The Propagander ™ FAQ
Did Germany Win the 1936 Olympics?
When I passed the Chancellor he arose, waved his hand at me, and I waved back at him. I think the writers showed bad taste in criticizing the man of the hour in Germany.
Owens will later be even more specific:Hitler didn't snub me--it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram.
It is unfortunate that this bad reporting has been used for so long to 'prove' a political talking point that can be demonstrated adequately through legitimate reporting. While there is documentation that Hitler expressed violent disappointment over Owens accomplishment in private, and was less than pleased by the obvious implication, he behaved with perfect courtesy in public. When inaccuracies such as these are eventually debunked, they cast doubt on points to which there would be no doubt had the initial reporting been accurate. Subsequent retellings of the event not fact-checked perpetuated the myth, and gave further ammunition for revisionists anxious to bring doubt to the issue.There was very definitely a special feeling in winning the gold medal and being a black man. We destroyed [Hitler's] master race theory whenever we started winning those gold medals . . . . There was some talk about the Olympics being boycotted because of what Hitler was doing to the Jewish people in Germany, but it was never discussed amongst the team members. We weren't interested in politics, you see, at all. We were only interested in going to Germany and winning.
And win they did, but the truth is that, in comparison, the American team didn't do all that well:If the American team had not brought along Black auxiliaries ... one would have regarded the Yankees as the biggest disappointment of the Games.
Just as a blind squirrel sometimes finds a nut, Goebbels assessment of the American showing at Berlin is accurate enough. Germany placed first in all categories, with the US placing second. What is noteworthy about this showing by Germany is that they dominated the US with only half the population to draw from. 1936 World Population statistics (source: Gaberoff Encyclopedia 1936 Edition, Sofia, Bulgaria), reveal that the population of Germany (with the Saar included), was 65,488,000, while the US population was almost twice that, 122,775,000.In the unofficial point system devised by the American Olympic Committee (ten points for first place, and five, four, three, two and one for the next five finishes, the American male track and field team scored 203 points. Owens alone scored 40, almost two-thirds of the entire German teams total. Outside of track and field, however, the Germans dominated 87 - 1 in gymnastics, 65 - 6 in equestrian events, 43 - 4 in canoeing, 34 - 9 in boxing, 28 - 10 in weightlifting, 27 - 0 in cycling, 20 - 2 in yachting, and 19 - 10 in fencing. Only in wrestling and basketball did American athletes make a decent showing. When the president of the International Olympic Committee, Henri Baillet-Latour, finally proclaimed the closing of the Berlin games, both German and American scoring systems gave the Germans a decisive victory over the United States. The other European fascist power, Italy, finished a distant third in team point totals.
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