Olympism and Fascism.
By Ljubodrag
Simonović.
Source: Excerpt
from the book “The Olympic
Deceit of the ‘Divine Baron’ – Pierre de Coubertin”.
Posters: Vanja Zakanji.
As early as 1929, at the
time of the great recession, “father” of the modern Olympic Games
Pierre de Coubertin expressed his inclination towards authoritarian
regimes, namely his discontent with the inefficiency of the
capitalist system in its dealing with the working class :
"First of all,
it was necessary to establish the International Olympic Committee
with its
basic rights, that should
have been acknowledged by all the nations. This was not easy, because
the Constitution of the Committee was opposed to the ideas of the
time. It discarded the principle of delegation, so dear to our
parliamentary democracies - the principle which, having done some
great good, seems to be less
efficient every day". (1)
It should also be
noted that Coubertin was cordially accepted and his works published
in fascist Germany, in spite of being "a great French patriot",
a fact important at the time of German revanchism. Theodor Lewald,
the president of the Organizing Committee of the Berlin Olympics,
wrote of Coubertin at the end of his Introduction to "Olympische
Erinnerungen", published
in Berlin in 1938:
"He understood and
enthusiastically saluted the development of the
new Germany under her Great
Führer". (2)
The lecture on the
Berlin Olympics delivered by Coubertin on German radio August 4,
1935, testifies that this is not merely a polite exaggeration:
"I was honoured to accept the invitation to give the first lecture on the importance of the Olympic Games, as their founder and the President of Honour. I think that the best way to answer the question is to explain my original ideas and the philosophical basis upon which I tried to build my work. With great interest I am following the preparations for the XI Games in this fourth year of the X modern Olympiad. These preparations are based upon an excellent plan and are executed after an absolutely clear total idea, with no less care paid to details. I am under an impression that the whole of Germany, from her Leader to the most humble participant, wishes with all its heart to make the celebration in 1936 one of the most beautiful that the world has ever seen, although London, Stockholm, Amsterdam and Los Angeles produced real miracles. In a year's time, Christmas bells will announce the appearance of the athletes from all around the world at the Berlin Stadium. Today I wish to thank the German government and its people for their efforts in honour of the XI Olympiad." (3)
Coubertin
expressed his ultimate support to the Nazi regime in his broadcasted
speech held at the closing ceremony of the Berlin Olympics, the
speech that he, himself, later published. This is what he said:
"Guard the holy flame! The XI Olympic Games will
soon be a memory, but what a powerful and rich memory! Above all, the memory of
beauty. From that moment thirty years ago, when I summoned a conference
on arts, literature and sport, aimed to establish a permanent relation between
the renewed Olympics and the creations of mind and spirit, the realisation
of this ideal has been helped by many prudent efforts, from Stockholm to Los
Angeles. Now Berlin is sanctifying it by some daring innovations, completely
successful ones, such as the relay carrying of the holly torch from Olympia and the
magnificent celebration at the monumental stadium on the first night of the
Games, whose creator is my ingenious friend and enthusiast Carl Diem. Memory of courage,
because courage was necessary to overcome the difficulties’ Führer met having posed the
request "Wir wollen
bauen!" ("We want to
build!"), and to confront the disloyal
and perfidious attacks that try to stop the progressive creative enterprise
(referring to the boycott of the Berlin Games). Finally, memory of hope,
because understanding stronger than death itself was forged under the
symbolical flag with the five circles... "Freude,
Tochter aus..." (The opening words of
Schiller's "Ode of Joy"
which was a part of "the
artistic programme" at the
Berlin opening). The history and the struggle will continue, but science will gradually
replace the dangerous ignorance; mutual understanding will replace blind hatred.
Thus the building I built for half a century will be consolidated. And you,
athletes, do not forget the flame lit by the Sun, brought to you from Olympia to light
our epoch. Guard it deep in
your souls, to make it reappear at the other end
of the world, in four years time, when we shall celebrate the XII Olympics
at the faraway shores of the great Pacific." (4)
The reference is made
to the fascist Japan. Another great gesture of the IOC!
When speaking of the
“perfidious attacks” on the Nazi Olympic Games, Coubertin was
also thinking of the attempt on the part of members of the
international brigades, the Spanish republican combatants, to
organize the “Olympiada popular” in Barcelona in July 1936 as a
response to the Nazi Olympic Games. The troops of fascist General
Franco prevented these “Peoples Games” being held.
