Olympics - Part 3

 1936 Berlin

The 1936 Olympics were held in Berlin and later became known as the Nazi Olympics.  Above is the official poster, showing a view of Berlin's Brandenburg Gate.

Here's part of the opening sequence of Leni Riefenstahl's film Olympia documenting the 1936 Olympics.  In this sequence, a statue of a nude discus thrower has morphed into the German decathlete Erwin Huber preparing to throw the discus.  Huber is totally naked, including a brief frontal glimpse.

Olympia was technically brilliant, and it appears on many lists of the greatest films of all time.  Nevertheless, it was also brilliant Nazi propaganda celebrating the greatness of Germany.

This statue, Faustkämpfer (Boxer), was made for the Olympic grounds by sculptor Josef Thorak, with German world heavyweight boxing champion Max Schmeling as his model.

Schmeling himself could not compete in the 1936 Olympics because he was a professional fighter.  At the time, only amateur athletes were allowed to compete in the Olympics, not professionals.  Since then, many Olympic sports have been opened to professional athletes, including boxing in 2016.

This statue, Zehnkämpfer (Decathlete) was made by sculptor Arno Breker and won a silver medal in sculpture in the Olympic art competition.  22-year-old decathlete Gustav Stührk was the model for this statue, but he did not compete in the 1936 Olympics.

We previously saw German fencer Erwin Casmir in the 1928 Olympics.  He also won two bronze medals in the 1936 Olympics, and here's a different photo of him.

The Japanese athletes took team baths in Berlin as they would at home.

In addition to the athletic competitions, there was an art exhibit by Jay Stowitts showing 55 of his paintings depicting American male athletes in the nude, which caused a sensation among attendees.

Here's Stowitts with two of the paintings in the background.  While he was in Berlin, Stowitts assisted Leni Riefenstahl in making her film Olympia.  Due to her fame and influence, Riefenstahl was able to protect Stowitts from Nazi persecution which he otherwise would have encountered because he was gay.

Above, Stowitts' painting of tennis player Bobby Riggs.  If you only know Riggs from his 1973 "Battle of the Sexes" challenge against Billie Jean King, which he lost (he was 55 years old and retired), you might be interested to know that in his prime, he was the #1 tennis amateur in the world in 1939 and the #1 tennis professional in the world in 1946 and 1947.

In 1936, Riggs did not play in the Berlin Olympics.  He was only 18 years old, but he was already ranked the fourth best men's tennis player in the U.S.

Wrestlers Briggs Hunt and William Golden.  Neither were in the 1936 Olympics.  27-year-old Hunt was the national AAU lightweight wrestling champion and a shoo-in to make the Olympic team, but two weeks before the Olympic trials, he was shot in the back in a hunting accident.  He recovered and was a wrestling coach at UCLA for many years, finally making it to the Olympics in 1956 as a referee.

Diver Frank Kurtz, above, was in the 1932 Olympics, in which he won a bronze medal, and the 1936 Olympics.

Stowitt's portrait of Woody Strode was also used on the poster for the exhibit that we saw earlier.  Strode was a decathlete at UCLA, but he was not on the U.S. Olympic team in 1936.  He later became a football player for the LA Rams and then went on to a career in acting, appearing in dozens of films.

However, as a black man, he was not welcome in Nazi Germany.  Because Stowitts' art show featured some black and Jewish athletes, the Nazis closed the exhibit.

Next time: Olympic Games 1948 to 1952.