Hitler's Olympics (28 page)

The moments after the finish of the 100 metres have become arguably the most celebrated myth and misunderstanding in the history of sport. The terrain is so delicate that even fleeting gestures made during those moments
still
carry an enormous potency. What is certain is that Hitler did not invite Owens up to congratulate him: he turned and left the stadium.

Esther Myers, sitting within clear sight of it all, remembered ‘when Hitler and his entourage walked out it was so tense you could hardly breathe. Would it get violent? With him you never could tell. He certainly let us know he didn't approve of that black man having a gold medal.' The journalists, it seems, did not know of Baillet-Latour's stricture to Hitler of the day before and, without knowing it, drew the obvious conclusion: Hitler was delighted to bask in the success of white people but not of blacks.

The
New York Times
reporter kept his steady eye on movements and nuances. He found something disagreeable in the German nationalism ‘and the prejudice that seems to go with it' when Hitler did not receive any of the winners but, he added, journalists investigating what happened yesterday – Hitler's departure, no handshakes for the black high-jumpers – discovered he did greet the German hammer throwers Hein and Blask privately out of sight inside his box.

The
Daily Express
came closer to understanding. ‘Herr Hitler, it was officially stated in Berlin this evening, received none of the victors in today's events …. People in close touch with the Chancellor explain that this is due to his desire to avoid any appearance of discrimination, since it is impossible for him to be at the stadium to receive all the victors. Thus it was that not only the American negro, Jesse Owens, but also the German winners of the hammer throw were not received by Herr Hitler this afternoon.' Not in public, anyway.

As if to endorse this positive gloss on events, in
Jesse Owens, an American Life
William J. Baker writes that Owens thought he saw Hitler smiling and waving at him. ‘Jesse waved back.'

John Woodruff said in a 1987 interview that ‘I do recall seeing Jesse while still on the track waving and exchanging salutes with Hitler in his box.' I asked Woodruff in 2005 to confirm this and he said ‘That's true.'

However, von Schirach, who happened to be in Hitler's box, remembers him saying ‘the Americans should be ashamed of themselves, letting Negroes win their medals for them. I shall not shake hands with this Negro.' Tschammer und Osten, present, evidently pleaded with Hitler to do it if only for the sake of sport.
²⁰

Violet Webb said that at Owens's events ‘we would automatically turn up to the box and look at Hitler to see the expression on his face.'
²¹

Speer recorded how Hitler followed the athletics with ‘great excitement. Each of the German victories – and there were a surprising number of these – made him happy, but he was highly annoyed by the series of triumphs by the marvellous colored American runner, Jesse Owens. People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive, Hitler said with a shrug; their physiques were stronger than those of civilized whites. They represented unfair competition and hence must be excluded from future Games.'
²²

Somehow the incident – whether truth, myth or a mosaic of both – caught the true atmosphere of the Games and captures it still. Hitler's shadow fell across the Games and Owens ran clean out of it.

However, Werner Schwieger – who was present – provides a different perspective. ‘The press really messed things up a lot. The next day's newspapers would only report where the German runner finished. Five days passed before they would finally talk of Jesse Owens. Recently I went to look it up in the old newspapers in an archive in Unter den Linden, where all the newspapers from that time are stored, and it is true.'
²³

And the shadow? Hitler saw as much of the Games as he reasonably could. If he came to the stadium his arrival was signalled by the raising of his own standard at one end of his box and the Olympic flag at the other. Australian high-jumper Doris Carter felt ‘it was very obvious Hitler was preparing for war. We heard that Hitler could travel from the Reich Chancellory to the stadium via a tunnel – we walked through tunnels from the dressing rooms to the arena. All these were prepared for air raid shelters for the Berliners if needed.'
²⁴

American basketball player Francis Johnson remembered that Hitler's visits to the stadium were surrounded by ‘tremendous secrecy. They had ten big, black Mercedes seven-passenger touring cars, and you never knew which one he would be in. He'd be in a different one each day. They had a tunnel under the stadium, and all of these cars went into the tunnel, and from it Hitler could go right up to his box, which had a glass shield built around it. When he left the stadium, people packed both sides of the street just to watch him pass by.'
²⁵

