On the Sidelines: Nazi Olympics? (Vol. 1, Issue 6)

The revival of the Olympic Games at the end of last century aroused the world with a reborn spirit of universal brotherhood — a condition essentially based on the cardinal ideals of justice and fair play. 

Today, however, the scene is marred by the fact that the Hitler government has injected race, religion, and politics into sports in general, and into the Olympics in particular, and has destroyed their “free and independent character” — a direct violation of the Olympic Code and Oath. 

In 1933, when Berlin was first chosen as the site for the new Olympic Games, the Nazi government under threat promised that no discrimination would be brought against Jews. Recent investigations by many amateur athletic associations have brought to light countless proofs of Aryan prejudices. Only the other day, former Supreme Court Justice J. T. Mahoney, president of the A.A.U., the largest athletic organization in the world, announced that a two year investigation, authorized by the Union had established the charges of racial religious bias in German sports and violations of the pledges against discrimination. 

Open Discrimination

Time and time again, new disclosures of Aryan atrocities in the realm of sport are made public. One day it will be in the shocking story of the murder of a Jewish player on a Silesian ballfield by a crowd of Nazi spectators. Or another day, it will be in the form of a new book, entitled “The Spirit of Sports in the Third Reich” in which the author announces that he “can see no positive value for our people in permitting dirty Jews and Negroes to travel through our country and compete in athletics with our best”. Or again, there will appear the story of how all German sports clubs were ordered to set aside the month of September for discussion of the Jewish question, or to put the matter more plainly, for instruction in anti-Semitism. 

Nazi Propoganda 

Aside from these un-Olympic manifestations, it is clear to see that the German government is using the games as an organ of Nazi propoganda. Olympics per se are unimportant as long as they ballyhoo and press-agent the Aryan ideology. This sufficiently appears from the recent announcement by Herr Adolf that the Nazi exposition will be…[illegible]...in conjunction with the… and that the exposition…[illegible]...present a concrete demonstration of National Socialist…[illegible]...and program”. …[illegible]...Yeshiva College…[illegible]...that the games under the Swastika implies the tacit approval of all that it symbolizes, and we therefore join the thousands of other college students in opposing American participation in the Olympic Games and advocate the transfer of the great crucible of…[illegible]...