Premium Essay

The Olympic Games: The Nazi Movement

Submitted By
Words 798
Pages 4
Two years before Adolf Hitler became the chancellor of Germany, the International Olympic Committee decided that the 1936 Olympic games would take place in Berlin, Germany. The Olympic games served as the platform for Germany’s comeback after their devastating loss in World War I as well as for Hitler’s Nazi movement to gain power.()()() A primary component of the Nazi movement was the purification of the German race which focused on the declared superiority of the Aryan race to that of the German Jews. Prior to the Olympic games, Hitler introduced a set of laws that stripped Jews from their German citizenship and of some basic human rights. In addition, Jewish athletes were denied access to training facilities and participation in the Olympic game events. These events led to criticism from other countries and efforts to boycott the games in the United States. However, even with great efforts to boycott the games and not play a role in the great injustices against the Jews in Germany by the Nazi regime, the United States still attended. I consider the …show more content…
Without the participation of North American athletes, the competition aspect would have not been legitimate and Hitler’s attempt to utilize the Olympics as a way to gain political power and control would have failed. Germany needed the United States to participate, and because different interest groups in the United States did not want to involve politics and the Olympics, they stopped the boycott movement. I feel like it was totally pointless to try and stay away from political conflict, when the Nazi regime was strategically and intentionally using the Olympics to gain political power. The United States took part of a political movement by simply sending its best athletes to compete and at the same time supported the beginning of a horrifying dictatorship

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Olympics Dbq Analysis

...The olympics originated from Ancient greece, it was created to display each city-states athletic talents. The tradition evolved into the modern Olympics beginning in 1892 which helped mold many factors that is being used in modern olympics. For instance nationalism has a huge effect on the Olympics, based on what the documents given have shown. The olympics were also used to help countries display their power, feminism, and to create peace among each country. All of these elements that were listed provide to the fierce nature of the olympics. Having documents that display what a majority of the country’s citizens help visual the majority of the world’s view on the games and if they are beneficial. First the olympics helped countries create peace among each other. Wars between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have divided the world, for instance the cold war, WWI, and WWII. The reason the Olympics helped countries create peace is through the friendly athletic competitions that forced countries to unite together. Furthermore, Pierre de coubertin the founder of the modern Olympics view was to unite and revive the olympics, another view he had is to “reduce the chances of war”( Document 1) and to create ally’s through the olympics. According to...

Words: 878 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

History of Leni Riehfenstahl

...swinging towards escapist films and films that promoted German nationalism • German film output peaked in 1930  • Cinema attendances rose throughout the Depression years • Cinema allowed the unemployed to escape the misery of their lives and go somewhere warm. The Berlin Olympics • Berlin was awarded to host the 1936 Olympics • This presented Hitler with a great propaganda opportunity • He wanted the world to see that Germany was peaceful  • As a result of Antisemitism  there were calls to boycott the Berlin Olympics • In the months leading up to the games Hitler tried to create an image of a peaceful nation by ordering the media to refrain from attacking the Jews • Olympic Stadium seated 100,000   • German Olympic team were the first to train full-time before competition • First time an Olympic Torch was carried from Olympia to the main stadium. • 49 nations competed in the Berlin Olympic Games • Jesse Owens a US African-American athlete was the star of the games winning 4 gold medals, Hitler refused to congratulate him • Italy’s football team won the gold medal  • 9 Jewish athletes won medals Rise of Hitler and the Nazi party • In 1919-20 the Weimar Republic had to...

Words: 2240 - Pages: 9

Premium Essay

Chapter Summary Of Chapter 12-George Roman Pocock

...“In a sport like this—hard work, not much glory, but still popular in every century—well, there must be some beauty which ordinary men can’t see, but extraordinary men do.” Chapter 1-George Yeoman Pocock-provided the shell that was used by the boys in the Olympics Page 1 He is talking about the sport of rowing (crew). That is hard and there is not much glory in it. In our society today, there is not much glory in a sport that is not football, basketball, baseball or hockey. I am a swimmer and I feel that his quote can be said for my sport also. I work very hard at swimming. I train with a National team six days a week for about three hours a night. I give it my all and I am good but that is not enough for the society we live in. When I entered...