Hitler came to the stadium most days, flashing through the streets in his great Mercedes, and his arrival and departure always dislocated the traffic arrangements for some time. From [the Chancellory] to the stadium the enthusiasm of the crowd was amazing. They lined the streets ten deep to watch him go by. Every afternoon a hundred thousand people who couldn't get inside assembled on the plaza outside the stadium just to get a fleeting glimpse of Hitler as he emerged from the stadium and left in his car.
²⁶

At his appearance the crowd acclaimed him even if, as sometimes happened, he arrived when an event was going on. One reporter noted that he immediately concentrated on the events rather than the crowd and was the first to get to his feet when the flags of the victorious nations were raised on the three huge poles at the far end of the stadium.
²⁷
Naturally he delighted in any German victories and his pleasure was visible then but, overall, it seems a very simple thing. He was enjoying himself.

The second round of the men's 800 metres moved into its preliminary stage, twenty-four runners contesting three heats. The strength of the American team asserted itself. They won all three heats and in the first Woodruff destroyed a competitive field from Poland, Argentina, Hungary, Germany and Austria, even ‘loafing' into the home straight to win by some 20 metres.

A following wind meant records could not be recognised – a pity since in the first women's 100 metres semi-final Stephens did 11.5 seconds, Kathe Krauss of Germany was second in 11.9 seconds, with Albus third. An impression seemed to be growing that Stephens would take the gold or, as the
Daily Express
predicted, ‘is expected to run off with the final'. The ‘clash' between Stephens and Walsh ‘should be one of the outstanding features of the Games'.

Walsh came second in the other semi-final to Marie Dollinger, both at 12.0 seconds. Was Walsh holding back? Was she, as some rumours suggested, carrying an injury?

Football hadn't been included in the Los Angeles Games ‘because of the growing professional influence', making the definition of an amateur elusive and, from 1930, the sport had its own World Cup. In fact, after the 1928 Games the ‘tournament gradually became an outdated concept for the nations of South America and Western Europe'.
²⁸
It returned in Berlin ‘because organisers needed the money' it generated.
²⁹

Eight matches comprised the first round, beginning on Tuesday with Italy
v
. America and Norway
v
. Turkey. A crowd of 7,000 watched Italy lead 1–0 and the German referee send off an Italian, Achille Piccini, for a deliberate foul. The player wouldn't go, the Italians jostled the referee and, intimidated, he let the game continue. The Associated Press said one American ‘suffered torn ligaments in his knee when pushed roughly by Piccini'. Three times the referee ordered Piccini off and three times he stayed. ‘A half dozen Italian players swarmed over the referee, pinning his hands to his sides and clamping hands over his mouth.' Italy won 1–0.

Norway beat Turkey 4–0.

And that was the second day.

It was Black Tuesday, for many obvious reasons, as the changeable weather continued, cloud bringing cool conditions and brief, inconsequential showers.

At 9 a.m., before the track and field programme began in the stadium, six pools of women fencers embarked on their long struggle for the foil medals in the Cupola Hall at the end of the House of German Sport. Helene Mayer, the German
Mischling
lured back from America and proud to be German, was trying to regain the title she'd won at Amsterdam in 1928. She faced Ilona Elek-Schacherer (Hungary), a Jew who at twenty-nine had not competed in a Games before, and Preis (Austria), defending champion from Los Angeles. These three were at the peak of their form, arguably three of the best fencers of modern times, and the competition seethed with undercurrents, not least Mayer's relationship with her team-mates. According to one report the relationship was normal and many of the Olympic team went to her bouts to support her.
³⁰
Certainly ‘some were surprised' to note that Mayer looked so Germanic, ‘with her flaxen hair braided and pulled around her head'.
³¹
Elek-Schacherer, Mayer and Preis won their pools but in the second round that afternoon, while Mayer and Preis won their pools again, Elek-Schacherer came third.

