Nazi Games: The Olympics of 1936 - Softcover

Large, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393349705 ISBN 13: 9780393349702

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007

Synopsis

Athletics and politics collide in a critical event for Nazi Germany and the contemporary world.

The torch relay―that staple of Olympic pageantry―first opened the summer games in 1936 in Berlin. Proposed by the Nazi Propaganda Ministry, the relay was to carry the symbolism of a new Germany across its route through southeastern and central Europe. Soon after the Wehrmacht would march in jackboots over the same terrain.

The Olympic festival was a crucial part of the Nazi regime's mobilization of power. Nazi Games offers a superb blend of history and sport. The narrative includes a stirring account of the international effort to boycott the games, derailed finally by the American Olympic Committee and the determination of its head, Avery Brundage, to participate. Nazi Games also recounts the dazzling athletic feats of these Olympics, including Jesse Owens's four gold-medal performances and the marathon victory of Korean runner Kitei Son, the Rising Sun of imperial Japan on his bib.

About this title

About the Author:

David Clay Large is a professor at the Fromm Institute, University of San Francisco, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute of European Studies, U.C. Berkeley. A specialist on the history of Modern Europe, especially Germany and Austria, Large is the author of ten books including Berlin, Where Ghosts Walked: Munich’s Road to the Third Reich, and Nazi Games.

From Booklist:

Perhaps Hitler's most conspicuous attempt to appropriate the iconography of classical Greece, the eleventh Olympiad was also the Third Reich's most successful public-relations coup. Through pageantry emphasizing German athleticism and cultural superiority, Hitler convinced skeptics abroad that his emergent Weltmacht could be both militaristic and peaceful. Stoking the flames of nationalism, Germany's preparations for the Olympics would also mask Hitler's more nefarious ambitions while priming Germans to mobilize for war. The author of several books on Nazi Germany and a celebrated "biography" (Berlin, 2001), Large here vividly describes how the Olympics catalyzed Nazi Germany's rise to power and how the controversies of 1936 would resonate though future Olympics. Approaching his topic with broad historical insight and an acute grasp of the political climate of the day, Large makes a strong case that international sports then, as now, should be considered politics by other means. Refreshingly, Large also dedicates significant space to the Olympic events themselves, which were often as dramatic as the political background. Brendan Driscoll
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About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0393349705
• ISBN 13: 9780393349702
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 423