The closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in Berlin

The Olympic Games are a propaganda success for Nazi Germany

The Olympic Committee had awarded the Olympic Games to the Weimar Republic before Germany became a dictatorship. Although the Third Reich considered the Olympic ideal of international understanding to be a “spiritual aberration”, it did not want to miss the opportunity to present itself in a positive light. Accordingly, Propaganda Minister Goebbels ensured that internationally unpopular measures such as the anti-Jewish programme were toned down in the run-up to the Games. Anti-Semitic slogans were taken down and Jews were granted a little respite in their daily lives. Seeking to appease international opinion, the Third Reich assured the world that the Games would be open to people “of all races and religions” and even permitted two “half-Jews” to compete for the German team.

At the opening ceremony held on 1 August, 100,000 spectators watched as international athletes entered the Olympic Stadium with their right arms raised. Later, some argued that the IOC had not adopted the Hitler salute but the similar “Olympic salute”, which was also common practice at the time. At a time when the amateur ethos still prevailed, the Third Reich was unusual in funding its team and was able to knock the USA off the top spot in the medal table. Goebbels exploited this display of German sporting prowess, trumpeting it as proof of the superiority of the “Aryan race”. The Berlin Games set new records in terms of the number of participating athletes, nations, and spectators and was widely agreed to have been a spectacular event. All this was captured in Leni Riefenstahl’s propaganda film Olympia, which ensured that the memory of the 1936 Games would live on.