Words: 1454 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Mmeliss

...Research Essay: LENI RIEFENSTAHL a. Outline the life of the personality you have studied The German actor, filmmaker and Nazi associate, Leni Riefenstahl, has stirred one of the greatest controversies of modern times. Seen as either a Nazi propagandist or a pioneering artist of great ingenuity, the discussion regarding Riefenstahl is still a prevalent issue in today’s world. Born into a financially stable family on 22nd August 1902, Riefenstahl was reasonably sheltered from Germany’s economic and political unrest up until as well as after WWI. As a child, she was extremely passionate about dance and the theatre. Wanting to dance on stage, although acceptable to Leni’s mother, was seen as below their social status by her father. Throughout Leni’s adolescence, she caused a continuous rift between the family, as her enthusiasm for the arts never declined, leading to her secret enrolment in the Grimm-Reiter Dance School in Berlin in 1918, as well as agreeing to work as a secretary for her father’s company in order to gain his later approval for dance lessons in 1920. After being persuaded by Leni’s mother, he enrolled her in the Jutta Klamt School where Leni studied under the ballerina Eugenie Euardova. Riefenstahl’s career in dance began in October 1923 and was abruptly ended in June 1924. She performed her first solo performance at the age of 21 and received positive reviews. During her second recital she caught the interest of Max Reinhardt, a leading theatrical director...

Words: 2891 - Pages: 12

Premium Essay

World War Ii

...World War II Research The First World War started the decline of European power all over the world. At the end of the war, social equality, and joint defenses seemed to conquest however this optimism did not survive. The weakness of new democracy and the Great Depression pushed the continent back into war. Germany's Weimar Republic, born on November 9, 1918, in Berlin could not please the conquered people of Germany following World War I. German’s were fuming about the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles, which provided that Germany restore lands to other countries, admit accountability for starting the war, and return war criminals to the Allies. Large cash payments for the damages made were to be paid to the Allies. The Treaty of Versailles sternly limited Germany’s military. The Republic signed the treaty on June 28, 1919 from that day forward the German people viewed the Weimar Republic as a two-timing government for having signed a contract of terms they believed to be unreasonable and degrading. The United States stock market crash in 1929 was the final straw that set the world into a depression. A depression is a severe economic turndown marked by sharp declines in income and production as buying and selling slow down to a crawl (Kishlansky, 2008). The predicament of the United States rippled all the way through world markets. The U.S. Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in 1930 which shaped an unfathomable toll against agricultural and manufactured imports...

Words: 1431 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

German Public Opinion of the Jews 1933-1939

...Eric Snyder History 300W Reign of Terror: German Public Opinion of the Jews 1933-1939 Historian Marc Bloch describes history as something that is “progressive which constantly transforms and perfects itself.” There are many different opinions that persist in pre-war Nazi Germany. There is the opinion of the Jewish people living in Germany, the opinion of the Nazis living in Germany under the command of Adolf Hitler, and there is the opinion of the German people who were not Nazis which this paper is focused on. Events such as Kristallnacht positively affected the opinion of the Jewish people to the German public during pre-war Nazi Germany. The Chancellor of Germany from 1933-1945 was Adolf Hitler, an outspoken anti-Semitic man who was an accomplished mimic, an excellent actor, and “used language in a way that was untranslatably funny.” Hitler believed that the Jewish people were inferior to his Aryan race. Hitler believed that race was not only defined by skin color or heritage, it was defined by an elitist set of criteria that had to be met such as a person’s religion, or ideals. As a result, any intermingling or marriage or offspring made by an Aryan and any other race was downright wrong in Hitler’s eyes. He says of intermingling of the races that, “If Nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with the stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race should intermingle with an inferior one; because in such a case all her efforts, throughout hundreds...

Words: 2838 - Pages: 12

Premium Essay

Practice Question

... From time to time, Jewish population has experienced deliberate attacks (pogroms) yet have managed to survive as a group and as a religion. * Nazi policy towards the Jews was the most brutal and horrific example of anti-Semitic behaviour in history * Nazis developed a deliberate policy to kill the Hews who lived in Germany — In 1922, 60% of the worl’d’s population of Jews occupied land in German and its area. By 1945, 2/3 of the Jewish population had been killed * By the 19th Century: German-Jews had won greater acceptance in that they made very important contributions to the intellectual, financial, educational and cultural life of the nation. * During WW1, 100 000 Jewish soldiers died during the conflict. * In the Weimar Republic, Jews enjoyed equal rights with all other Germans and some even rose to high positions in the civil service and the government. * Late 19th Century: Jews represented a challenge to the concept of the nationalism, especially when there was a development of the Volkisch movement. * Bt the start of the 20th Century, ideology of the racially pure was being embraced by all, and the Jews were not part of it. * German Historian Heinrich von Treitschke in the 1880’s said that ‘The Jews are our misfortune’ — A quote which was quickly adapted by the Nazis in the 1930s * Hitlers hatred of the Jews was at the heart of his view of the world — an ‘obsession’ that never waned * In Hitlers view, civilisation...

