As Antisemitism Surges in Sports, Berlin 1936 Still Haunts the Field

Antisemitism is flourishing worldwide today, manifesting with particular intensity in the realm of sports. Calls for boycotts against Israel, violence toward Israeli fans, and the waving of pro-Hamas flags at football matches are stark examples. As always, sports are deeply entwined with politics. Eighty-nine years ago, a monumental sporting event took place that transcended athletics, the moment of Jesse Owens.

The 1936 Berlin Olympics were held in Nazi Germany at a time when concentration camps were already being established. This did not prevent the smooth execution of the Games, which lent legitimacy to Adolf Hitler in the eyes of the world. On this day, 89 years ago, one of the most significant moments of the Olympic Games unfolded: African-American athlete Jesse Owens won one of his four gold medals, under the gaze of the Nazi dictator.

In 1916, an Olympics planned for Berlin was canceled due to World War I. The 1936 Berlin Games were seen as a correction of that cancellation. The Olympics began on August 1, 1936, while preparations for the Holocaust were already underway. The Nuremberg Laws had been passed, half of Germany’s Jews had lost their businesses, and the first concentration camp had been established three years earlier.

Ahead of the Olympics, anti-Jewish and anti-Black signs were removed, but Nazi symbols—from the swastika to the raised-arm salute—were omnipresent. The Jewish community was deeply divided over participation in the Games. Many Jews worldwide, including those in the Land of Israel, boycotted the Olympics. However, some Jewish athletes participated, viewing their involvement as a triumph over Nazi racial ideology.

Among the boycotters were world record holders, Olympic champions, medalists, and top coaches. The Spanish government decided to hold a rival event in protest, called the "People’s Olympiad," planned for Barcelona with 6,000 athletes from 22 countries registered—compared to just 3,963 athletes at the Berlin Olympics. Days before the People’s Olympiad was set to begin, the Spanish Civil War broke out, and the event was canceled.

The Berlin Olympics were the first to be televised and documented. During the Games, the film *Olympia* was produced by Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister and filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, known for her propaganda films for the Nazi regime. The film, steeped in Nazi aesthetics and filled with the regime’s imagery and rhetoric, was a key part of transforming the Olympics into a successful Nazi propaganda tool. The torch relay, introduced for the first time in Berlin, continues to this day.

Gretel Bergmann, a Jewish athlete, broke Germany’s long jump record in 1921. Two years after the Nazis came to power in 1933, she was expelled from her team due to her Jewish heritage and immigrated to Britain, where she continued to improve her records and even won a championship. Ahead of the 1936 Olympics, the Nazis, eager to appear tolerant, invited Bergmann to represent Germany. Initially, she refused, but under pressure from Britain and threats to her family’s safety from the Nazis, she reluctantly returned to Germany.

A month before the Olympics, Bergmann competed in the German trials for the Games, equaling the national high jump record with a 1.60-meter jump and finishing first, securing her place in the Olympics. Two weeks later, she received a letter from the authorities stating she had been removed from the national team, and her records were erased, allegedly due to "athletic unsuitability." A year after the Olympics, Bergmann won a gold medal at the U.S. Championships in high jump and shot put. Only on November 23, 2009, were her German records officially restored.

Another Jewish athlete who participated was Helene Mayer, a German fencer with a Jewish father. Mayer had won seven German foil fencing championships, the first at age 13. She secured a gold medal at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics and two gold medals at European championships in the same period. Like Bergmann, she was expelled from her team in 1933 due to her Jewish heritage and left for the United States because of the racist laws already in place.

Like Bergmann, Mayer was invited to join the German team, and under pressure from the Americans, she agreed. At the Olympics, she won a silver medal, while the other two medalists—gold winner Ilona Elek of Hungary and bronze winner Ellen Preis—were also Jewish. During the ceremony, Mayer wore the official uniform and gave the Nazi salute, later claiming it was to protect her family.

Blacks, too, were persecuted by the Nazis, and Hitler sought to use the Olympics to prove Aryan supremacy. Jesse Owens, the African-American athlete representing the United States, won four gold medals, three in sprints, but his most iconic victory was in the long jump. In the semifinals, Owens was disqualified in his first two attempts. Before his third attempt, his main rival, German athlete Luz Long, advised him to start his jump from a different point.

Owens followed the advice, qualified, and went on to win the gold medal in the final on August 4, defeating Long. Before the medal ceremony, the two embraced. During the ceremony, Owens saluted the American flag, while Long, standing behind him, gave the Nazi salute.

After Long was killed in World War II, Owens said: “If you melted down all the trophies and medals I won, they wouldn’t come close to the 24-carat friendship between me and him. Hitler must have gone mad seeing us embrace like that. The sad part is that I never saw him again after that; he was killed in World War II.”

On the first day of the Games, Hitler congratulated only German participants. When required to either congratulate all athletes or none, he chose the latter and did not present any medals during the Games. Despite Owens’ victories, which struck a blow against Nazi racial ideology, and despite the widespread boycotts, the Berlin Olympics bolstered Hitler’s image among the German public. The Games allowed the world to bury its head in the sand and ignore the approaching Holocaust.

Would history have been different if the People’s Olympiad had taken place?