Behind the Bastards - Part Two: How Avery Brundage Gave Hitler an Olympics

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

Robert and Matt discuss how Avery Brundage and the Olympic Committee killed the attempt at an Olympics boycott and handed Hitler a major win.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

CAUSOR MEDIA Yes, I don't know. I mean, I guess it depends on what you consider to be murder. Like, I don't really think it was murder because, you know, I was I was pretty wasted. So like, I feel like that is a mitigating factor. Oh, my God, we're recording. Yeah. Hey, sorry. This was a podcast.

Well, this was not a podcast. I didn't realize we were recording I was just talking to Matt Lieb about our weekend on Sesame Street Yeah, mine was also good on Sesame Street and yes, you know on Sesame Street. Yes Legal analysts are split on whether or not the the Sesame Street weekend we had was legal or not Yeah, yeah, and it's I think what's most important to note is that Big Bird is up in a farm in the country now and he's doing great. He's fine. He's fine. He's good.

Now he should look into like the will that that is totally legitimate that will be found in this house. Anyway, Matt, we're still in our Burton Ernie bed reading bedtime story, a-hour bedtime story Wait I have an important question this and I feel like Matt would give a Fantastic answer this question which fictional TV character would you let defend you in court? Oh God, I mean the obvious one is foghorn leghorn because he already sounds like a rooster lawyer. But if I had to go

Does it have to be a cartoon? No, no, no, no, I think I think it just fictional. So just You know from from either shows that you I mean you could pot yourself the gun or pod yourself the wire Shows that you I mean you could pod yourself the gun or pod yourself the wire Where are you? No, I think I already chose popcorn leghorn But if I had to choose someone from you know live-action television show I don't know. I feel like fucking I think the good doctor would be pretty good at it. Okay. Okay. See me. I'm picking my cousin Vinny Okay, okay. See me. I'm picking my cousin Vinnie

Because I would like to meet Marissa tome He will get me out the cat Out of this murder rap that I shouldn't catch for whatever happened to Big Bird Which I'm doesn't matter what happened to Big Bird the point is is you know we're gonna be fine We're gonna be fine big bird is still alive I do kind of want to see I Mean this is adjacent to Sesame Street sure, but I do feel like right after my cousin Vinny they could have done a sequel, but where the rest of the cast are Muppets and Hmm that would have been a great movie. They could have done that for a lot of things

I feel like the original could have had Muppets in it and it worked out pretty well There's not really many movies out there that couldn't also work being a combination Live-action Muppet movie, you know, I just Godfather Fuckin the pianist sure. Oh, yeah, definitely the pianist captain Corelli's mandolin for sure I mean it just works. Mm-hmm. So that's the cold open, everybody. We're going to talk more about Avery Brundage when we get back. From KT Studios, the number one podcast, The Idaho Massacre is back. The new developments and the unib the University of Idaho murder case. It was an unimaginable crime.

One house, four victims, only one accused. If this is true, then this guy is the real-life Dexter. Listen to season two of the Idaho Massacre on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts? The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Since it was established in 1861, there have been 3,517 people awarded with the medal. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, and our new podcast from Bushkin Industries and iHeart Media is

about those heroes, what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Jordan Gonsalves, and I'm a journalist. Join me on my new podcast, But We Loved, where queer elders recount the amazing history they've lived through.

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You can listen to What We Loved on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1980, while El Salvador sat on the brink of war, one man held together the fragile peace, Archbishop Oscar Romero. He was brutally assassinated in front of dozens of his loyal followers. His death marked the start of a civil war that left more than 75,000 people dead and a million more displaced around the world. My family includes both those that fled and those that died. Listen to Sacred Scandal Nation of Saints on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, girlfriends. It's me, Carol Fisher, back with another season of the global number one podcast, The Girlfriends. Last time we investigated the murder of Gail Katz. This time, we're uncovering the identity of the woman who was buried in Gail's grave for a decade before she disappeared. And we're back. So if Pierre de Coubertin was the Jesus Christ of the Olympics and he kind of was, Henri de Ballet-le-Tour was the apostle Paul.

We mentioned him in the last episode. This is kind of the guy, Coubertin, when he gets too old, Henri is the dude who kind of follows him as the king of the Olympics, you might say. That's not what they call it, but that's what I'm going to call it. Because Henri de Ballet-Lautour was a Belgian aristocrat. His father was a count and former governor of Antwerp, which of all the parts of Belgium is certainly one of them. He had been elected de Coubertin's successor as president of the Olympics in 1925.

And as the 1930s dawned, his primary claim to fame was that in 1928 he had tried to ban women from the Olympics in 1925 and as the 1930s dawned his primary claim to fame was that in 1928 he had tried to ban women from the Olympics. Hell yeah. So that's, that's ballet l'ature. Things are too easy for broads in 1928. Yeah, no, there's gonna be men only from 1928 onward. All dudes. I just want to see men in tight spandex dancing dancing

I would like to see a man do what Simone Biles does Yeah, listen sure why not literally can't cuz she is one of one. Thank you so much Okay, but if I try hard enough, right I could probably do those flips Yeah, that is the what I saw the first time I met you is you have a real Simone Biles energy to the way that you hold a microphone. I'm limber and I'm fun. That's right, that's right. And much too tall.

You know who's not limber or fun was Henri de Ballet-Lautour. Cool. Now, I learned he was a piece of shit from the book Berlin Games by Guy Walters But whenever I learned some very prominent and respected guy was actually a scumbag I like to take a glance at their wiki just to see if they're like any funny examples of editors They are trying to diplomatically describe how much a dude sucks

Presumably while battling the horde of bots that today's International Olympic Committee commands to whitewash their history and sure enough when I went to honorees wiki I found this as today's International Olympic Committee commands to whitewash their history. And sure enough, when I went to Henri's Wiki, I found this. As IOC president, he focused on preserving the traditional ideals and integrity of the Olympics and supporting amateur sport globally during a time of increasing political and commercial pressures.

Despite his antipathy towards Jews, it is designed to exclude women from participating in the Olympics. Oh, boy. Feels like a buried lead there. It's Jews and is designed to exclude women from participating in the Olympics. Oh boy. Feels like a buried lead there. Yeah, yeah. Is that not the name of the subsection? Antipathy, huh?

Yeah. Well, this does give me an opportunity to use my Net and Yahoo soundboard that I just invented. You're good. All right, there we go. And here's another one. Crazy Jews. Crazy Jews.

That's going to be popular. So since Balaie Latour was a raging anti-Semite, that's what, I mean, I think we can all do that in our heads. You hear someone described as having antipathy towards Jews. That's the most racist man you've ever heard of. Although not in this case, because Hitler is also a part of our story. Yeah, he's around at the same time, you know, so Because belay latour he is going to push back on some of Hitler's Discrimination against Jewish athletes he gets more credit that he deserves because he is at no point

Is he doing it because it's really wrong right doing it because like well I know I should do this because the Olympics is supposed to be for everyone. And I kind of hate these people, but all like, I have to demand that they at least pretend not to be racist, the Nazis, against these people that I also hate. Yeah, yes. We have to put on a good face, you know?

It's like, you need to wear a mask if you're gonna hate Jews. Come on, Hitler. Right, right. And the problem for Belay Latour, who's again, he's president of the IOC, which is the international committee. Avery Brundage is for most of his period, he's president, and then like a leading official in the AOC,

which is the American Olympic committee, right? So Brundage is like a local Olympic leader, and Balaise Latour is running the whole shebang, right? And so Balaise Latour, Brundage desperately wants to be on the IOC, and he is eventually going to get on it and later will be president of the IOC. And he's looking, he has to kind of, he has to make Ballet Latour happy in order to be able to make that jump, right?

