Propaganda and Reality

3. The Nazi Olympic Games

Read and discuss this excerpt on the impact of the Nazi Olympic Games on the Olympic movement from the website of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum:

“Nazi Germany used the 1936 Olympic Games for propaganda purposes. The Nazis promoted an image of a new, strong, and united Germany while masking the regime’s targeting of Jews and Roma as well as Germany’s growing militarism.

For the first time in the history of the modern Olympic Games, people in the United States and Europe called for a boycott of the Olympics because of what would later become known as human rights abuses. Although the movement ultimately failed, it set an important precedent for future Olympic boycott campaigns (such as those in 2008 and 2014).

Once the boycott movement narrowly failed, Germany had its propaganda coup: the 49 nations who sent teams to the Games legitimized the Hitler regime both in the eyes of the world and of German domestic audiences.”

The Nazi Olympics in Berlin