Here is what Heinrich
Mann said on the eve of the Nazi Olympic Games :
“Free peoples do not have
the right to support the Berlin Olympic Games. (…) Nazism does not see
man other than as an instrument for achieving its barbarian goals. Can
such a regime, based on forced labour and slavery of the masses, a regime that
is preparing for war and exists merely through mendacious propaganda,
respect peaceful sport and free sportsmen? Believe me, those international
sportsmen who go to Berlin are nothing more than gladiators, prisoners and
entertainers for the dictator who already considers himself master of the world.
Finally, I should like to stress that the success of the Olympic Games will
help to prolong Hitler’s regime for a time. It will give it new possibilities
and strength. It will reinforce its prestige…” (5)
Another clue to
Coubertin's attitude towards the Nazi regime in Germany may be found
in his interview given to Andre Lang and published in the French
paper "Le journal"
on August 27, 1936. The motive for this conversation was the article
by Jacques Goddet in "L'Auto",
under the title borrowed from Emile Zola - "J'accuse!",
who questioned the legitimacy of the Berlin Olympics. Here are
Coubertin's words:
"The Games are
perverted? The Olympic idea is sacrificed to propaganda? That is utterly untrue. The
magnificent success of the Berlin Games served perfectly the idea of
Olympics. Only the French, or almost only the French, are playing
Cassandra..."
And further:
"The fact that the
Games in 1936 are illuminated by Hitler strength and discipline causes excitement
in France. How could it be different? On the contrary, we should wish
that the Games would always be so well organized, that every nation takes part
in their preparing during the four years." (6)
Not only the
left-wing papers, but also bourgeois journals fervently disputed
these attitudes, along with Coubertin's arguing to organize the
French sport after the Nazi model. This is what the "Paris-Soir",
the paper that published the interview with Hitler in January the
same year, wrote about the Berlin Games:
"It is not an athlete
who is celebrated any more. Instead, the whole nation hails its colours, the victory of
the race, the reigning system, the army... The German audience breaks the
elementary rules of politeness. It should never happen again that one nation uses the
Games to humiliate other nations." (7)
Having published this
article, the Paris journal was not allowed to report from the Games
and its journalists were not allowed to enter Germany. (8)
Coubertin had a
special reason to be enthusiastic about the Berlin Games. The
organizers of the Games had a giant bell casted and decorated with
the figure of an eagle, not a very friendly looking one, holding the
Olympic circles in his claws. At the rim of the bell there was a
message : "Ich rufe die
Jugend der Welt" ("I
invite the youth of the world"). The Olympic Stadium in Berlin
thus became a kind of a modern shrine in which the most spectacular
of all the religious rites of the New Age was to be performed - the
Nazi Olympic Games. This was the incarnation of the ideas Coubertin
fought for all his life.
As far as the
"artistic programme" of the Berlin Olympiad is concerned,
we have already stated that Coubertin had specially paid tribute to
his friend Carl Diem for organizing the "magnificent
celebration" of the opening. What did this "magnificent
celebration" look like in fact? This is how Richard Mandell
described the occasion:
"The most famous living
German musician Richard Strauss, dressed in white, conducts the great
orchestra and the chorus of three thousand voices performing
"Deutchland über Alles"
and "Horst Wessell Lied", and the new "Olympic
Hymn", written specially
for the occasion by the old composer, the
cultural hero of both Wilhelm's and Weimar Germany." (9)
Anyhow, Carl Diem was
proud of "his" Olympics all his life and emphasized its
"artistic programme". Unfortunately, on Coubertin's
request, this programme contained Beethoven’s "IX
symphony", used as a
cover for this fascist festival of death. Following the same
principle, the concentration camps may be described as "educational
institutions", since the members of the "lower race"
were welcomed by music and the camp gate bore the inscription :
"Arbeit macht Frei!"
("Labour liberates!").
Coubertin's
intention to bequeath his whole literary inheritance to the Third
Reich and his wish that the fascist Germany should establish the
International Olympic Institute, a developing centre of the
international Olympic movement, further describe his exhilaration
over the Nazi regime in Germany. He openly entrusted Hitler and his
"super-race" with the future of the Olympic movement. His
devoted follower Carl Diem, one of the main ideologists of Nazi
sport, wrote about this:
"On March 16, 1937, he
(Coubertin) made a suggestion to the German government, related to the
sport-historic exhibition during the Olympic Games of 1936 in Berlin,
that the Government should establish the International Olympic
Institute, Centre d' Etudes Olympiques, to which he would bequeath his
"papiers, documents" and unfinished plans concerning the entirety of the newly
awakened Olympics." (10)
Hitler's decision to
keep the Olympic Games in Germany forever was one of the motives for
such an initiative by Coubertin.