So this is like, from a career point of view, what's going on here. And the problem for both Ballet Latour and Brundage is that as soon as the Nazis get into power, they start banning Jewish athletes from joining sporting organizations, from using the same sporting facilities as Aryan athletes. And this, they don't like directly say Jews can't be in the Olympics, but because they have made it impossible for Jewish people to be a part of any of the things that funnel people into the Olympics, right? So it's a de facto ban, right?

I think there is eventually like a straight up ban, but it starts as just sort of like, well, we have now made it impossible for this to happen. Avery Brundage, again, also sees this as a problem, but he's also very racist. So they're both in this position of like, well, we have this kind of messianic belief in the Olympics and everyone should be capable of being in the Olympics.

So we don't like that you've made this impossible, but we also basically agree with why you hate the Jews. Right? Like, that's, we do think they run an international conspiracy. We're very racist, you know? Listen, listen, I get where you're coming from with the whole Jews thing, but I'm just saying, you know,

it's a- But that's not reason to ban them. Yeah, I'm trying to square that with letting everyone compete in sport. And it's a tricky one. It's hard. It's such an interesting, cause there's a lot of these kinds, you even run, when you read through like wartime memoirs

of like Americans, there's a lot of like, like Patton, pretty racist against Jewish people. And then like the Holocaust becomes clear. And there are a number of folks who were like, oh, I guess I'm not that kind of racist. I learned something about me through this whole experience. And isn't that what war is all about? Right, yeah, learning that you're not as bad as others.

Yeah. So the Nazis being Nazis, spark anger across the rest of the world with a chaotic series of aggressive Olympic related spasms pretty much as soon as they're in charge. Now this goes in a number of different directions. First off, they're just kind of like, we don't even want to host the games. If you guys are going to be dicks about this whole us oppressing Jewish people thing. And then they're like, yeah.

If you guys are going to be rude about our our belief system about how Jews are vermin, then I don't even think we wanna do this shit. Yeah. The other thing they do, so the guy who's the president of the German Olympic Committee, so he's like the German Avery Brundage, is a guy named Theodor Lewald,

and he's like half Jewish, right? And so they try to fire him, and the IOC is like, well, you can't, right? Like, then we definitely will. And so like, he's like half Jewish, right? And so they try to fire him and the IOC is like, well, you can't, right? Like then we definitely will. And so like, he's going to be leveled is like in such an awkward position where he is part Jewish, he is actively discriminated on

and in this entire pre and during the Olympics period, he is also the head of the German Olympic Committee still. And it's one of those like, I definitely know, there were definitely people at the time, Jewish refugees and stuff, who attacked him for being a traitor. I also, well, I don't know, man, what happens to your family if you are that publicly?

Like, I'm not gonna, I don't have it in me to judge people in that situation, right? Yeah, yeah, it's a bit tricky if you're a German Jew at this time. Yeah. You're like, maybe we can like, reason with him? Yeah, yeah. I just don't have it in me to come down on the guy, but it's important to understand that context

and understand that there are a lot of people who consider him a traitor, right? The Nazis banned Jewish athletes from competing, from using public training facilities, and from holding membership in any of the sporting organizations that funnel competitors up to the Olympics. This sparks outrage in the United States. In the US, we're really interested in, it's interesting in this period because we are as racist as we have ever been in the 1930s, but anytime somebody comes straight out and

makes their politics at a national level, you can get away with that at a local level in the South especially, but if you come out at a national level and you make your politics be about racial exclusion, Americans don't generally like that, right? But I think in large part, not because we're any less racist than anyone else,

but because it conflicts with the idea Americans have of themselves, and that offends them, right? Of one day not being racist or the idea Americans have of themselves. Yeah. And that offends them, right? Of one day not being racist or the idea that like, no, we're not actually racist. Cause on a national level, we're really, really polite about segregation.

As we're going to get into, one of the awkward things about this is that a lot of, some of the people who reject the boycott campaign in the U S are black American athletes. And they have a really good point, right? Cause they're like, well, but we have like a lot of the same laws, like I can't play in most of the same facilities

that like the people running the Olympics play in. Like, so why, why am I pissed about Germany in particular, right? And it's like, well, yeah, I mean, from the position of like, yeah, you're a black boxer in like 1935 or whatever. I understand that argument. I certainly can't, it's kind of like, yeah, you're a black boxer in like 1935 or whatever. I understand that argument. I certainly can't, it's kind of like you get with black strike breakers during like the cold wars

where it's like, well, they wouldn't let you be part of the union, like what are you supposed to do? Like you got a family to feed, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I guess in this case, you're legally not allowed to feed your family by being good at sports. So there is that difference. So there's a boycott campaign that starts to consolidate around the 1936 games as Carolyn

Marvin lays out in an article for the Journal of American Studies. Telegrams, phone calls, and letters demanding an official American reaction besieged Brundage as the president of the AOC, and he released a statement giving his personal but unofficial opinion that the IOC would not permit the games to be held wherever there might be interference with the fundamental Olympic theory of equality of all races. To Brundage's irritation, this was reported as an official challenge to German Olympic Committee policy. He had only meant to reassure the American public upon whose goodwill Olympic activities depended. He explained in a letter to the nervous Dr. Lewald facing problems of his own and fearing the defection of the large and

prestigious American team. So he talks when he really shouldn't have, uh, and it causes problems for leveled over in Germany and, you know, levels again in a very tough position. Now, back in 1930, before the Nazis were in charge, the American Olympic committee had sent a guy named Gustavus Kirby to observe construction efforts for the stadium to make sure that the plans for the 36 Olympics were going, according to plan. And he was the first guy that Ballet Latour had brundage trot out to fight back against fears that the Nazis might have plans to do some racial violence and thus weren't fitting Olympic hosts. They were also worried, are they gonna start another war, right?

Is there gonna be a big European war and so his job by way of defending the Olympics Kirby has to like argue that Germany is never going to do another war And here's what here's what Kirby writes the German psychology is not that of deception The World War was not only in their hearts But also on their lips before it was precipitated, and that if the rest of the world were blind, it certainly was not because Germany had for years been boasting, and therefore if the present activity were being directed toward a warlike end, we would certainly hear of it and know of it.

Yeah, I think we know if Germany had some sort of ambitions towards a war. Yeah. Oh God, talk about whiffing it. Yeah. Ooh. Oh, beautiful stuff. So somehow this failed to reassure anybody. Belay Latour, president of the Olympics, got involved

and he wrote Avery Brundage a letter saying, I am not personally fond of Jews and of the Jewish influence, but I will not have them molested in no way whatsoever. I love the middle ground of this where they're just like, listen, I'm no fan of the international Jew. Right? I think we can all agree with that. Of course, the Nazis are right about everything except their laws.

