Hitler's Olympics (29 page)

She and her coach went to the broadcast room and when they emerged the aide hovered urgently. He took them to Hitler's room, situated behind his box. Hitler came with bodyguards and she had her photograph taken with him. She asked for his autograph and he signed her book. (There is a suggestion that he made a pass at her, which is amusing in view of her sexual preferences and, as it would seem, his lifelong lack of any sexual activity.)

Stephens returned to the discus and elimination.

Gisela Mauermayer threw 47.63 metres for the gold, comfortably a new Olympic record.

The men's long jump semi-finals beckoned to Owens. The ground was dry, the wind in their faces, and Owens and Long went head to head. Of their six jumps only Long's first did not beat the Olympic record of 7.73 metres set by the American Edward Hamm at Amsterdam in 1928 and all three by Owens did, the second becoming the new record.

The Japanese Naoto Tajima broke the old record, too (7.74) and the Italian Arturo Maffei equalled it. The wind plagued them all, preventing ratification – this wind which pursued Owens so relentlessly. He rested again before the final at 5.45 p.m.

Glenn Hardin and Joe Patterson, both Americans, had won the 400-metre hurdle semi-finals and now Hardin won the final from John Loaring of Windsor, Ontario, Patterson coming a disappointing fourth.

Of the five long jump finalists only Owens and Long were in serious contention. Hitler, in uniform and cap, watched intently from his box.

Long waited at the end of his run, concentrated, launched himself, hair lapping and flapping. He had lengthening strides and he compressed all his urgency into them. His legs made three rotating motions as if to force him further and he landed so violently he dug up a sandstorm from the pit.

7.87, equalling Owens in the semi-final

As the result boomed over the tannoys the whole stadium erupted and a member of the German team lifted Long bodily off the ground. Reports speak of frenzy and ecstacy, of Hitler smiling as if to say, ‘
Now beat that, black man
'.

The greatest champions know, when their moment has come, what to do. Owens, fluid, languid, loose, could make his body a catapult as he faced the runway stretching to the pit; could force it into a stride pattern that swallowed the runway in a gathering momentum which, after the last stride, pitched him far, far into the air.

7.94 metres

It brought a terrible pressure to bear on Long, who faced his third jump and his great moment – and he got a red flag. That gave the gold to Owens, who still had his third and final jump. He moved loosely to his mark, stooped and made a short sequence of unconscious gestures, touching his hips, touching his nose, rubbing his hands lightly down his flanks. He lowered his arms, rocked easily to and fro until he had created an impetus for motion. Then he exploded down the runway and, rather than rotate his legs in mid-air, made his body into a dart. Someone said it was as if he was trying to jump clean out of Germany. He landed with such impact that the force pitched him into the air again, causing him to dive forward.

8.06 metres

His record would stand unbeaten until the Rome Olympics, 1960; more than a quarter of a century later.

Long was the first to congratulate him and there can be no doubt of his spontaneity or sincerity. They walked along the track arm in arm in full view of Hitler who would congratulate Long, but in private.
³⁷

The 800 metres produced a wondrous race. Woodruff had won the Randall's Island trials and was now told to go out and break the field. Instead, with sunshine leaking through the cloud, the pack swallowed him. Phil Edwards, a Montreal doctor born in Guyana (British Guiana), led but ran slowly, conserving his energy. Woodruff was, he'd confess, ‘just a young, novice runner and pretty soon they had me boxed in. I couldn't get out.' Because of the length of his stride, breaking out would almost certainly involve fouling somebody and disqualification.

After some 300 metres he found himself ejected through the back of the pack or, as he put it, slowed down so much he almost stopped.
³⁸
He loped along alone and last, almost disorientated, until like a great windmill he got his long legs pumping – the 9-foot stride – and came round the outside in a great arc. Edwards still led but suddenly Woodruff appeared at his shoulder, kept on coming and went past. Edwards reacted, overtook him again but Woodruff's lope looked unforced. He tracked Edwards and they ran abreast, Woodruff on the outside again.

Emerging from the final bend, their feet digging cinders, Woodruff lengthened his stride and won it from Italian Mario Lanzi, with Edwards third. Woodruff wondered how far he had actually run by going the long way round at least twice.

The podium reflected the politics. Woodruff stood immobile, Lanza to his left giving the Nazi salute, Edwards giving something like the Nazi salute.

In the 5,000 metres heats Finland's Gunnar Höckert and Lauri Lehtinen won nicely enough, suggesting Friday's final would be that shape, too.

It was a long day for the women fencers contesting the semi-finals because they began at 8 p.m. that evening, Preis in one, Mayer and Elek-Schacherer meeting for the first time in the other. Preis finished in second place in hers before all eyes turned towards the tall, classical Mayer and the strategist Elek-Schacherer.
³⁹
Mayer managed only 1 hit, Elek-Schacherer 5, although after all their bouts both were easily through to the final the following day.

Owens went to Long's room to thank him for what he'd done and they had a two-hour conversation, or rather as much of a conversation as could be sustained by Long's English. They found they were both the same age, had similar backgrounds and faced problematical futures when they stopped competing.

Many years later Owens reached for a handful of words to explain this most improbable of friendships. He and Long were ‘simply two uncertain young men in an uncertain world'.
⁴⁰

In the football, Japan beat Sweden 3–2 and Germany beat Luxembourg 9–0.

And that was the third day.

Notes

 
1
.
 
Werner Schwieger; interview with Birgit Kubisch.

 
2
.
 
Velma Dunn; interview with author.

 
3
.
 
The XIth Olympic Games, Berlin, 1936 Official Report.

 
4
.
 
Ibid
.