After the Berlin Olympics,
Hitler gave a customarily megalomaniacal order to his architect
Albert Speer to design plans for a new Olympic Stadium (Nürnberg),
for more than 400 000 people, due to be finished by 1945.
"Doesn't matter",
said Hitler, "the 1940 Games will be held in Tokyo. But after that they will always
be held in Germany, on this stadium. And then we shall prescribe the
measurements of the athletic field". (11)
This is a part of
the explanation why "the great French patriot" Coubertin,
who concluded his early works with a cry "Vive
la France!", bequeathed
his works to the fascist Germany, the biggest enemy of the French.
Coubertin saw Hitler and his fascist regime as a possibility to
incarnate his own philosophy completely. Hitler's conception
"Wir wollen bauen!",
the practice of the fascist regime, made the perfect affirmation to
Coubertin that his deed and his ideas would live in future.
As far as the
question "Did he know of the fascist crimes?" is concerned,
it must be pointed out that Coubertin, while living in Switzerland,
had an opportunity to closely witness these misdeeds. Besides, the
Nazis started building concentration camps right after they came to
power, and without any discretion.
"The concentration
camps existed in Germany from 1933," says Arthur Morse in his book "While
6 Million Died", "and
that was no secret for the world. As we have seen, the existence
of Dachau was made public at the beginning of Hitler's reign. . . . In
August 1933, "Neuer
Vorwärts", the paper
published by the German socialists in
exile, estimated that there were eighty thousand prisoners in 65 camps."
(12)
"By the end of 1933," Morse says further, "the reports on murders
and molestations multiplied. Lord Marley, Deputy Speaker of the House of
Lords, estimated that two thousand murders were committed in Germany
during (that) year." (13)
There are other
details of Hitler's "constructing" design that Coubertin
unconditionally supported, at the same time fervently attacking the
opponents of Hitler's regime. The brutal elimination of the members
of the SA troupes on June 30, 1934 ("The Night of the Long
Knives") ; the persecution of the Jews, culminating in Nurnberg
Laws of the Race on September 15, 1935, according to which the Jews
were deprived of civil rights (Hitler's idea first announced in the
"Programme of the
National-Socialist Party"
in February 1920) ; the persecution and murders of the workers and
opposition leaders. On March 16, 1935, Hitler announced the
rebuilding of the German war machine; on March 7, 1936, only a few
days after the Winter Olympic Games at Garmisch-Partenkirchen,
Hitler's troupes entered the demilitarized Rhine zone, overtly
breaking the international agreements and defying (Coubertin's
"beloved") France. At the same time, fascists
systematically destroyed all the world's cultural inheritance
opposing their ideology. The masterpieces of world's culture were
burnt on monumental bonfires.
Coubertin's
contacts with Hermann Esser further testify to the extent he embraced
Nazi propaganda. According to historian Maser, Esser was "among
the most influential of Hitler's collaborators in the
National-Socialist Party" as early as 1921 to 1924. (14)
In 1925 he was appointed executive of Nazi propaganda by Hitler
himself. He soon became the editor of the paper "Die
judische Weltpest. Judendämmerung auf dem Erdball"
("The Jewish Plague. The Fall of the Jews"). He became the
State Secretary at the Reichministerium in 1939, and at the time of
the Nazi agony Esser represented Hitler at the Party's jubilees in
1943 and 1945. Historian Bracher spoke of Esser as a fanatic member
of the National-Socialist Party, who used "the most disgraceful
means of anti-Semitic and antidemocratic propaganda". (15)
Here is how this man described to Lammer his meeting with Coubertin
on April 6, 1937:
"During my stay in
Switzerland last month, I was advised by many parties to visit the elderly founder
of the Olympics, Baron de Coubertin. This gesture could be very
fruitful, since Baron de Coubertin is not exactly popular either in
Switzerland or in his native France. That is just why I decided not only to visit
the Baron in Geneva, but also to invite this widely celebrated man to a
German sanatorium. When I came to Geneva, the German consul informed
me that the Baron was not in good health. He was willing to see me in
spite of it. His accepting the invitation to Germany depended completely
on who was to address the invitation. During my visit to Baron
Coubertin I was under an impression I was talking to a dying man. I
thought it appropriate to convey to this old gentlemen, who spoke of the
Führer and Reich with such an enthusiasm, the best regards from the
Führer and his invitation to stay in a sanatorium in Germany. Fortunately, it
seems that Baron Coubertin's health is getting much better so that he is
considering the possibility of coming to Germany. I have already made all the
arrangements for Baron and his family to be well tended and taken care
of in Baden-Baden on the account of the Reich Tourist Office. His presence
here would be very important for the German tourism. I consider these
propaganda visits of utmost importance and I hope that the Führer will
approve of my invitation to Baron Coubertin." (16)
Coubertin
wrote to Hitler, believing that the Führer himself had invited him
to Germany:
"Excellence,
I was deeply moved by
the visit of the State Minister H.Esser on behalf of Your Excellence and I
hurriedly express my gratitude. Germany thus joins – and in the most splendid way
– the celebration of my jubilee marked on January 20 at the University
of Lausanne. On that occasion I was invited to crown my fifty-years work,
related almost completely to education reforms and improvements. Germany
has shown appreciation of my work on several occasions and I owe her my
deepest gratitude. I hope my health will allow me to consider and accept the
kindest invitation handed to me on behalf of Your Excellence. I take it
as another proof of Your kindness. I humbly ask Your
Excellence to accept my respect and deepest loyalty.