Yeah, except the whole part where they're molesting them. All right. Let's not molest. It's so funny. I mean, it's not like this is one of the worst things that ever happened in history. And it keeps being repeated in various forms down through the ages. But it's very funny whenever you read how people like

talked about this, like the attempts to like, we would know if the Germans wanted war. It's like that Simpsons line, no one who's German could be a bad man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So Belay Latour urges Brundage to find a way to apply pressure to the Germans while also acknowledging that the Jews quote, shout before there is reason to do so. Oh shut the fuck up. They always, they're just, they're just, the good part and then it's just like, and I acknowledge again, that the Jew cries out in pain

before he strikes you. I acknowledge this. Yeah, yeah. We've got to put pressure on the Nazis, but also I'm really bad. Like, let me be clear about this. I suck so hard. No, I'm just as evil as you guys

Don't get me wrong, you know white power. I just don't want to do anything about it I just want to get angry on reddit about it. You know, that's me. I Got like 1488 my fucking Twitter handle everything So both Brundage and belay Latour did strongly disagree with the fact that the Nazis had banned Jews from and Belay Latour did strongly disagree with the fact that the Nazis had banned Jews from qualifying to compete in the Olympics. And again, this isn't because of any particular respect for human rights, but more because of their religious faith

in the Olympics as a concept, right? The only people you can exclude are professional athletes because they're fundamentally bad people for making money. Exactly, yeah, yeah. They're destroying sport by feeding their families with it. It is a fascinating set of moral lines these people draw. So the American Olympic Committee voted to boycott the games if Germany didn't reverse course,

and Brundage supported the resolution initially, and it passes easily because again, Americans don't like being seen as racist, right? Had the story ended there, Brundage probably would never have made behind the bastards. He would have been yet another guy in the 20s who had some shitty opinions, but ultimately did the right thing, right?

Supporting the boycott, I would argue, was the right thing to do. Sure, yeah. But the IOC was very unhappy with this situation because every person in the IOC is a wealthy aristocrat, or at least rich in the case of the Americans, and they all thought the Nazis were actually pretty cool. They're all like, no, I think they're on to something.

There's one guy who doesn't suck in the fancy boys Olympic club and it's Commodore Ernest Yankee, like JHNCKE, who is the former assistant secretary of the Navy. So there's another guy, a general, General Sherrill, who's on the Olympic committee, who does suck and is basically a Nazi. But Commodore Johnkey is like, and I'm not saying he's like woke by whatever standards people use today, but he's like, the Nazis are bad

and we shouldn't humor Hitler with an Olympics, right? Like he wants this and we shouldn't give Hitler the things that he wants, right? Love it, yeah. Yeah, his colleagues want him out as a result of this. Now they will eventually force him out. They can't do it right away. There's like, you gotta have,

you gotta basically have a whole vote. He's gotta do like some emperor Palpatine, Star Wars prequels, politic shit to make this happen, right? Right, right. Balaise Latour is gonna be a big part of that. So while they're waiting to be able to force him out, Balaise Latour promises Brundage, hey, this guy, he's either gonna resign,

or one of these days, one way or another, he will be out in the near future. And if you fix this boycott situation, his seat will go to you, right? And that's the thing Avery Brundage is always wanting in his whole life. That's all he wants, advancement. That's what he craves.

Yes. And we all crave advancement, and really the only way to advance is to buy the products sponsored on the show. A lot of people don't know this actually, but one of the products sold on the show is a seat on the IOC. What is it? If we get enough listeners on the IOC,

we can make my old hometown of Ida Bell, Oklahoma be the site of the new Olympics. And I just think that would be kind of funny. That would be sick. That would be dope. North Korea marching through the streets of Ida Bell. Let's do it, guys. I do kind of feel like they're going to run actual Olympic ads on our shows during the games. I do kind of feel like NBC or whoever the fuck owns the streaming rights.

Hell, yeah. I'll take their money. I'll take their money and I will make them do the NBC or whoever the fuck owns the streaming rights. Hell yeah. I'll take their money. I'll take their money and I will make them do the discus on the cow farm where I grew up. Anyway, here's here's some ads. From KT Studios, the number one podcast, the Idaho Massacre is back. The new developments in the Idaho Massacre is back. The new developments in the University of Idaho murder case.

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and the vice president wished. With the two men looking benevolently on Germany, Brundage decided that he would change his opinion to coincide with theirs. It was nothing more than toadying. From this moment on, Brundage would do everything in his power to ensure that his masters were satisfied. And the best way he could do that

was to ensure American participation at Berlin. had Brundage not been so personally ambitious Then a boycott would have been if not inevitable certainly more likely Nevertheless the road to Berlin was long and it was to be heavy going Brundage's first task was to go to Germany at the behest of the American Olympic Association a decision that had been taken in February So he's gonna go to Germany and he's gonna be assured. He's gonna take a little tour. Yeah. Everything in Germany is all good.

Everyone is chill and don't worry about any future wars. That's just Jewish propaganda. Right, right. Our streets are filled with marching soldiers. Don't worry about it. No, they're just, we just like doing Right right our streets are filled with marching soldiers. Don't worry about no They just we just like doing fucking heel-to-toe walking. Yeah, okay like we like uniforms who doesn't race walking Okay, it's walking just like you different kind of race walking

It's a master race walking, but it's yeah into it. We just like you bro We're just like you, bro. We're just like you guys. It was obvious from the jump that Brundage would approve entirely of the German efforts. Before he left, he wrote this in an article for Olympic News. The German committee is making every effort to provide the finest facilities and plans to reproduce the Los Angeles Olympic Village. We should see in the youth of Berlin the forbearers of a race of free, independent thinkers accustomed to the democracy of sport, a race disdainful of sharp practice, tolerant of the rights of others and practicing the golden rule because it believes in it." Yes, that's how I would describe 1936 Germans. Tolerant of the rights of others.

That sounds like the Germany I know and have read about in history books. People can't stop talking about how much they love an independent Poland. It's the only thing on their lips. You can't walk down a fucking street without someone being like, you know, Polish independence is great. Great. Such a fan of there being, cause there was one less flag in Europe before Polish independence and I like it.

I like it. It's good to have another one. If there's one thing we can all agree on here in Germany is that we have enough space for everyone. So I'm gonna give as as much detail as I have on the trip Avery took, but I want to actually first read you a summary of the whole trip by Oliver Hilms in his book Berlin 1936, which I like less than Guy's book, but I appreciated this passage. Brundage stayed in the capital of the Third Reich for six days, inspecting construction on the Olympic Stadium and other facilities, visiting a number of museums and generally

enjoying life. He had little time left over for meeting representatives of Jewish athletics. When they told him that Jews were no longer allowed to join German sports clubs He replied in my club in Chicago Jews are not permitted either Great great cool. I mean, that's not a bad point vis-a-vis the United States Not doing well in this but it's a bad point for you to make yeah It's like hey, you know listen, we also don't allow Jews here. So do what you need to do. Who am I?

I'm racist as hell. So who's to say the Nazis are bad? Yeah, who am I to try to change any of this shit? So now I'm gonna give you the full story of his visit to Germany. I just really found that paragraph funny. On his way to Germany, before he actually gets there for the trip,

Brundage stops at Stockholm for a meeting of some international athletic federation or another. They held a party at a villa and he meets a guy named Carl Diem there. He's tight with a lot of major German sporting officials. He's a big wig in German sporting. Diem invites him to lunch the next day

with Lewald, that half Jewish German sporting official, and Justice W. Meyerhoff, a Jewish member of Berlin's sports club. Meyerhoff had obviously faced repression at home being a German Jewish athlete. He had been forced out of athletics like every other Jewish person in Germany. But when the boycott threats cropped up,

the Nazis had said, hey, go put on a show for this American or else. So he goes to lunch with Lewald and he tells Brundage, oh man, the Nazis, those guys are great. I tried to resign from my sports club, who wouldn't even let me? Wouldn't take my resignation. I was so proud of them.

Great dudes. Yeah, no, all those guys? Oh, the people in the brown shirts? They're cool. They're cool as hell. Yeah, yeah. Oh, we're all friends. We cool as hell. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, we're all friends.

We all hang out. Oh, this black guy? No, I got it from, we hugged too hard. No, you know, I'm a runner. So like, I felt like fingernails were slowing me down. I just took them all off myself, you know? Come on. Just trying to get more aerodynamic.

