a gipsy, succceeded him, but was stripped of the title. He was sterilised and died in a concentration camp.
In Austria, just days before the torch relay was due to arrive, three of that country's leading medal prospects (Judith Deutsch, Ruth Langer, and Lucie Goldner) withdrew from the team in protest at Nazi policies. Austria banned them for two years.
Deutsch had won the 100, 200 and 400m freestyle for three years and held the national records. She was stripped of all of these and her family fled to Haifa. She never competed again. He records were restored by Austria in 1995.
Facing increasing boycott threats if they persisted with anti-Semitic slogans and excluded Jews, Germany removed the signs and picked two Jews for Berlin: Gretel Bergmann and Helene Mayer.
Bergmann was national high jump champion, but had been thrown out of her club in Ulm after the exclusion edict. Her parents sent her to train in England. Her aim was to compete for Britain in 1936. She won the WAAA high jump title in 1934, but when threats were made against her family she returned to Germany.
A month before the Olympics she set a European record. Two weeks later, days after a US boycott had been averted (their team had sailed from New York) Bergmann was told she was not good enough for the team, and was dropped. A Hungarian (ironically Jewish) won the Olympic title. In 1937, Bergmann immigrated to the US.
Mayer, 1928 Olympic foil champion, fled Germany for the US after the 1933 edict, but was blond and Ayran-looking, and returned from the US to accept selection in 1936. Her family still lived in Germany.
Mayer wore a swastika and gave the Nazi salute on the rostrum after having finished second to a Hungarian Jewess, Ilona Elek. Elek also won foil gold in 1948, and silver in 1952 at the age of 45.
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