Geneva, March 17, 1937
Pierre de Coubertin " (17)
It should also be
added that, on January 28, 1936, Hitler accepted the motion to name
after Coubertin the place in front of the southern entrance into the
Olympic Stadium (18)
An interesting statement was made concerning this matter by Carl Diem
in 1946, that the only monument built in honour of Coubertin is in
Germany, and that a place there bears his name. (19)
At the same time, the
Nazis nominated Coubertin for the Nobel Prize, in opposition to Karl
von Ossietzky who was imprisoned as Hitler's opponent but well
respected by the world's democracies. Coubertin accepted the
nomination, hoping it would be supported by the Norwegian Olympic
Committee. The Norwegian Peace Committee gave the Prize to Ossietzky
and Coubertin, disappointed, wrote to Hans von Tschammer und Osten,
the Nazi Sports Minister:
"I know that in the
last fifty years I have contributed to peace more by
promoting international
sport, than by giving useless speeches and
performances. Your
acknowledgement in that respect is ever so precious
to me." (20)
Speaking about the
money Coubertin received from Nazis, one should mention that the
better part of the 500 000 golden franc
estate he possessed when he
started his voyage to Olympus, was nearly gone in the last years of
his life. In order to help him, "Pierre-de-Coubertin-Funds"
was founded, and French and Norwegian Olympic Committees contributed
5 000 Reich’s marks each. German Interior Affairs State Secretary
Pfundtner realizing that helping Coubertin could well serve the image
of Nazi Germany and so suggested to Hitler that they should be more
generous. Hitler instantly approved of paying Coubertin 10 000
Reich’s Marks. Lewald personally handed the cheek to Coubertin and
reported that he "accepted it with great pleasure and
gratitude". (21)
However, Coubertin
is not the only "Olympic gentleman" fascinated by fascism.
After the October Revolution, the development of the revolutionary
movement in Europe and the great recession in 1929 – which all
broke the myth of the "free competition society" and
showed what hopes workers could cherish regarding their employers at
a time of peril – Hitler appeared as "the saviour of
(bourgeois) civilization" from "the plague of communism".
The western governments, specially in the USA and Great Britain, were
delighted by "the determination" (read brutality) Hitler
showed in his crusades against communists. Trying to justify the Nazi
terror in Germany, the American consul Kehl wrote in his letter of
March 31, 1933:
"One must admit that
the National-Socialist Organization did a great favour to the world by breaking down
communism in Germany. As far as destroying of the communist plague in some
other countries, this could be a positive effect." (22)
Morse added:
"Although Consul Kehl
was alone in his reporting from Germany, his conviction was widely
accepted by the State Department". (23)
Morse also described
the attitude towards fascism expressed by General Sherrill, the
American delegate at the IOC:
"Judging the general
resentment against fascism, he (Sherrill) praised Mussolini as ‘a man I've known and
respected for a long time, a gallant father who sent his own two sons in the
fiercest battle’ (here Sherrill refers to Mussolini's "famous campaign"
in Ethiopia). The general gloomily added that he would wish Mussolini came to USA
and dealt with communism there as he had done in Italy." (24)
There is another
"Olympic gentleman", besides Sherrill, who was sent from
America to Europe in order to examine if Nazi Germany was suitable to
organize the Olympic Games – Avery Brundage, the President of the
American Olympic Committee at the time, and later the President of
IOC. He was Coubertin's great admirer and famous for his
anti-communist and racist attitudes. Here is how he justified the
fascist terror and practically "made" the American Olympic
team take part in the Berlin Games : "No matter what country
organizes the Olympic Games, there will always be a group, a religion
or a race to protest against the actions of its government, in the
present or in the past." (25)
And that is why Brundage addressed the Jews and all the others who
boycotted the Nazi Olympics:
"Some Jews must realize
that they cannot use these Olympics as an instrument in their boycott
of the Nazis". (26)
As to the "incident"
with Jesse Owens, there exists a version of the story that says
Hitler did not refuse to congratulate Owens because of his attitude
towards the black man, but because of some protocol problems. Count
Baillet-Latour, the President of IOC and Coubertin's heir, asked
Hitler to stop shaking hands with the winners, since he was not an
official of the Games, but only a guest. This happened before Owens
victory and that is why the handshake was omitted. After the
testimony of Baldur von Schirach, one of the closest of Hitler's
collaborators, Führer then said: "The Americans should be
ashamed for letting the Negroes win their medals for them. I wouldn't
ever shake hands with a Black." (27)
When Schirach suggested to Hitler to pose for a photograph with Jesse
Owens, his "rival in popularity" (28)
at the Berlin Olympics, in order to create an impression of a
friendly atmosphere at the Games – Hitler "exploded and
shouted that the idea was the worst insult". (29)
This version of the story is similar to the one in Albert Speer's
book "Inside the Third
Reich":
"A few months after the
obvious remilitarization of the Rhine zone, Hitler rejoiced at the
harmonic atmosphere at the Olympic Games. He thought that the international
hostility towards National-Socialist Germany was msuspended once and for all.