Words: 3042 - Pages: 13

Premium Essay

Mein Kampf Book Report

...Adolf used this story as propaganda to try to persuade the German population into getting into a movement that would transform the German society into a one based race. As Germany was in a financial, political, and social downfall at the time, the book became intriguing to the German population. As Adolf wrote two volumes, he shows zero mercy in giving his perspective on powerful expansion using brutal force and Semitism. Although the book contained profanity, frequent content of grammatical errors, and what seemed to be unachievable goals/targets, the book was able to produce over five million copies in eleven different...

Words: 1859 - Pages: 8

Premium Essay

Notes on Leni

...The initial consolidation of the Nazi power in 1933The initial consolidation of the Nazi power in 1933-34 The initial consolidation of the Nazi power in 1933-34 takes form in three points: the German situation, the Nazi rootlessness, and the political acts and people that made it all possible. The German situation helped account for the initial consolidation of Nazi power in 1933-34. Due to the Wall Street Crash in 1929 the economy crashed all over the world, but none worse than in Germany. Due to the World War 1 payback, Germany was already suffering economically and they were only keeping afloat with the funds from US investors, but with the Wall Street Crash the investors withdrew their money from Germany resulting in businesses all over Germany collapsing; bankruptcy becoming nationwide and unemployment levels leapt upwards. The economic impact of this led many counties to move to protect their own domestic industries, resulting in high tariffs. In March 1930 and May 1932, the German Chancellor, Heinrich Bruning, pursued an orthodox economic policy of ridge deflation. The deflation involved increasing taxation and decreasing government expenditure. Then in July 1931, Germany suffered a major banking crisis. The country’s biggest banks, the Danat, went bankrupt. The impact this had for families meant that they were forced into poverty, Living on the streets, Health levels deteriorated, Children were forced to leave school early, Families broke up as men left to seek work...

Words: 2420 - Pages: 10

Premium Essay

Darwin's Influence on Discrimination

...Darwin’s Influence on Discrimination Many regard Charles Darwin as the Father of Evolution, a scientific breakthrough that is considered one of the greatest accomplishments in science. Little does the general public consider the social effects that his contributions made on racism, as well as sexism, not only in his lifetime, but also for the generations following his research. His recognition in one area of study automatically made him a voice that echoed for centuries against women’s suffrage, pro-slavery, and influenced Hitler’s ideology. Apart from his genetic research and theories of evolution, Darwin was not afraid to compare the human race to that of other animals. This analogy caused a lot of the discrimination that he blatantly labeled as scientific fact. In the Descent of Man, “Darwin noted that the inheritance of special tastes and habits, general intelligence, courage, good and bad temper, and so on is evident in dogs and other domestic animals, and that the same pattern is seen in almost every human family” (Paul, 226). Darwin was not afraid to make non-scientific comparisons between the human race and other animals. Although many of Darwin’s findings are scientifically rational, and others simply deny his theories because of their religious faiths, it is difficult to ignore the consequences of his “Origins of Species” or “The Descent of Man” writings. Although Darwin wrote that all men shared a common descent, he used societal observations...

Words: 2044 - Pages: 9

Free Essay

Economic Geography

...Germany officially the (Federal Republic of Germany) Is a federal parliamentary republic in western-central Europe. It includes 16 constituent states and covers an area of 357,021 square kilometers (137,847 sq mi) with a largely temperate seasonal climate. Its capital and largest city is Berlin. With 81 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state in the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular migration destination in the world. Various Germanic tribes have occupied northern Germany since classical antiquity. Germany(Flag) A region named Germania was documented before 100 CE. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. The rise of Pan-Germanys inside the German Confederation resulted in the states in 1871 into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic. The establishment of the Third Reich in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After 1945, Germany split into two states, East Germany and West Germany. In 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a great power and has the world's fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP, as well as the fifth-largest by PPP. As a global...

Words: 6995 - Pages: 28

Premium Essay

Literature

...society…. I am secretly pleased about the riots. Nothing would please the tortured man inside me more than seeing bigger and better riots everyday. Those words were spoken by Bob Teague to his young son in Letters to a Black Boy. He wrote these letters to “alert” his son to “reality” so that the boy wouldn’t be caught off guard—unprepared and undone. Are his words true? Does a black man have to be just about insane to exist in America? Do all Negroes feel a deep twinge of pleasure every time we see a white man hurt and a part of white society destroyed? Is reality so stinking terrible that it’ll grab your heart out of your chest with one hand and your manhood with the other if you don’t meet it armed like a Nazi storm trooper? Bob Teague is no “militant.” He’s a constructive, accomplished journalist with a wife and child. If he feels hate and fear, can you ever avoid feeling it? Whether it’s Uncle Tom or ranting rioter doing the talking today, you’re told that you’ll have to be afraid and angry. The only difference is that one tells you to hold it in and the other tells you to let it out. Life is going to be torture because you’re a Negro, they all say. They only differ on whether you should grin and bear it or take it out on everyone else. But National Urban League official, Black Panther leader or any of the in-betweens all seem to agree on one thing today: “We must organize around our strongest bond—our blackness.” Is that...