That's why I lost all this weight. Yeah. I'm just trying to make weight for the Olympic level wrestling. DM later wrote of the meeting, "'Brundage was visibly impressed. Avery is wined and dined in Stockholm by German officials who praise him as an athlete, a businessman,

and a potential friend to the German people. When he arrived in East Prussia on September 12th, one day short of a 9-11, he was ready to believe whatever the Nazis told him. Or one day long of a 9-11. I messed up my 9-11 joke, but I was gonna make one. Anyway, I'm gonna quote from Walters again. He met Jewish sports leaders who, under the watchful eyes of Nazi handlers, assured Brundage that conditions were not as the foreign newspapers were suggesting. Brundage was further handicapped by his inability to speak German, so any inferences that the Jewish sportsmen may have made would have been blocked out by the Nazis' interpreters.

Brundage also met his old friend von Halt, who assured him that there were no obstacles to Jews making the Olympic team, a pledge echoed by von Schammer und Osten, with whom the American got on well. By the end of the week, Brundage not only felt content that the Jews team, a pledge echoed by von Schemmer und Osten, with whom the American got on well. By the end of the week, Brundage not only felt content that the Jews were getting a fair deal, but he was also dazzled by the seeming prosperity and order of the new Germany. America could learn much from Germany, he was to say in a speech 18 months later. She is efficient and hardworking and has spirit. God, it's so easy for this fool to be like just,

well, I'm convinced. Yeah, that's all I needed to say was a nice lunch. They said the words that I came here desperately wanting to hear so that we could continue with the Olympics. They told me what I wanted to hear and I didn't ask another question. God.

So like most prominent people, after Avery died, his like, people had papers back then, right? And his papers get donated to a museum. And as a result, we have the notes that he took while writing out, because when he gets back to the US, he gives a speech about his trip to Germany, right? To the American Olympic Committee. And the notes that he had while writing that speech

include three bullet points that he took during his meeting with Hitler. So while Brundage is like sitting down meeting Hitler, these are his notes. One, a God to given back self respect. Three, a man of the people. His first bullet point is a God. Yes. Oh, my God. Bullet point four, hot as fuck. Bullet point five, dreamy eyes. That is, we're going to like, some of the, because other Olympic officials go and meet

with Hitler, some of them are literally like, man, but you know what the photographers never get across is how good this guy looks. Hey, why did you draw a picture of Hitler naked in the margins of your notes here? Avery, this speech is just a drawing that you labeled as a picture of Hitler naked in the margins of your notes here. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to see it, but I'm sure you're going to be able to see it. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to see it.

I'm not sure if you're going to be able to see it. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to see it. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to see it. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to see it. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to see it. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to see it. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to see it. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to see it.

I'm not sure if you're going to be able to see it. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to see it. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to see it. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to see it. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to see it. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to see it. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to see it. I'm not sure Hey, uh, um, why did you, uh, draw a picture of Hitler naked in the margins of your notes here? Avery, this speech is just a drawing that you label as what I assume Hitler's penis looks like. Are you doing okay? Oh, yeah, so did it go well? Yeah, I mean it is, we do get like, it's funny that the pubic hair is shaved like the mustache.

We get it, we get the bit, but it's not a speech really. It's a lot of detail on the vein here. Yeah. So it becomes clear at this point that Avery Brundage was not just an Olympics obsessive who got tricked by the Nazis or even caved to them because he wanted a job. He was himself a howling fascist, right?

And so once he returned, he gives this big speech to the American Olympic Committee, and in it he complains that before Hitler, Germany had suffered from debt, undernourished youth, feverish gaiety, and nightlife, until the hardest young men, by which he did not mean to imply gaiety,

but rather the brown shirts, rose up to fight back. That's right. Of Hitler's- Yeah, things are just too gay here. It was too gay in Berlin, they had to stop it with violence. That is what he's literally saying. I mean, that was a very popular conservative talking point of the day.

And today, of Hitler's thugs, who were then murdering gay people, communist activists, Jews in the street, Avery wrote that they were, quote, apparently doing useful work. I love that he's like, look, Jews in the street, Avery wrote that they were quote, apparently doing useful work. I love that he's like, look, maybe I'm wrong, but like, seems good, seems fine. Yeah, dirty job, but someone literally has to do it.

Yeah, and he's like, you know, obviously the Jews should be able to compete, but you know, they're leaders in communism. So it's understandable that the Germans would need to get a handle on them, right? That's right. Avery also noted that the Germans had promised that no Jews would be prohibited from competing in any way So there really was no need for a boycott

Quote I was given positive assurance in writing that there will be no Discrimination against Jews you can't ask for more than that and I think the guarantee will be fulfilled Wait he wrote down you can't ask for more than that? You can't ask for more than that! That's bloody! Hitler said they weren't going to do anything bad! Are you telling me Hitler can't be trusted? Yeah, he wrote it down on a piece of paper. Who the fuck would go against something they wrote on paper, bro?

It is like, not in Avery's defense, but it's wild that basically every man who is of his socioeconomic Level anywhere in power in the West during this period is doing the same thing as being like well hitler said he's not a bad guy Who are we to argue? Oh, man. It is it really does go to show that like people Really are willing to believe Whatever someone in a nice suit tells them and is written down on some nice glossy paper. Like, you know. I think the key corollary to that is

if that makes their lives easier, right? Right, of course. Avery's life is made hard by challenging Hitler so he won't challenge Hitler. So he needs to believe that Hitler's dope, right? Yeah. But so does everyone else. So does everyone else who's believing him.

You know, there's like enough people out there who are just, they want to believe that everything's going to be okay for whatever reason, whether it's because they want to compete in the Olympics. It's the natural human desire. Right. But it's like just this general idea of like, you know, the problem is that these oppressed people complain too much is kind of the through line with all these people. Look, yeah, these people are getting invaded or whatever, but like if we stand up to fucking

Russia to the United States to whoever's doing the invasion in this situation, that makes my life hard so I'm just not gonna. Right, yeah, there's no incentive for me to not believe this blatant lie. Yeah, like George W. Bush seems problematic, but like at the end of the day, like I got a mortgage, you know? Yeah. Yeah, it's great.

Anyway, that's how humans apparently are. The crux of his argument in favor of Germany actually rested on a quite cunning stance, which is that he had succeeded in getting the Nazis to promise to let Jews participate in the games. This, he told the American Olympic Committee, was all the Olympics could do, since they were fundamentally an apolitical organization. Every person deserved the chance to compete, and the Olympics had a responsibility to ensure

that, but it would not be reasonable for the event to take any stance on Germany's internal political system. This argument works and you can see again how that's a comforting argument to make, right? We simply can't care about much beyond this, right? Yeah. We're apolitical. We have to be apolitical. Yeah.

The AOC has another vote and they reverse their position. Belay Latour gives Brundage a pat on the back and assured him that the job was his, but their problems persisted because after the AOC's vote came a steady drumbeat of stories of Jews being murdered or beaten and forced from public life. Many people wondered if Avery might be full of shit. One of them was his successor at the Amateur Athletic Association, which Brundage had controlled as president into leaving that year to run the AOC. This guy was a judge, Jeremiah Mahoney, and he publicly accused Brundage of having been

wined and dined by Hitler and claimed that behind the scenes he'd sought to intimidate anyone who didn't trust the Nazis. And Mahoney is a pretty cool guy in this, although he is also going to wind up in a really awkward situation. But for the next year, Mahoney is going to be one of the leading figures in the effort to force a US boycott of the Olympics. A vote is set for December 1935 and that August, 20,000 people show up for an anti-fascist rally at Madison Square Garden.