He gave orders to do everything possible to createan impression of peaceable
Germany in the face of numerous important guests. He himself attended the
athletic contests with vivid excitement. Each of the strangely numerous German
victories made him extremely joyful. But he was also enraged with a
series of victories of that fabulous black American runner Jesse Owens. (Here is
where Speer, Hitler's devoted follower till the very last days of his
regime, once more tries to point out he was "different".) People whose ancestors came
from the jungle must be primitive, said Hitler, shrugging his shoulders;
their body is stronger than the body of civilized whites. They make an unfair
competition and therefore they must be excluded from the future Games." (30)
The IOC wanted above
all to acquire the formal cover in public for the Olympics being held
in Nazi Germany – to prove that the Olympic movement as well as the
Berlin Games "had nothing to do with politics". The
"details" about the participation of the Jewish contestants
at the Games, as other facts demonstrate – Baillet-Latour asked
Hitler to remove the anti-Semitic posters from the road to the Berlin
airport; he also asked the German government to obey the Olympic
Declaration and let the Jewish contestants be part of the German
team. The worst of all was the fact that the acknowledgements of the
formal conditions were used as evidence that "everything is
well" in fascist Germany and that there are no persecutions
because of race or conditions. The IOC practically supported the Nazi
regime and allowed it the international credit.
And
that is not all. When fascist Japan refused to organize the Olympic
Games in 1940, due to be held in Tokyo – in order to advance freely
against the Chinese people and prepare the Far East campaigns –
the IOC frantically tried to find a country willing to organize the
Games on the eve of the War. After searching in vain, the IOC
addressed the Nazis. Hitler was once more asked to prepare the Winter
Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. This was another opportunity for him
to prove to the world that the Nazi regime wishes above all "peace
and collaboration between the peoples of the world". Besides, it
suited Hitler's plans to move the Games to Germany permanently. He
accepted the offer. But soon, for the same reasons as Japan, Germany
gave up organizing the Winter Games. Carl Diem spoke once more on
behalf of the Nazi regime.
The Berlin Games
were the competition between the
fascist regimes (Germany,
Japan, Italy) and the “democratic” systems (USA, Great Britain,
France). The fascists triumphed : Germany did better than the United
States for the first time in history; Japan beat England, an Italy
won more medals than France. The fascist fanatics saw it as
providence and the war could begin.
During World War
II the Belgian Count Baillet-Latour, Coubertin's heir as President of
IOC, made plans for "the future" of the Olympic movement in
the Nazi "New Order"
with Hitler's men – Diem,
Lewald, Hans von Tschammer und Osten. All this, of course, according
to the principles of "peaceful collaboration among peoples"!
The real nature of
the IOC is illustrated by its structure after the War. First the
German Karl von Halt: He entered the IOC in 1929. He held the rank of
SA Gruppenführer. After the War he was accused of being a war
criminal. He was saved by Avery Brundage's personal influence. Karl
von Halt not only stayed in the IOC, but was also promoted to The
Executive Board in 1957. (In 1951 he became president of the
West-German Olympic Committee.) A similar destiny is shared by the
French Marquise Melchior de Polignac. He entered the IOC in 1914. He
spent six months in a French prison as a fascist collaborator. He
also stayed in the IOC as a member of The Executive Board till 1950.
