Revisionist History - Hitler’s Olympics

Episode Date: June 21, 2024

Adolf Hitler swept to power in Germany in the early 1930s and soon set out to stage the most extravagant and spectacular summer Olympics yet: the 1936 Berlin Games. And countries around the world dutifully put together their teams and made the trip to Germany. Why? In this new nine-part series Hitler’s Olympics, Malcolm Gladwell and Ben Naddaff-Hafrey explore the games behind the Games, the most consequential Olympics in history. Along the way, they meet a collection of the world’s daffiest aristocrats. A couple of American construction moguls. A legendary triple-jumper. And one discerning journalist. Heroes and villains. The clear-eyed and the deluded. All of them going to Hitler’s Olympics. Hitler’s Olympics launches June 27th. Subscribe to Pushkin Plus now to hear the first five episodes on launch day, or listen for new episodes every Thursday for the next nine weeks.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of my strongest childhood memories was the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, my homeland's first Olympic Games. I was a kid. My family didn't have a television, but we rented one just for the occasion. Two rabbit ears on top of a grainy black-and-white set. We put the TV in the fireplace because there was no other place for it. And I watched everything. The Romanian Nadia Comaneci bewitching the world in gymnastics. My running hero John Walker powering away around the final curve to win the men's 1500

meters. I still get nervous thinking about that race. And the women's 4x100 freestyle relay, maybe the greatest swimming race ever. I fell in love with the Olympics that summer, and these Olympics that I love, and that so many millions of people around the world love, might not exist if the Games had not been held in 1936 in Adolf Hitler's Germany. The modern Olympics started in 1896, and if you'd gone to any of those early Games, you would think you were at some kind of sideshow.

It was the Nazis who gave us the Olympics we have today. They were really, really good at putting on a big show. Hitler wanted the Games to be a showcase of Aryan supremacy, to rally the German people, to give legitimacy to the band of thugs he had gathered around him, and to make the case that Germany was a true world power. And the United States went along with all of it. Why? That's what the new season of Revisionist History is all about. Hitler's Olympics. Over nine episodes, my colleague Ben-Nadav Hafri and I

will tell the story of the games behind the games. Not who won what, not how a stirring come from behind burst of effort led to victory. Instead, we're exploring the furious machinations leading up to the Olympics and the genuinely difficult moral questions that surrounded the Berlin Games. And along the way, we're going to introduce you to an extraordinary cast of characters. There's Charles Sherrill, diplomat, athlete,

internationalist, man of parts, the ranking American member of the International Olympic Committee. I have led the hapless life of anybody you ever met in your life.

We'll spend time with Avery Brundage, champion athlete, self-made millionaire, a man who saw in the 36 Games a chance to expel his personal demons and seize control of the entire Olympic movement. And the irony of it is, the more important the Olympic Games become, the more problems we have.

An incredibly clear-eyed American reporter named Dorothy Thompson. I think that Hitler is appreciably nearer shooting us, and therefore I think we're appreciably nearer replying. Then there's Jesse Owens, winner of four gold medals, the African-American star of the 1936 Games. That was the beginning to the end of a very long dream. I'm sure you've heard of Jesse Owens, but Ben is going to tell you a story about Owens that I guarantee you have not heard.

Not to mention side trips to a small town in Alabama, a seminar on a crucial but all but forgotten Supreme Court case called Giles v. Harris. Oh, and a lesson from a legendary triple jumper. He didn't have a jiggle. Well, he didn't have a jiggle. No, he didn't have a jiggle or a giddy-up. Yeah. Heroes and villains, the clear-eyed and the deluded,

the forgotten and the misunderstood, all of them going to Hitler's Olympics. You will never see the games the same way again. Subscribe to Pushkin Plus to hear the first five episodes of Hitler's Olympics early and ad-free. Find Pushkin Plus

on the Apple Show page for revisionist history or at pushkin.fm slash plus.