 
5
.
 
Ibid
.

 
6
.
 
Ibid
.

 
7
.
 
Ibid
.

 
8
.
 
Daily Express
, 3 August 1936.

 
9
.
 
Ibid
.

10
.
 
www.fay-west.com/connellsville/historic/woodruff.php
(visited 13 August 2005).

11
.
 
New York Times
, 3 August 1936.

12
.
 
Daily Express
, 3 August 1936.

13
.
 
New York Times
, 3 August 1936.

14
.
 
Stan Greenberg,
Olympic Fact Book
(Enfield, Guinness Publishing, 1991), p. 39.

15
.
 
Sharon Kinney Hanson,
The Fulton Flash
(Carbondale, IL, Southern Illinois University Press, 2004).

16
.
 
Lewis H. Carlson and John J. Fogarty,
Tales of Gold
(Chicago, IL, Contemporary Books, 1987), p. 139.

17
.
 
Stephanie Daniels and Anita Tedder, ‘
A Proper Spectacle
' –
Women Olympians 1900–1936
(Houghton Conquest, Beds., ZeNaNa Press, 2000), p. 117. Brown is clearly being discreet, hence the six asterisks. The other runners in the heat were Krauss, Meagher, Romani´c of Romania and Testoni. Only two of these surnames have six letters….

18
.
 
William J. Baker,
Jesse Owens, An American Life
(New York, The Free Press, 1986), p. 93.

19
.
 
Hanson,
The Fulton Flash
.

20
.
 
Duff Hart-Davis,
Hitler's Games
(London, Century Hutchinson, 1986), p. 177.

21
.
 
Daniels and Tedder, ‘
A Proper Spectacle
', p. 112.

22
.
 
Albert Speer,
Inside the Third Reich
(London, Sphere, 1979), p. 119.

23
.
 
Werner Schwieger; interview with Birgit Kubisch.

24
.
 
Daniels and Tedder, ‘
A Proper Spectacle
', p. 102.

25
.
 
Carlson and Fogarty,
Tales of Gold
, p. 187.

26
.
 
Canada at the XI Olympiad 1936 Germany
.

27
.
 
New York Times
, 13 August 1936.

28
.
 
Guy Oliver,
World Soccer
, 2nd edn (Enfield, Guinness Publishing, 1995), p. 85.

29
.
 
www.fifa.com/en/comp/olympicsmen/0,3664,114-OLY-1936,00.html
(visited 16 August 2005).

30
.
 
Milly Mogulof,
Foiled
(Oakland, CA, RDR Books, 2002), p. 155.

31
.
 
Ibid
, p. 157.

32
.
 
Baker,
Jesse Owens
, pp. 97–8.

33
.
 
Hanson,
The Fulton Flash
.

34
.
 
Carlson and Fogarty,
Tales of Gold
, p. 139.

35
.
 
Hanson,
The Fulton Flash
.

36
.
 
Ibid
.

37
.
 
New York Times
, 4 August 1936.

38
.
 
Carlson and Fogarty,
Tales of Gold
, p. 183.

39
.
 
Mogulof,
Foiled
, p. 157.

40
.
 
Baker,
Jesse Owens
, p. 98.

When I got to the window, I could see young people with shovels held like rifles over their shoulders. I learned that they were Hitler Youth. When we went shopping we were greeted with ‘
Guten Morgen, Heil Hitler
.’ We replied ‘
Guten Morgen, King George!
’

British high-jumper Dorothy Odam

O
n the Wednesday the Olympic gaze turned briefly from Berlin to New Orleans. In July the IOC had voted to drop Lee Jahncke, the leading campaigner for the American boycott – officially because he missed two consecutive IOC meetings – and voted Brundage in to replace him. Now Jahncke responded publicly. He derided the reason and said that a strong letter he wrote to Baillet-Latour, explaining why he pressed for a boycott, had never been published although Baillet-Latour had responded, ‘ripping me up the back’.

Brundage liked power.

In Berlin, rumours – it’s not clear who started them, maybe the Polish press, Walsh’s coach or even Polish Olympic Committee members – insinuated that Helen Stephens was a man. Shown translations of stories in the Polish press, she responded by saying anyone in doubt should go talk to the physician who had carried out sex tests on the whole team before they sailed.

Stereotypes that female athletes had masculine and less attractive qualities occasionally permeated reporting. A journalist in
Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung
, for instance, observed that ‘Amazons’ entered the stadium just before the start of the women’s 100m. In particular, the press scrutinised … Stephens … for signs of masculinity. The
Völkischer Beobachter
related that some people said Stephens ran like a man. The reporter concurred with the opinion, writing, ‘they were not incorrect making this claim.’ The article noted that Stephens’ time … was faster than any German man’s time in the same event for a stretch of twenty-five years. Moreover, Stephens’ appearance left an impression on the reporter. He wrote how she towered over her competitors and had very developed muscles. Likewise, a female journalist from
Die Frau
argued that although most of the sportswomen did not show signs of masculinity, Stephens was an exception. She asserted that Stephens must carry stronger ‘masculine hereditary factors’ than most women.
¹

‘In those days,’ Dorothy Odam recalled, ‘men were more important than women in every walk of life. The women took second place and therefore you toddled along behind. There was a special village for the men but we were in a women’s PT [physical training] college and never allowed in the men’s Village. The only time we met them was at the communal training area, but I quite often thought I heard a man’s voice behind me, only to find it was a woman! We didn’t have sex tests in those days.’
²
By that she meant sex tests were not universal although any country could, as the Americans had done, carry them out and anyway the very strange Stephens–Walsh story had another whole chapter waiting to be written.