(31)
Both Sigfrid Edstrøm, the first President of the IOC after the War,
and Brundage insisted that the Italian fascist Count Paolo Thaon di
Revel should also keep his membership on the Committee. He entered
the IOC in 1932 and was elected to the Executive Board in 1954. By
the same rule the IOC kept Count Alberto Bonacossa, Mussolini's
follower, in the IOC from 1925, and on the Board from 1952. (32)
It seems that the main condition to enter the IOC is to be a member
of the fascist movement!
The story about
General Giorgio Vaccaro, an Italian fascist, sheds more light on the
picture of the "glorious history" of the IOC. He stayed in
the Organization in spite of demands by the Italian Olympic Committee
that he should be removed as an embarrassment to post-war Italy. This
was a defeat for those trying to fight the right of the
member-countries of the IOC to elect the members of the IOC and
influence its policy. (33)
Adolf Friedrich Mecklenburg, the President of the "Foreign
Journalists Club" in the Nazi era, Goebbels' closest assistant,
also stayed in the IOC after the World War. Swedish Count Clarence
von Rosen, member of the IOC from 1900, wrote to his friend Brundage,
after the horrible crimes of the concentration camps were exposed,
that the Jews are to be held responsible for all the evil in the
world and that "communism is the political form of Judaism".
(34)
Avery Brundage,
the leader of the post-war Olympic movement and official President of
the IOC from 1952 to1972, publicly supported the Nazi regime even
before he entered the IOC. In fact, he entered the IOC because he
supported Nazi politics. He brought the American Olympic team to
Berlin, in spite of the fervent protests of the American public,
something the Nazis were very grateful for. At the same time,
Brundage gave passionate speeches all around America, supporting Nazi
politics in Germany and arguing for the neutral position of the USA.
His main spiritual inspiration was Hitler’s "Mein
Kampf". After the war,
trying to build a political career, he fought together with Senator
McCarthy in one of the most shameful moments of American history. In
these years "the Olympic peace-maker" Brundage reproached
the American government for stopping the Korean war, for that was "a
shameful act for all the whites in Asia". (35)
Brundage closed his career by supporting the racist regime in South
Africa. In his famous speech at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972, he
regrets "the lost battle for Rhodesia". (36)
According to American professor Guttmann, for tens of years after the
Berlin Olympic Games, Brundage was considered as an “open admirer
of Hitler”. (37)
Here are some
details, cited by Guttmann, showing Brundage's "moral purity",
on which he insisted while President of the IOC. Avery Brundage was
part of the American Olympic team in 1912 in Stockholm. His most
dangerous rival was an Indian named Jim Thorpe, who was first in the
pentathlon. Brundage came in sixth and left the competition before it
ended, incapable of taking the defeat in a sporting manner. (38)
Thorpe had his medals taken away after his triumph, because of the
accusation he played baseball on a semi-professional team and
received money for it. There is a strong indication that Brundage was
a secret instigator of this intrigue. Things appear more obvious if
one knows that Brundage, "the protector of traditional values",
refused to acknowledge his two illegitimate sons, fearing that this
would ruin his image and prevent him from being elected President of
the IOC. (39)
Brundage was the
one to introduce Juan Antonio Samaranch to the IOC in 1966, as a man
“whom he trusted and loved”. Two years later Samaranch was
appointed Chief of Protocol, and in 1970 Brundage introduced him to
the Executive Board.
The biggest
shortcoming of Vyv Simson’s and Andrew Jennings‘ book about
Samaranch, “The Masters of
The Rings”, is that it
exclusively deals with the sport of our times and starts from a
premise that “only a decade ago it was a source of beauty and
purity”. Firmly holding to this absurd belief, the authors fail to
properly analyze the history of the modern Olympic movement. Without
this analysis it is impossible to explain how one of the leading
fascists of Spain became the president of the IOC. Had they spent
some time investigating the political biography of Avery Brundage
they would have realized that Samaranch didn’t win Brundage’s
trust by doing him small favours, but precisely because he was an
orthodox fascist. Samaranch was a real Brundage
man. Brundage knew very
well that Samaranch was a high ranking member of the fascist regime
in Spain and that he was responsible for bloody oppression in
Cataluña. Brundage was not bothered by the fact that Samaranch, as a
member of the IOC, publicly displayed his fascist beliefs and wore
his fascist uniform while marching in the streets of Barcelona, then
went on to speak about Olympic “ideals”. Having this in mind, it
becomes clearer how in 1965, of all places, the IOC chose fascist
Madrid to hold its general assembly, which was chaired by General
Franco!