Words: 7102 - Pages: 29

Premium Essay

Germany Revision

...SECTION 1: THE SUCCESSES AND FAILURES OF THE WEIMAR GOVERNMENT 1918-OCTOBER 1933 |9 November 1918 |Abdication of the Kaiser | |January 1919 |Spartacist Uprising | |February 1919 |First Weimar elections | |28 June 1919 |Treaty of Versailles signed | |July 1919 |Weimar Constitution announced | |March 1920 |Kapp Putsch signed | |January 1923 |Occupation of the Ruhr | |January-November 1923 |Hyperinflation | |8-9 November 1923 |Munich Putsch ...

Words: 13280 - Pages: 54

Premium Essay

Disability Issues

...School of Education Marking and Assessment Sheet (MASh): Bachelor degrees Module Code: | SEDV 27006 | Student Name/Number : | N0581370 | Module Name: | Disability Issues | Course Title: | JHPSpecial and Inclusive strand | Word Limit: 2500 | Actual word count:2239 | Marker: | Kerry Vincent | Module Leader: | Kerry Vincent | Moderator: | Paul Drury | Date of Assessment: | 6 January 2016 | Overall grade: | | | Pass | Need to improve | N/a | General Comments | Spelling | | | | | Grammar + syntax | | | | | Structure | | | | | Overall presentation | | | | | Referencing | | | | | Particular areas of strength | Particular areas for development (relating to the assessment criteria) | | | You are advised to see an Academic Peer Mentor edu.academicpeermentors@ntu.ac.uk | Yes (tick) | | No (tick) | | Marker’s signature | | Module learning outcomes | Assessment Criteria | Success Criteria | Knowledge and Understanding | | Exceptional First | First | Upper Second | Lower Second | Third | Marginal Fail | Fail | Zero | 1 | Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of key issues affecting the lives of disable people | Critically discuss key issues that affect disabled people’s livesWhere relevant, identify connections between different issues. Show awareness of the views and perspectives of disabled people. (WA; OP) | Discussion shows exceptional understandings of issues that affect the lives of disabled people and there is an exceptional level...

Words: 3725 - Pages: 15

Free Essay

Com3703

...42068711     COM  3703   08  October  2015   42068711 COM3703 Media Studies PORFOLIO ASSIGNMENT: 04 OPTION 01 08 October 2015 1     42068711     COM  3703   08  October  2015   DECLARATION: I, THE UNDERSIGNED, HERBY DECLARE THAT THIS IS MY OWN AND PERSONAL WORK, EXCEPT WHERE THE WORK(S) OR PUBLICATIONS OF OTHERS HAVE BEEN ACKNOWLEDGED BY MEANS OF REFERENCE TECHNIQUES. I HAVE READ AND UNDERSTOOD TUTORIAL LETTER CMNALLE/301 REGARDING TECHNICAL AND PRESENTATION REQUIREMENTS, REFERENCING TECHNIQUES AND PLAGIARISM. NAME: Ashley Vercueil STUDENT NUMBER: 42068711 DATE: 08/10/2015 WITNESS: Sheree Gloss 2     42068711     COM  3703   TABLE OF CONTENT 08  October  2015   PAGE DECLARATION 2 1. INTRODUCTION 4 2. QUANTITATIVE CONTENT ANALYSIS 2.1 The research problem 4 2.2 Research question or hypothesis 4 2.3 Method 5 2.4 Findings 6 2.5 Analysis 7 3. FIELD RESEARCH IN MEDIA STUDIES 8 4. MEASURING MEDIA AUDIENCES 11 5. FILM THEORY AND CRITICISM 14 5.1 Film: An overview 14 5.2 Theoretical discussion 14 5.3 A German expressionist analysis of film 15 6. PSYCHOANALYSIS AND TELEVISION 17 7. CONCLUSION 20 8. SELF-EVALUATION AND SELF-REFLECTION 21 SOURCES 23 Addendum 24 3     42068711     COM  3703   ...

Words: 9121 - Pages: 37