That same month, August of 35, the IOC tried to deflect criticism by sending another delegation to Berlin. So they're like, well, sending Brundage didn't work because they're just like, well, he seems to really like Hitler. So what's in the guys like swastikas on all of the official note paper here? He's growing a mustache and I don't like where it's going. Yeah. People are starting to believe you may not be, you know, an impartial third party observer here.

So in order to deal with the fact that people didn't trust Brundage, they decided to send a guy who's even more of a Nazi, General Charles Sherrill. Now Sherrill, Chucky, Chucky S is one of the three Americans on the IOC board. And he has the distinction of maybe being the shittiest person in an organization that hired entirely based on how much you sucked. In Berlin 1936, Oliver Hilms writes of him, quote, his main qualification for this task was something completely different,

a conspicuous personal fascination with Adolf Hitler. As long ago as June, 1933, in a letter to the New York Times, Sherrill had praised the newly elected German chancellor as the strongest man in Europe. On 24th of August, 1935, when Sher Cheryl was received by Hitler for an hour long conversation,

it was a dream come true. The retired army general seemed to feel as if he'd been called to something higher. Perhaps he saw himself as the new US ambassador in Berlin. In any case, he wrote up a report on his meeting with Hitler and sent it to none other than Franklin D. Roosevelt. Cheryl raved about Hitler's personal modesty, his impressive physical condition,

and his upstanding character. Um, from what I've heard, the bullet points on that one. Yeah. God. FDR just like, some guy just sent me Hitler smut, so I don't know. He drew him as pregnant for some reason,

not really sure what to do with this. Uh, I think this is just fan fiction at this point. Yeah. And thus was created Deviantart. I'm going to continue that quote from Hilmes. Please. In his conversation with Sheryl, Hitler made no concessions. Jews were not being discriminated against, he lied.

They were merely being treated as separate from the German people and thus could not be members of the German Olympic team. Sheryl pressed the Fuhrer on the issue. He was Germany's friend, he said, and wanted only the best for the country. But if the Fuhrer insisted on this position, the IOC would take the games away from Berlin. Hitler snarled that, in that case, the Third Reich would stage a purely German Olympic games. Now-

Yeah, we'll start our own Germany with hookers, blackjack. Yeah. He was lying about this. In the early days of the Third Reich, his hold on power was not yet total. The army still represented potential resistance and Germany was still pretty weak militarily and economically compared to its neighbors. Hitler could not afford to put on a German games

that would have had a fraction of the grandeur of the Olympic games. And the gesture would have made Germany look like even more of a pariah state than it actually was. The 1936 Olympics were more than anything, Germany's attempt to show themselves as turning back towards the rest of the world. For all of his talk of autarky, of independence for Germany,

this mattered to Hitler. He wanted Germany to take, I mean, the phrase he would use a lot was Germany needs to take its place in the sun, right? You can't do that if you're like holding your own sad, loner Olympics for people nobody likes. Yeah, we're calling it the no Jews Olympics.

It's going to be here in Germany and we're just mostly going to run next to each other and talk about how much we fucking hate the Jews. Yeah, that was basically the idea. But it matters a lot to Hitler that Americans in particular will be at his games. So he does actually listen when Cheryl makes an offer. And Cheryl's offer is, look man, I'm not asking you to actually treat Jewish people better. If you just have the Jewish sports federations nominate a couple of athletes,

take them on as that the phrase Cheryl uses as token Jews for the German team. Oh nice, yeah. Yeah, no it's good. Yeah, he's groundbreaking racism here. Yeah, yeah, they're just saying it out loud, which is nice. Yeah. Yeah.

Not only does Hitler agree to the idea, but he invites Sheryl to attend a special event that year, a rally in Nuremberg. You know the one. Yeah, I've heard of it, heard of it. Immediately after that rally, the Nuremberg laws, which officially codified the elimination of Jewish rights in Germany, were announced.

Sheryl returned home, pretending this had not happened, and like Brundage, raved about the wondrous things the Nazis were doing in Germany, and promised that they would totally let a Jew play on their team, so everything's good! Everything's cool. There's going to be a couple of token Jews. We got this. Don't worry, please let it go forward. And the Nazis do pick a couple of Jewish people. One of them is Helena Meyer. Meyer is a prodigy fencer. She's very good at fencing. And she is currently,

cause you know, she's living through this whole period. She sees what's happening in Germany. And so she goes to college in California. She goes to a small college in California. Good call, given the time. And it's one of those things, she actually didn't consider herself Jewish. She's raised Catholic, but her dad, I think, is Jewish.

So the Nazis do consider her that. But Helena also has this kind of, it's going to prove to be a delusional belief that like, well, if I can just convince them I consider myself a Christian, they'll be fine with me. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure. That's not how it me. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure.

That's not how it works. Yeah. No, it definitely works that way. It's just like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not like a Jew Jew. Right. Right. Don't worry about me. She gets publicly invited to the Olympics and there's some back and forth. She publicly declines at a point, but basically her line is, I want my citizenship restored.

And they restore her and her family's citizenship. Helena's line again is basically that, well, I'm half Jewish and not observant, so I shouldn't be persecuted. The Nazis again don't really agree to this, but they pretend to. Another German Jewish athlete they're going to pick out is Gretel Bergman. Bergman had immigrated to the United Kingdom for college. She was an exceptionally talented runner and long jump competitor. She was so good at this that her college in the UK

gives her a handicap when she is competing at like local events and she still wins all of them. Damn. She's just very good at this. Nice. Since Jewish athletes had been banned from public competition at home, she decides to try out for the British team.

And she's like, look, I'll play for Britain and I'll beat my own former country. And that'll be kind of nice as a Jewish exile, right? Like sounds satisfying, right? And she's particularly excited because when she has her big qualifying competition and does in fact qualify for the UK Olympic team, her father is there.

He manages to secure approval to visit England on business. But after the competition, he's like, hey, I'm only actually able to be here because the Nazis want to get you to compete for Germany. And his presence, thus, is kind of a threat from the Germans. They're like, well, we can either send your father to you, or we can take him away. Whose team do you want to be on? You know? And you know, again, that's why I'm not gonna, I got no judgment for Gretel here in deciding

to try out for the German Olympic team. Because Brundage and Belé Latour didn't actually care about the welfare of German Jews, just that they could show Jewish participation in German Olympic teams to satisfy the boycotters, no real effort was made to ensure that stuff like this was like real offers. And as a result, the primary thing that the American Olympic Committee succeeds in doing is in bringing more violence and danger into the lives of German Jewish athletes. Great. Because all they care about is the look, right?

They don't actually care that conditions have changed, just that they can argue they have. If Brundage had been at all aware or concerned by this, he showed no sign of it. In late 1935, his only real worry was that Jewish American sporting associations were continuing to advocate for a boycott of the Berlin Olympics. Brundage declared this a Jewish communist conspiracy using language he may well have taken back from his 1934 trip to see the Reich. Judge Jeremiah Mahoney, president of the Amateur Athletic Association, which organized the U.S. Olympic trials, continued to attack him as a Nazi stooge alongside U.S. socialist groups and even a number of conservative politicians. And I'll give some credit to

New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia there, who was like, nah, man, we shouldn't do this. We shouldn't go do an Olympics over there. Seems bad. Congratulations, LaGuardia. You earned your airport. Yeah, I was gonna say, only good guy that's ever had an airport named after them. So I don't know the rest of them, Dulles, definitely not good. Definitely not a good guy, oh boy.