As the masters of
the Olympic movement always liked to point out, sport and especially
the Olympic Games had “nothing to do with politics”. This was,
after all, confirmed by Franco himself. Chairing the IOC assembly, he
did not speak about politics (he offered the American government to
set up military bases in Spain) but about his “loyalty to Olympic
ideals”, about “peace”, “international cooperation”… and
for it he was rewarded with a huge ovation from the gentlemen of the
IOC. That‘s the way fascist dictator Franco became, shoulder to
shoulder with Coubertin, Baillet-Latour, Diem, Hitler, Goebbels,
Mussolini and Brundage, a part of “glorious” Olympic history. It
was enough to speak about Olympic ideals to turn the world’s
biggest criminals into Olympic angels!
The “cunning
chameleon” Juan Antonio Samaranch realized this in time. By
preaching holy Olympic prayers of “peace” and “international
cooperation”, this “hundred per cent Francoist”, as he liked to
call himself among friends, was transformed into a messenger of peace
and welcomed everywhere. After the Olympic Games in Barcelona, the
Spanish King decorated Samaranch with the title of Marquise. It
seemed that fascist Samaranch, after the Barcelona Games, repaid the
debts for his crimes. Citizens of Spain, who lived through the years
of the criminal regime, were not deceived by the “cunning
chameleon”. For them, as with the rest of the freethinking world,
he remained what he always was, a fascist. The “cunning chameleon”
changed his colours but his nature stayed the same.
Interestingly enough,
Samaranch’s official biography, published by the IOC, does not
mention a single word about his long political activity in Spain.
Here is an excerpt from this publication, entitled “The
Olympic movement”, published
in 1984 by IOC:
“Born 1920 in Barcelona.
Industrialist, ex-ambassador of Spain in Moscow. Vice president and president
of National Olympic Committee of Spain between 1955-1970, he was one of the
organizers of second Mediterranean Games in Barcelona in 1955. Entered
IOC in 1966 and was a member of several boards. As member of the executive
committee and vice president he inherits the position of president of
the IOC from lord Killanin in 1980 and has since been in charge of the
Olympic movement.” (40)
In order to deceive
the world public and create himself a new image to suit the position
he was now occupying, Samaranch omitted from his biography that he
was a (fascist) member of the (fascist) parliament (Cortes) of Spain;
member of a (fascist) city council in Barcelona; president of the
(fascist) regional council of Cataluña, and even that he was
appointed minister for sport (by Franco). The IOC propaganda service
was like everything else in the IOC under Samaranch’s control. It
aimed to create a myth about Samaranch: “He is a decent man who has
dedicated his whole life to the Olympic movement” – according to
one of the propaganda pamphlets manufactured at the IOC headquarters
in Lausanne.
The situation is
changing all the more as the obdurate representatives of totalitarian
regimes are being replaced by pragmatic “new boys” who are first
and foremost interested in money. This is logical, for fewer and
fewer national flags and more and more flags of multilateral
companies are flying over the Olympic arenas. The Olympic Games have
become a huge hoarding for advertising multinational companies. In
this context the question arises as to the meaning of the famous
maxim that “sport has nothing to do with politics”. For while
sport was in the hands of bureaucratic clans it was constantly
stressed that “sport must be cleansed of politics”. This was the
sacred formula to solve all problems. Where are those “humanists”
now when the Olympic gentlemen are literally selling the Olympic
Games to capitalist concerns? What has happened to the “struggle
against the manipulation of sport and sportsmen”? Where is their
“freedom-loving” word now? “Freeing sport from politics” is
thus becoming the struggle for the unlimited freedom of capital in
sport.
Today’s Olympic
Games have not only lost legitimacy from the point of view of the
humanistic values upon which the Olympic bosses call, but also from
the point of view of the Coubertin’s Olympic idea. Instead of
national flags, the Olympic Games are becoming increasingly dominated
by the symbols of capitalist companies; instead of “a church”,
the Olympic Games are becoming a “fairgrounds”; instead of “the
elite” of nations and races, participants are becoming “circus
gladiators”; instead of being “educational” (Coubertin’s
religio athletae),
sport is becoming a profit-making business; instead of the “will to
win”, scientific teams, laboratories and medications are becoming
the basic driving force of sport; instead of the sports “elite”
being recruited from the highest strata of society, sport is becoming
the “privilege” of those at the lower end of the social ladder;
instead of a demonstration of the “superiority” of the white
race, “coloured peoples” are becoming dominant in the sports
arenas; instead of “crowning the victors”, women have become the
main “traction force” in beating records; instead of being the
honourable “trustees of the Olympic idea”, Olympic officials have
become unscrupulous merchants who have turned the Olympic Games into
banal show-business…
The present day
Olympic torch, which was first carried by aristocrats and then handed
over to fascists and then to cold-war hawks has ended up in the hands
of Olympic merchants. Those who swear most strongly by Coubertin have
dug the grave for his Olympic idea.
