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Nazi Games: The Olympics of 1936 | 
 enlarge | Author: David Clay Large
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $15.74
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 61186
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.6
ISBN: 0393058840
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.48
EAN: 9780393058840
ASIN: 0393058840
Publication Date: April 16, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20080723213911T
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Product Description
Athletics and politics collide in a critical event for Nazi Germany and the contemporary world.
The torch relay—that staple of Olympic pageantry—first opened the summer games in 1936 in Berlin. Proposed by the Nazi Propaganda Ministry, the relay was to carry the symbolism of a new Germany across its route through southeastern and central Europe. Soon after the Wehrmacht would march in jackboots over the same terrain.
The Olympic festival was a crucial part of the Nazi regime's mobilization of power. Nazi Games offers a superb blend of history and sport. The narrative includes a stirring account of the international effort to boycott the games, derailed finally by the American Olympic Committee and the determination of its head, Avery Brundage, to participate. Nazi Games also recounts the dazzling athletic feats of these Olympics, including Jesse Owens's four gold-medal performances and the marathon victory of Korean runner Kitei Son, the Rising Sun of imperial Japan on his bib. 25 b/w photographs.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Extremely interesting, timely work June 9, 2008
While the author's prose is often too colloquial for my taste, his well organized, expertly researched account of the 1936 Berlin games is both interesting reading and valuable historical reference. He also provides a very good history of the modern Olympics leading up to the titled games and consequently gives the reader a valuable perspective from which to examine those that followed...including/especially the upcoming Beijing Olympics.
A Masterpiece June 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
David Clay large has written a terrific book about the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He traces the history of the modern Olympics before and after Berlin, skillfully describes the failed effort to boycott the games, and presents a lively retelling of the games themselves. But it is the story of the political intrigues surrounding the competition that makes the book worth reading. With the 2008 Beijing Olympics fast approaching, this book will show how totalitarian states will pull out all the stops to host successful Olympics and score public relations victories.
 Olympics Then & Now, Same Old Stuff. April 8, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
The Beijing Olympics are following the 1936 Germany approach to world peace and both are controversial and ill-timed. Germany's took place before the world knew of the concentration camps and killing of the Jewish race from different countries. This year's bad timing has to do after China took over Tibet and killed some of the monks. The nuns were traveling America to let us know what was going on. Therefore, no matter how Berlin came out smelling like a mum, we now have media and protesters to keep us aware of China's human rights molestation. Also, their manufacturing with poisons on products shipped to America. It is appalling. Will these Olympics take place as scheduled or will they turn out like the Moscow 1980 games?
During the time of The Olympics in 1936 Germany, the Nazis were experimenting with the concentration camp prisoners with lethal drugs, stealing their gold teeth before/after being gassed into extinction. Searching for a truth drug to use on military prisoners, their guiena pigs were dosed with powerful narcotics to see what makes a stressful person talk about private things. It was the beginning of brain washing captured Allies too end the War. The 1936 men's basketball first recognized as an Olympic sport had 23 teams from four continents. The American team won gold in a bizarre situation playing in six-inch standing water on a rain-soaked tennis court. Like the "Leathernecks" football team of 1890, their uniforms became muddied. But no Alvin York play was needed.
Perhaps after the first twenty years of Olympic basketball, miracles were needed, especially in 1972 and 1988. It protrayed a false public image, like the KTA and KAT. America's entrant in decathlon, Glenn Morris, won the gold --also had a fling with the producer of a documentary of the Berlin games, Leni Riefenstahl, also know as Hitler's woman. He was a 24-yr. old from Denver, and chosen the best all-around athlete in the world. Like othrs before him, he tried acting in movies in America but floundered and failed in that sport.
The Getapo selected women to de-rail the Olympic athletes from ohter countries to engage in decedent sexual favors. In the "Love" Garden in the Village woods, each female chose her sportive partner but held onto his Olympic badge to prove her progeny had a good origin. This was part of Hitler's plan for a new Aaryan race.
Let's hope nothing like that will occur 72 years later in Beijing, China, after the parade was delayed by the opposition in France while the flame was being transported. After the attempt to kill our pets with poison in foods produced in China, and babies by lead paint on popular toys manufactured there, the Olympics should be cancelled as those in 1980 Russia. In France, the banners of protest depicted the Olympic rings as handcuffs hung on the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame cathedral. These banners were also put up on the Golden Gate bridge in America. A day earlier, London saw opposition of this travesty, calling it a form of sabotage by Tibetan separatists. "The buildup to these '08 games are to separate openness in China and to faciliate improvements in its record on human rights." The Olympics should supersede politics but, as we know from past places and crime running rampant, there is no way this could be possible.