Bad airport guy. Yeah, Dulles and Reagan airports are like the warring war crimes airports up there. And then a little north, you got LaGuardia. So there we go. Hey. Yeah. The anti-boycott side of things though,

is also, this is part of the complex history here, a lot more diverse than you might initially guess, because a big part of it is a number of black athletes who have a really good point. In October of 1935, Mahoney tells a crowd at Columbia University that he wished to God, quote, the Nazis could witness an athletic competition in this country.

The next guy up after him is Ben Johnson, a black American Olympic sprinter. And when Mahoney says this, Johnson gets kind of pissed and he comes up and he says, I think Justice Mahoney should clean up the South where Negroes are barred from his amateur athletic union and discriminated against in Olympic selections. And it's like, that's a fair point.

He probably shouldn't have said the Nazi should see how we do sports here because here's how we do sports here. Mahoney, maybe you should see how we do sports here. Yeah. Now Jesse Owens, who I think people still broadly know of, was going, I mean, he's in the 36 Olympics, he's gonna win like fucking everything.

The fastest man alive, right? But he goes back and forth on whether or not to boycott the Olympics beforehand in 35. During a November of 1935 radio interview, he stated his opinion that the US should withdraw if Germany continued to discriminate against minorities, as he put it. But his coach talked to him out of it

by using the same logic Ben Johnson had used. Why would you oppose Germany for doing the same shit your fellow citizens do to you, right? And the NAACP head, Walter White, no relation, writes a letter, he considers making a big open statement of basically the NAACP supports a boycott. He never actually does that, but he does write a letter to Owens where he's like, you should consider boycotting basically.

Even so, they never tip into doing it and Owens obviously does not ultimately boycott the Olympics. But the amount of popular support for a boycott in late 1935 terrifies Brundage, who feels his chances of being appointed to the IOC committee slipping away. In late 1935, he was a constant voice for US participation, telling anyone who would listen, revolutionaries are not bred on the playing field. This is how he just becomes more anti-semitic as this goes along I'm sure because he's just like these fucking Jews. They don't believe it when I brought the piece of paper

I brought the paper. Why don't they understand that Hitler says he's not gonna hurt up? Yeah, Hitler is cool He dresses good. He's godlike and he is a strong dick vein I've drawn it right here in the margins of my nose Speaking of dick veins, do you know what will make your dick vein pop? Oh a lot of things But what do you have in particular possibly the sponsors of this podcast? It's how we are I love it pop my dick vein with your hymns. I don't know if it's hymns. I think it's hymns. We've had hymns I think. Anyway. From KT Studios, the number one podcast, the Idaho Massacre is back. The new developments in the University of Idaho murder case. It was an unimaginable crime.

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Growing up, I thought being gay was the worst thing I could ever be. The gay history I learned was tragic. Jerry had died of AIDS and it's like, what is happening? It was survival. That's why it's called survival sex. But as I interviewed queer elders, I realized there was another history that I had never

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and this is But We Loved. Listen to But We Loved on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's the hardest question you've ever asked your mom? Mom, what happened to your sister Margarita? For me, it's about a murder that's haunted my family for decades. They said that they took her, and the next day she was already dead. To find the answers, I went to the place where my family is from, El Salvador, and found that the story starts with a priest

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Listen to Sacred Scandal, Nation of Saints, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On September 17, 2009, 24-year-old Mitrice Richardson was released from the Malibu Lost Hill Sheriff's Station. She had no money, no phone, and no ride. She walked out of the station and into the night. And she never made it home. Nearly a year later, Maitrice's naked, skeletonized remains were discovered in a canyon six miles from the station.

I'm Dana Goodyear. Five years ago, I started reporting on the Maitrice Richardson case. Everyone knows something horrible happened to Maitrice. Nothing about her case makes sense, and for 15 years the Sheriff's Department has failed to solve it in Lost Hills Dark Canyon we're investigating what happened to my trees Richardson listen to Lost Hills Dark Canyon on the I heart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. We're back. So, Brundage was willing to acknowledge in private his belief that quote,

the Hitlerites did not intend to live up to the pledges given to the IOC, but his overwhelming public sentiment was that those mean old Jews were trying to ruin everyone else's good time. Surprise, surprise. Surprise, surprise. Yeah, surprise, surprise. As he told the secretary of the British Olympic Association, my own view is that we are pandering

too much to the Jews. In an article for the Journal of American Studies, Carolyn Marvin summarizes his growing anti-Semitic paranoia. The Jews were complaining too much, first, according to a peculiarly circular IOC standard of evidence as to whether their complaints had substance and second because they were like that Brundage regularly observed his correspondence with other sports officials that the Jews have been clever enough to realize the publicity value of sports He was informed by Jay Siegfried Edstrom president of the International Amateur Athletic Federation That the main reason of the Aryan movement in Germany

was that the Jews have taken too prominent a position in certain branches of life, and have, as the Jews very often do when they get in the majority, misuse their positions. Oh God, the second point of, you know, the Jews are like that, you know how they be. You know how they are, yeah, right? It is interesting that that language

has still been going around, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And also just like a side note to this whole thing is that it just, this whole thing kind of reminds me and maybe not even that much of a circuitous way, but like of the way that the trans athlete debate kind of like permeated through everything. Just this, like this way of using, um, sport and sportsmanship and kind of like, uh,

the, the, the, you know, oh, they're, they're, they're always, they're overrepresented and they're everywhere and they complain all the time. It's like the exact same type of shit. And, and it's used to, uh, you know, it's, I don't know, it's the beginning of what is an eventual, you know, movement to try to hurt this. To try to force them out of public life, right? Yes, yes. Which is a prelude to worse things. A prelude to worse things, exactly.

It's interesting too that you bring that up. I think we're gonna have to do another episode because there's so much, there's still more on Brundage than I've wrote, but there's also, there's so much about the 36 Olympics. And one of them is they have a trans panic. Like that, they have a panic over what they think are, they don't use the term transgender at this point. I don't really think anyone did,

but they have what is a panic over that. And like every time that happens, what actually happens is a bunch of people who were assigned female at birth and who identified as female were just baselessly attacked because they didn't look feminine enough to some rando in the audience. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like it's all the same shit. Like it's the same, like going over that like panic that those athletes went through. And like one of them at least is a Nazi. So it is harder to be sympathetic towards her than you. But like that doesn't make that right, you know? Yes, yes, yes. But it is like, it's always the same thing.

There's only one playbook. It just always works pretty well. Yeah, and I think it's because of the way in which people kind of idealize sports and make them fake themselves out into thinking they're an apolitical expression of fair competition or whatever. And so this is the exact same thing where you just kind of go, you're messing with my idealized version of what sports is and what it's supposed to be.

And they, you know, but really it's to mask this like, I mean, they would say the same things. Listen, I'm no fan of trans people. I think we can all agree that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, I'm bigoted as shit, but we shouldn't be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's the exact same type of shit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. In private letters to other Olympic officials, Brundage went out of his way to argue the Nazi party line, claiming that most of the German Jewish athletes hadn't even been good enough to qualify, right? Like, they let a couple of charity cases in, right? You're still angry at the Nazis, you know? These people would never have qualified

if we hadn't put on pressure, and that's bullshit. Gretel Bergman had to give up her seat on the British Olympic team to compete for Germany and she didn't get to compete. She's led into a trial and in her trial performances to qualify for the German Olympic team she equals the all-time German woman's high jump record. She does as well as the best a German woman has ever done at the high jump in her qualifier and then after the British team departs for Berlin and she can't go back, she sent a letter saying, hey, actually, you weren't good enough.