Footnotes
(1)
Pierre de Coubertin, "Olympia",
In: Pierre de Coubertin, The Olympic Idea, Carl
Diem-Institut,
ed. pub. and copy 1967 by Ver. Karl
Hofmann, Schorndorf, Germany.
(2)
Baron Pierre de Coubertin, Olympische Erinnerungen, Wilhelm-Limpert
Verlag, Berlin, 1938. Introduction,
page 6.
(3)
Pierre de Coubertin, "The
Philosophic Foundation of the Modern Olympics",
In: The Olympic Idea, page 130, 131.
(4)
Pierre de Coubertin, "Speech
by Baron de Coubertin at the Close of the Berlin Olympic Games",
Ibidem, page 135, 136.
(5)
From: “Internationale Sportrundschau”,n. 7,1936, p.189. In:
Jean-Marie Brohm, Jeux Olympiques a Berlin, Editions Complexe,
Bruxelles, 1983, p.205,206.
(6)
After Hans Joachim Teichler, "Coubertin
und das Dritte Reich”,
Sportwissenschaft, 1982, 12, page 35, 36.
(7)
Ibidem, page 37.
(8)
Ibidem.
(9)
Richard D. Mandell, The Nazi Olympics, Souvenir Press, London,1972,
page 147.
(10)
Carl Diem, "Olympische
Akademie",
Dortmund, 1961, page 17-20. Carl Diem, Der Olympischen Gedanke,
Carl-Diem-Institut, Köln, 1967, page 127.
(11)
Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, MacMillan, New York, 1970, page
70.
(12)
Arthur Morse, ibidem, page 156, 157.
(13)
Ibidem, page 160.
(14)
Teichler, ibidem, page 43.
(15)
Ibidem.
(16)
Ibidem, page 45.
(17)
Ibidem, page 52.
(18)
Ibidem, page 28.
(19)
Ibidem, page 29.
(20)
Ibidem, page 29.
(21)
Ibidem, page 32, 33.
(22)
Ibidem, Morse, 112.
(23)
Ibidem, page 112.
(24)
Ibidem, page 182.
(25)
Ibidem, page 179.
(26)
After Peter Hein, "The
Politics of Sport and Apartheid",
In: Sport, Culture, Ideology, ed. Jennifer Hargreaves, Rutledge,
London, 1982, page 233.
(27)
Mandell, ibidem, page 236.
(28)
Ibidem.
(29)
Ibidem.
(30)
Speer, Ibidem, page 72, 73.
(31)
Allen Guttmann, The Games Must
Go On, Columbia Uni. Press,
1984, pages 101,265,267. (32)
Ibidem, pages 101, 267.
(33)
Ibidem, page 102, 268.
(34)
Ibidem, page 92, 264.
(35)
Ibidem, page 96.
(36)
Ibidem, page 254.
(37)
Ibidem, page 74.
(38)
Ibidem, page 27.
(39)
Ibidem, page 49.
(40)
Le Comité International Olympique, Lausanne, Suisse, 1984, pp 25.
About the same issue see
also: Jean-Marie Brohm, Jeux Olympiques a Berlin, ed. Complexe,
Bruxelles, 1983; Hajo Bernett, Nationalsozialistische
Leibeserziehung, Karl Hofmann Verlag, Schorndorf bei Suttgart, 1971;
Hajo Bernett, Sportpolitik im Dritten Reich, Karl Hofmann Verlag,
Schorndorf bei, Stuttgart, 1971; Carl Diem, Olympische Flamme,
Utscher Verlag, Berlin, 1942; Carl Diem, Weltgeschichte des Sports,
Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart, 1971; Carl Diem, Der Olympische Gedanke,
Reden und Aufsätze, ed. Carl Diem Institut, Köln, 1967; Berthold
Fellmann, 100 Jahre deutsche Ausgrabung in Olympia, Prestel-Verlag,
München, 1972; Arnd Krüger, Sport und Politik, Fackelträger
Verlag, Hannover, 1975; Karl Adolf Sherer, 100 Jahre Olympische
Spiele, Harenberg, Dortmund, 1995; Judith
Holmes, Olympiaden 1936, Hitlers propagandatriumf, Aldus, Stockholm,
1973;
Peter Hein, "The
Politics of Sport and Apartheid",
In: Sport, Culture, Ideology, ed. Jennifer
Hargreaves, Rutledge, London, 1982.