The Neo-Nazi Olympics

The political memory is notoriously convenient, and nowhere more so than in this town of professional front-runners. To believe the dinner party chatter here is to believe that Richard Nixon was shut out in 1968. Nobody voted for him. Detente, we have learned only in recent weeks, has been the object of universal skepticism these many years. And we now understand that the SALT 11 treaty, despite wildly inaccurate press reports to the contrary, never commanded a single firm, publicly identifiable vote in the U.S. Senate. All quite remarkable. The phenomenon runs so far that we find it difficult to locate anybody who opposed an Olympic boycott … in 1936.

In defiance of what we gather was the opposition of right-thinking men everywhere, those 1936 games did go off as scheduled—the summer games in Berlin and the winter games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, it being the custom in those days for a single nation to host both halves of the Olympiad. As they say, it was the first time in modern Olympic history that the games were held in a totalitarian environment, and the experience was rich with historical lessons. The best summary of those lessons can be found in Richard Mandell’s toughminded book The Nazi Olympics. Written in 1971, before the games were awarded to Moscow, Mandell’s book offers a number of resonant passages.

About the Author

Neal B. Freeman

Neal B. Freeman, businessman and journalist, was a director of National Review Inc. for 38 years.

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The political memory is notoriously convenient, and nowhere more so than in this town of professional front-runners. To believe the dinner party chatter here is to believe that Richard Nixon was shut out in 1968. Nobody voted for him. Detente, we have learned only in recent weeks, has been the object of universal skepticism these many years. And we now understand that the SALT 11 treaty, despite wildly inaccurate press reports to the contrary, never commanded a single firm, publicly identifiable vote in the U.S. Senate. All quite remarkable. The phenomenon runs so far that we find it difficult to locate anybody who opposed an Olympic boycott … in 1936.

In defiance of what we gather was the opposition of right-thinking men everywhere, those 1936 games did go off as scheduled—the summer games in Berlin and the winter games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, it being the custom in those days for a single nation to host both halves of the Olympiad. As they say, it was the first time in modern Olympic history that the games were held in a totalitarian environment, and the experience was rich with historical lessons. The best summary of those lessons can be found in Richard Mandell’s toughminded book The Nazi Olympics. Written in 1971, before the games were awarded to Moscow, Mandell’s book offers a number of resonant passages.