LMAO. Sorry, we fucked you over here. Wow. It sucks so bad for her. I mean, at least she's in the fucking UK. Right. So. Right. But it's it's a real bummer, man. I'm going to quote from Carolyn Marvin again. Not only did Jews exalt their and this is her talking about brundage, not only did Jews exalt their, and this is her talking about Brundage, not only did Jews exalt their own political interests above the independence of amateur sport,

not only did they fail to appreciate the contribution of the Olympic movement to whatever restraint Hitler had exercised, but also Brundage argued with increasing irritation, Jewish protest would be counterproductive in the long run. An Olympic boycott on account of the Jews would excite dangerous, possibly uncontrollable, anti-Semitic sympathies in America." Yeah, that's right.

So he's like, look, we might have to murder you guys if you all, if you don't let us play do the high jump, you know? That's not our fault, that's on you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't blame us for what is eventually going to happen. This is like, it's just so fucking sickening. Just like the way in which people just, just hearing people complain is enough to turn anyone into a Nazi. Yeah.

Well, and the thing that enrages them so much is that these complaints, why they're reacting so negatively to the complaints is it's the same way like a two-year-old screams if they like grab a toy on the shelf at the store and you take it away, is they're afraid these mean old activists are gonna take away their toy. They're fun thing.

I was gonna be on the Olympic committee. I was gonna do the high jump. I was gonna be the birthday jumper. You know, like that's what's going on here, right? Yeah. Yeah, Brundage, again, he is kind of groundbreaking in how he publicly justifies racism. Cause after he goes on this like, you know,

you guys better be worried if you protest too loud. He's like, now I know a lot of smart conservative Jews and they all agree with me, right? They all think I'm in the right. So I'm not racist, right? The smart conservative Jews that I won't name all say I'm right, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Listen, I got binders full of Jews who think that, yeah, Jews complain too much and are not good at sports. He's also, he uses the racism that's been drum up by the boycott to try and raise money for the Olympics. He writes a strategy letter to the AOC, to his colleagues and says, the fact that the Jews are against us will arouse interest among thousands of people

who have never subscribed before. If they are properly approached. I bet it works. And because he's that kind of sociopath, and this is something the Nazis wouldn't do, not because it's worse, but this is just a very American way of being shitty. At the same time as he's like,

oh yeah, we can fundraise off of this racism. He's like, you know what else we could do? We got to tell a bunch of rich Jews that if they donate money to like put up Olympic ads, you know, that'll help convince the Germans to be less mean to the Jews. You can help your fellow Jews if you give some money to the Olympics. You know? That's right. It'll help change.

It'll warm, you know, Hitler's cold, cold heart. That was the one thing that could have stopped Hitler from his madness is if the Olympics had had a bigger billboard. Oh, I've been wrong this whole time. You know, maybe I should rethink this whole Jews should die thing. I'm going to call back my friend and take some ecstasy.

Yeah, we're going to call back my friend and take some ecstasy. Going to Bonnaroo. Cut to like one of those 90s end movie montages. Is there a Bonnaroo? Oh, beautiful. At the end of 1935, as the AAU met to take its final vote on whether or not to boycott the games, Mahoney continued to push the AAU to follow their collective conscience, telling gathered members, the Nazi government wants more than American participation in a sporting contest. It wants to bring the American dollar into the very weakened Nazi treasury, and it wants

you to picture Hitler with Uncle Sam standing behind him and saying, we are with you, Adolf. And he is right on the money there. All of his efforts are for naught though. The AAU delegates vote 58 to 55 ish in favor of attending the Olympics. Similar campaigns across the so-called free world also collapsed under Hitler's charm offensive. Two days before the opening of the games at the 35th session of the IOC, so it's the session of the committee right before the game start, Balay Lat Tour makes good on his promises to Avery Brundage.

He orchestrates a coup against Ernst Jahnke, the only member who I've pronounced like three different ways. You know the guy, the only member of the IOC who wasn't a piece of shit, right? The one good guy, yeah. Mm-hmm. Jahnke is expelled by a 49 to zero vote. Damn!

Yeah. Now, General Sherrill is dead by this point. He drops dead right after coming back with- Hell yeah! From his Hitler. So at least he got to, that's nice though. He died, but at least he got to see Hitler. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He just probably died when he was doing autoerotic asphyxiation to a picture he drew of Hitler's dick. Yeah, yeah. That was the style at the time. Yep. And so in 19 Yeah, yeah, that was the style at the time. And so in 1936, Brundage was present for the opening ceremonies of the Berlin Olympics,

marching at the head of the US delegation. As you'd expect, the city was filled with battalions of uniformed Wehrmacht soldiers, a show of force somewhat at odds with the peaceable dream of Olympic competition. Some people are alike, boy, it seems like there's a lot of tens of thousands of uniformed soldiers marching around at this peaceful event This peace competition yeah, feel like the other countries don't have tens of thousands of uniformed soldiers marching around out

Maybe an honor guard you know you do a little 21 gun salute. This is a lot of guys Yeah, a bunch of guys well. It's okay because they're they're doing race walking so that's fine he'll tell yeah whatever you want to call it kind of at the start of the events we get in a chapter of one of the more complicated sporting stories of the of the Nazi era which is the Hindenburg sails into Berlin with Max Schmeling on it oh yeah Schmeling is a a, he's a German boxer. He's one of the best boxers of his day. And he is, he has just gone up against a guy named Joe Lewis.

Joe Lewis is, if you talk to boxing people and you ask who is the best boxer of all time, you'll get a number of different names, but the name you might get most often is Joe Lewis. And he's at least got to be up there. He has like 20 years, he's basically very close to undefeated. I think his record is like 54 wins, four losses. Like 42 of those wins are by knockout. And one of the very few men to beat Lewis in a fight

was Schmeling and Schmeling doesn't win, he's 30. So he's considered over the hill. Schmeling is able to win because he spends, he just like obsessively watches every fight Lewis has been in and like learns his strategy and he wins. And this is seen as like this huge thing for the Nazis. It's proof of racial superiority. It's, you know, a great lead into these games. What's kind of weird on the backside of this is that for all of that, like Schmeling and Lewis and Schmeling will have a rematch that Lewis wins and it's made in his very big propaganda thing for the US Joe Lewis is treated like shit by the United States his whole life because he's a black man

Right like he's when he he put in the army to have like a PR role basically and he's still Discriminated against massively one of the only white guys in the world. He's not shitty to Joe Lewis is Mack Pays for his funeral when he dies. It's like they are friends for life. Yes, yes. They are best friends forever. And if, you know, if at any moment you want to feel really good about the United States for like, you know, being against Nazism and all that stuff, do yourself a favor and don't.

Just because. Remember that so many of the people we're talking about, whether it's the head of these like, you know, Olympic committees or like people who are like generals in the military. They're all just like, listen, we also hate Jews and yet we also discriminate openly against all African Americans in this country. So it's, it's really, it's a, you know, it's one of those I I'm always, every time it comes around the Normandy anniversary, the anniversary of Stalingrad, I've got nothing but respect for the people who actually had to fight

the Nazis. But I'm not going to, like, and kick not see ass. I love this country this country wound up Politically just barely missing, you know that yes that yes So by a fucking by a fraction by a hair we ended up not being aligned With this Nazi project and a lot of guys like Brundage probably went to his grave regretting that you know yeah Yeah, well you at least you would hope so. Yeah. Yeah. So we have our Nazi games, the Berlin games start out.

The theme of the day is this like, you know, the opening of the Olympics is all of these German like military marches. Right. And everyone else kind of just with their athletes walking around being like, boy, it seems like there's a weird number of soldiers. Yeah. Everyone else like, shit, we didn't bring enough guns. Should we have brought guns? And in fact, when he shows up, when Hitler shows up, he's marching with Ballet L'Etour and Lewald, right?