In the stadium Owens, wearing his pullover, wandered across to the runway, ran down it and through the pit following his usual preparations. The red flag went up:
No jump!
– warm-up jumps were not done in Europe. One of his three allowed jumps had gone. His second, over 7.6 metres, looked to have qualified him but the red flag went up again: he had overstepped the board. According to Owens, Luz Long advised him to make a mark 6 inches in front of the board to be safe.

If Long did, in fact, make a helpful suggestion, no-one but Owens heard it. No-one else even observed the two men in conversation at that time. The doyen of American sportswriters, Grantland Rice, was in the press box with binoculars trained on Owens, between his second and third attempts to qualify. Rice was ‘searching for some telltale sign of emotion' in Owens but saw only a calm mask of a face as Jesse walked down the sprint path to the take-off board, retraced his steps, then ‘anteloped' down the path to make his final jump.
³²

Owens did jump from well back and qualified with another 7.6 metres. The first round of the men's 200 metres was going on concurrently and, breaking away from the long jump for the third heat, Owens broke the Olympic record with 21.2 seconds.

That was the last event before lunch and foreign visitors discovered that in Germany rules meant rules. During the daily lunch breaks (competition resuming at 3 p.m.), these visitors thought it would be a nice idea to sit on the May Field grass and have their lunches like picnics.
Verboten!
The police enforced that very firmly: the grass, recently planted, had not had time to thicken.

Owens faced a taut afternoon. The sun out, the 200-metre runners prepared for their second round. Immediately, Canadian Lee Orr ran 21.2 seconds, equalling the Olympic record. Owens, in the third heat, did 21.1.

He could relax for a few minutes before the long jump semi-finals.

Stephens faced a taut afternoon, too, because the women's discus and 100 metres final overlapped. The
Daily Express
, describing her as ‘a strapping girl who in appearance is more masculine than feminine', noted that the women's discus took the whole afternoon and the Olympic record was ‘beaten so often that even the officials lost count'.

Preparing for one throw, Stephens saw Walsh digging starting holes for the 100 and suddenly felt very nervous, unable to concentrate properly on the throw. Then she walked over to the 100.
³³
A shower peppered the stadium but a cold, strong wind dropped as she dug her holes. From the inside: Marie Dollinger, Rogers of the USA, Albus, Stephens, Krauss, Walsh. Stephens made a poor start but her fearsome strength and powerful striding overwhelmed the others by half distance. The
Volkischer Beobachter
newspaper wrote breathlessly, ‘these legs are developed like no other runners. Against her speed our German women Krauss and Dollinger are powerless.' Stephens hammered the world and Olympic records with 11.5 seconds – Walsh at 11.7, Krauss 11.9 – but what time had she actually run?

She would remember ‘some people there timing it by hand, and they claimed that I ran that thing in anywhere from 11.1 [seconds] up. Some said 11.3. There was quite a debate. My Olympic coach was there when they decided to set that record … afterward. They just didn't feel it was possible for anyone to run that fast and cut the record down that much. Stella Walsh's time had been 11.9 in 1932. My time probably should have been better than 11.5. You got to realise that I was strong! I was really strong, and I had a nine-foot stride.'
³⁴

Stephens and Walsh shook hands. Stephens, on the podium, felt pride but nerves as well and they were so bad she thought her feet were moving convulsively.
³⁵
The
New York Times
reported that Hitler received and congratulated her, which would be unremarkable except that after the delicate problems of the first day Hitler wasn't supposed to be meeting or congratulating any gold medal winners. The meeting was in private. According to her biographer, who has re-created the episode in detail, Hitler sent an aide to bring her to him.
³⁶
The aide, complete with Hitler-style moustache, spoke broken English. He indicated that she had to follow him. She explained that apart from anything else she had a radio interview to do with CBS. The aide seems to have been aghast that anyone would not obey a direct summons from the Führer.