An Encompassing Look at the 1936 Olympic Games December 1, 2007
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
This fine book is a comprehensive look at the 1936 Olympic Games. The book includes not only a well-done, and even myth-exploding, recounting of the standard stories of these Games, i.e., the summer Olympics in Berlin, but also contains an interesting review of the history of the modern Olympics leading up to the '36 Games, as well as an examination of the back-door politics over threatened boycotts of these Games, a look at the 1936 Winter Olympics (also held in Germany), and a dissection of Leni Riefenstahl's influential film, "Olympiad."
In addition, intertwined within all these facets of the 1936 Games is an absorbing account of the politics involved on all sides. In this regard, many people (German, American, and British) come out looking badly. Aside from the usual suspects (i.e., the Nazi cast of characters including Hitler and Goebbels, who come across as obviously flawed but also prescient in the use of media to their advantage), it is Avery Brundage, the head of the American Olympic Committee (who subsequently became the head of the International Olympic Committee) who comes across as perhaps the worst. Mr. Brundage, thanks to scrupulously maintained archives of his acts, is exposed as a bull-headed, anti-Semite.
In one respect, however, it is the Germans who come across the best, not by the character of their actions, but by the quality of their manipulations, turning a worldwide sporting event into an advertisement for the new Germany; an advertisement that left the world with a positive perception of Nazi Germany.
In sum, this is a well-rounded look at the 1936 Olympics that explores not just the triumphs and tragedies of the events themselves but also the bigger picture of the politics and propaganda surrounding the Games.
Would a widespread boycott of the 1936 Berlin Olympics really have made a difference? October 5, 2007
1 out of 6 found this review helpful
That is the million dollar question that governments, historians and academics have been wrestling with for the past 70 years. On the surface it would certainly appear that a successful boycott of the 1936 Summer Olympics by the major democracies of the world might have dealt Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party a serious setback. But would a boycott alone have been enough to deal the Third Reich a fatal blow? And why were nations like England, France and the United States so reluctant to withdraw from these games?? The answers to these questions and numerous others are not quite as simple as they might seem. In "Nazi Games: The Olympics of 1936" author David Clay Large presents a comprehensive look at the social and political upheaval leading up to the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin as well as offering a pretty revealing look at the games themselves and at the athletes who chose to participate in them.
The fact of the matter was that the goals and ideals of the Olympic movement were antihical to just about everything that the Nazi party stood for. But Adolf Hitler and his henchman saw in these Olympic games a propoganda opportunity of momentous proportions. With the obvious benefit of 20/20 hindsight it is really difficult to understand why various world leaders and members of the International Olympic Committee chose to play along with these thugs and seemed unwilling to do due diligence and dig a little deeper and demand answers to so many of the troubling questions that government officials, journalists and average citizens were asking in the weeks and months leading up to the games. Did the Nazis actually get to some of these prominent people or did the vast majority of Olympic officials truly agree with the AOC official Avery Brundage when he opined time and again that "the Olympics should supercede politics?" David Clay Large explores these important questions in great detail throughout "Nazi Games".
Now as I indicated earlier Large also presents his readers with a fairly detailed summary of the 1936 summer games themselves. You will meet many of the athletes who excelled in areas such as track and field, rowing, boxing and of course gymnastics. And you will find out which nations dominated these sports and why. American readers will be especially interested in the athletic prowess displayed by the legendary black athlete Jesse Owens who almost single-handedly dominated the track and field events in these games. Likewise, Glenn Morris, a 24 year old car salesman from Denver, scored an impressive victory in the decathlon and snatched a gold medal for the U.S. There were many other impressive performances by athletes from all over the globe in these games. In fact, many observers declared that the 1936 Berlin games were indeed the best games yet since the Olympics were revived in 1896. Yet it is quite clear that there was a pall of hatred and racism hanging over these games that was clearly about to explode. Seems like far too many people were in a state of denial. It really makes you wonder if we are not seeing this same phenomenon repeating itself as the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, China draw near. Stay tuned.
In "Nazi Games: The Olympic Games of 1936" author Daniel Clay Large does a workmanlike job of weaving together two disparate story lines. Readers get an inside look at the horrors of Nazi politics while at the same time learning all about the Olympic movement and the international sports scene. I thought that Large pulled this off quite well most of the time but every once in a while I found "Nazi Games" to be just a bit long-winded. Nonetheless, "Nazi Games" certainly is a fine addition to the historical record and a book worthy of your time and attention. Recommended.
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