These other IOC representatives. And they are like fucking the president of the Olympics is next to Hitler and they are flanked by dozens of SS men. Like, apolitical games, nothing political going on The precedent of the Olympics is next to Hitler and they are flanked by dozens of SS men like a political games Political going on with this this SS march to the Olympic Stadium This is all just peace and sportsmanship in the book Berlin games guy Walters writes by the time Hitler reached his seat at 405 p.m. There was no doubt that he was already the star of the Olympics These were his games now not not Ballet Latour's, and most certainly not Coubertin's.

As if to reinforce the Nazification of the games, the orchestra struck up with Deutschland Uber Alles and the Horst Wessel song, both of which had heralded the start of the Winter Games back in February. So that's great. Now, a major topic of discussion was the precise nature of the salutes that different Olympic teams chose to make as they marched past Hitler in the reviewing stand. This was complicated by the fact that the Olympic salute, there's an Olympic salute. I didn't know there was an Olympic salute.

Well, I don't think we use it anymore because it's basically a reversed Nazi salute. They're very similar. And this is because we've been doing variants of the salute of the Nazis for a long time. But also Hitler is known for, he's kind of a lazy guy a lot of the time. And so sometimes when Hitler, prior even to this, he'll use the wrong arm to do his fascist salute. And so when the Greeks give an Olympic salute

and Hitler responds with an Olympic salute, no one's really sure. Well, we're not sure if the Greeks meant to do a fascist salute and we're not sure if the Greeks meant to do a fascist salute and we're not sure what Hitler meant to do. Nobody actually knows. Yeah, Hitler is the one guy, he always does that little heil, right?

He's really lazy with it. He has a lazy heil. He really half-asses the heil, yeah. I guess it's because they're heiling him. He's like, I don't have to heil that much. Yeah, I mean, to be fair to to Hitler which I usually don't say it is all like yeah He shouldn't hile him that is kind of weird, right? I don't know. I don't know. I'm not gonna backseat sick high Oh fair to Hitler he said

So the French come by next and they do another Olympic salute, but the crowd is mostly Germans. They did mostly Germans who lived through World War I and like the starvation and mass death. And so a lot of people kind of interpret what the French team is doing as a fascist salute, which they see is not that the, they don't see that as the French saying we're fascist too. They see it as like the French being like, Hey, things are good now. We're not going to have another war. Cause like most of this audience of Germans really don't want another war with France. It was a bad time the last time they did this.

They were like, no, that sucks. Let's be cool. And so they, the audience cheers when they see the French do this. Cause they're like, hey, maybe we don't, maybe I don't have to send my son off to die like my brother did in Flanders or whatever. I don't have to see my friends drown in mud?

Yeah, sounds great. Hitler is really unhappy with this because he hears a bunch of Germans cheering for the French and he's like, well, maybe they really don't want what is about to happen, right? Albert Speer describes Hitler as, quote, more disturbed than pleased by the Berliner's cheers. Albert Speer describes Hitler as quote more disturbed than pleased by the Berliners cheers The British come next and this is there's some moments of pride for both the Brits and the Americans here the British and also India and Australia who are part of the British Empire. They don't salute at all And neither do the Americans who are led in their march by Avery Brundage And here's how Guy Walters describes moment. The United States was one of the last teams to enter the stadium.

We were a total disgrace, recalled Joanna Detuskin. About 30 or 40 non-members of the team, fat with cigarette ashes on their clothes, marched at the head of the team. Marty Glickman felt that the word marching was inappropriate to describe how the Americans proceeded. American athletes don't march very well, he wrote. We kind of moved in our usual loose gated walk. At the team's head was Avery Brundage, who was neither fat nor a smoker and was one of the few who really did march. And honestly, I have some American pride for that.

Yeah, same. We've got our fascist at the front, but everyone else just looks like shit, stumbling around, hungover as hell, chain smoking. Yes, that is, it's shit like that that makes America great, you know? That's right. The, that is, it's shit like that that makes America great. You know, the fact that we're just like, listen, I learned how to do one thing really well.

I'm not also gonna get- I don't have to learn how to march. Yeah, I'm gonna get good at this, fuck you. I'm literally Jesse Owens. I don't have to impress you. Yeah, yeah. I'm doing this for a medal later. Yeah, yeah.

I'm gonna continue that quote. As the Americans marched past Hitler, they removed their boaters and clutched them to their hearts. Whereas other flags were dipped in honor of the Fuhrer, the Stars and Stripes remained resolutely aloft, which caused a murmur of discontent around the stadium. Marty Glickman recalled the moment when the team passed Hitler. We looked up at the box where he was flanked by Goering and Goebbels and Hess and Himmler and all the

rest of the Nazi hierarchy and you could hear the comment run through our crowd as we were walking in Hey, he looks like Charlie Chaplin This has been pretty America critical as we often are but by God am I proud to hear that Lee Greenwood song running in my heart now. Oh, it's beautiful. Look at this silly ass. Yeah. So we will continue at some later date

with the story of Hitler at the Olympics and maybe finish up some Avery Brundage, but you get the gist of why Brundage sucks with all this. Oh yeah. You got it. Seems like a dickhead. Reasonably complete. Yeah't I don't like him and I don't support him I'll tell you that now No, he's a bastard. Yeah

Well, I reckon that'll do it for us here at behind the podcast a podcast about bastards. That's right Matt Lieb That is bara podcast New pod That's right. Matt Lieb, Bad Hesbara Podcast. Bad Hesbara, new pod. H-A-S-B-A-R-A, right? H-A-S-B-A-R-A. Yeah, you can check it out wherever podcasts are given away for free. And, you know, to quote Benjamin Netanyahu, I want you to come. I want you to come.

Check it out. Also, I just want to give a quick shout out to just a couple of live shows Francesca and I are doing. We're going to be in Chicago during the DNC doing a couple of shows, Monday, August 16th and I think Tuesday, August 17th. We're going to be at Lincoln Lodge. One is going to be a live podcast, Bituation Room slash Bad Hazzbara. The other is going to be a standup show.

So yeah, check out that. If you're in Chicago, August 19th,th August 20th come please it'll be fun So yes check that out see Matt and Francesca live Yeah, and you won't see us live because we don't have any plans to do that nice time soon Maybe someday again you guys should it would be sick One of these days. I'll leave my house again Matt. I keep saying that and not leaving my house but one of these days I might. It's great out there in the world bro. Yeah that's what everyone says about the world. Yeah everyone loves the world and how

good it is. Yeah that's the overwhelming thing I get from social media people are happy about the world if you go outside world good nothing bad ever happen Yeah, yeah, all right everybody Go be like an Olympian and touch grass Behind the bastards is a production of cool zone media for more from cool zone media Is that our website cool zone media, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. From KT Studios, the number one podcast, The Idaho Massacre, is back. The new developments in the University of Idaho murder case.

It was an unimaginable crime. One house, four victims, only one accused. If this is true, then this guy is the real life Dexter. Listen to season two of the Idaho Massacre on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Since it was established in 1861,

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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. In 1980, while El Salvador sat on the brink of war, one man held together the fragile peace, Archbishop Oscar Romero. He was brutally assassinated in front of dozens of his loyal followers. His death marked the start of a civil war that left more than 75,000 people dead and a million more displaced around the world.

My family includes both, those that fled and those that died. Listen to Sacred Scandal, Nation of Saints, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jordan Gonsalves and I'm a journalist. Join me on my new podcast, But We Loved, where queer elders recount the amazing history they've lived through. In the middle of Wall Street, they stopped traffic.

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