Berlin Games: How the Nazis Stole the Olympic Dream

Olympika: The International Journal of Olympic Studies, Annual, 2006 by Michael Pitblado

Berlin Games: How the Nazis Stole the Olympic Dream by Guy Walters (New York: William Morrow, 2006), 368 pp. Reviewed by Michael Pitblado, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

More than three decades ago, Richard Mandell's The Nazi Olympics was described in the pages of the American Historical Review as "both narrative thriller and a scholarly disappointment." (1) The same can be said of the latest addition to the considerable literature on the 1936 Summer Games held in Hitler's Germany. Berlin Games: How the Nazis Stole the Olympic Dream is the first venture into historical non-fiction for bestselling novelist and journalist Guy Walters. The history of the Third Reich is familiar ground for the British writer, who has set his novels of espionage and resistance in this period.

The scope of Berlin Games is grand but familiar. The first half of the book is dedicated to the politics behind the IOC's selection of Berlin as host city, the threatened boycotts in both the United States and Great Britain, the Nazi promise of no discrimination against German Jewish athletes, and the Garmisch-Partenkirchen Winter Games as a dress rehearsal to the "real show" later the same year in the capital of the new Reich.

The strength of the book lies in Walters's riveting prose, which captures the triumphant atmosphere of the opening ceremonies, the extravagance of the many high society banquets, and the tranquility of the newly constructed Olympic village (for men only). Gripping, too, is the author's dramatic description in the second half of the book of the competitions on the playing fields, particularly the well-known exploits of American sprinter and long-jumper Jesse Owens, Jewish German fencing starlet Helene Mayer, and Korean/Japanese marathon winner Son Ki-Jung. Walters also updates the familiar narrative with compelling individual stories, such as that of German wrestler and communist agitator Werner Seelenbinder, as well as with colorful reports of the author's own interviews with former participants. A welcome omission is a lengthy discussion of Leni Riefenstahl's production of her epic film Olympia, which has been an overworked staple in the literature on the Berlin Olympics.

Berlin Games is primarily intended for the general reader. Yet the book's promotional material--including the author's personal website and the dust jacket of the UK edition--boasts that Walters has unearthed new archival evidence that reveals an original assessment of the nature of the Nazi Olympics. In this regard, academics will find Berlin Games a frustrating read. There is a disconcerting shortage of endnotes and throughout the text Walters includes direct quotes without providing sources. The citations that do appear at the back of the book are difficult to follow. On more than one occasion, the novelist in Walters cannot resist putting words into the mouths of historical figures (including Hitler) by supplying dialogue--again, without producing a source.

The promise of originality is based on the author's allegations that it was not only the Nazis who were guilty of corrupting the idealism of the Olympic Movement, but also high-ranking Olympic officials. Walters points an accusatory finger at the aging and destitute founder of the modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, for accepting a sizeable and secret "donation" to his foundation, earmarked for his personal use, in exchange for the figurehead's symbolic endorsement of the Berlin Games. The evidence, namely letters exchanged between Coubertin and Dr. Theodor Lewald, Chairman of the German Olympic Games Organizing Committee, is clearly damning for both men: for the former for accepting the bribe, and for the latter for doing the bidding of his Nazi masters. As dramatic as this evidence is, the findings are not new. German scholars have known about the Nazis' courting of Coubertin for some time. Historians Hans Joachim Teichler and Arnd Kruger have both conducted more exhaustive archival research and written more detailed accounts of this facet of the 1936 Olympic drama. (2) Nevertheless, the impact of the Nazis' successful wooing of Coubertin on the course of events is questionable. Walters asks hypothetically, "If the athletes had known it, how many would have felt comfortable about going to the Games?" (p. 303). Yet the author's own interviews reveal that the majority of the athletes were either blissfully ignorant of Nazi repressive domestic policies or simply considered themselves apolitical, believing that their only concern was to compete. A minority of athletes did in fact feel uncomfortable, but most of them participated nonetheless.

Walters ascribes responsibility for the boycott movement's failure to the stubborn personality of Avery Brundage, head of the American Olympic Committee. Walters is disapproving of his political naivety, his paranoia of a communist conspiracy behind the boycotters, his anti-Semitism, and pro-Nazi attitude. He slams Brundage for placing sport above all else. Yet taking aim at Brundage is not original. There is no shortage of Brundage critics--including Mandell. Walters is far more sympathetic to Brundage's British counterparts in the boycott debate. He salutes the British for defeating boycott sentiments on the basis that they intended to show the Nazis what a liberal democracy could do, rather than adopt Brundage's championing of Hitler's hollow promises. Furthermore, Walters's portrait of British diplomat Sir Robert Vansittart as a pragmatist willing to participate in the Games in order to discover Nazi political intentions differs from fellow writer and journalist Duff Hart-Davis's assessment of Vansittart as an anti-Nazi hero. Yet his position falls in line with a more recent study by historian Richard Holt. (3)