A Discussion of Appeasement and
Sport as seen in the Manchester
Guardian and the Times
Paul A Spencer
La Trobe University
The Olympic Games at Berlin and Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1936 were
awarded to the democratic Weimar Republic in 1931, but the
administration of these Games felI to the Nazis when they came to
power in 1933. 1 There were immediate fears abroad that the new
Olympic hosts would be unsuitable, as the events assumed an Olympic
ideology which was cosmopolitan, democratic, and racially inclusive. It
conflicted with the Nazi ideology which was dedicated to a primitive
belief in the racial supremacy of the ‘Aryan’ people. Adolf Hitler had
denounced the Olympic Games in 1932 as ‘an invention of Jews and
Freemasons’ and as ‘a play inspired by Judaism which cannot possibly
be put on in a Reich ruled by National Socialists’. 2 After listening to Josef
Goebbels, his propaganda minister, Hitler realised that the event offered
wonderful political, economic, and social opportunities. Most
importantly, it could be used as propaganda to alter foreign opinion of
Nazi Germany. Thus, the Nazis appropriated the organisation of the
1936 Games, and expended much effort and money to ensure that they
were a resounding success. This caused further concern abroad, as the
Olympic Games were supposedly a supra-political and internationalist
sporting event.
When the Nazis began to expel Jews from German sporting clubs
and associations soon after they obtained power, initial fears for the
welfare of the XIth Olympiad gave way to formal complaints. Olympic
officials were concerned that Jews would also be excluded from the
German Olympic team, in contravention of a clause in the Olympic
Charter demanding the equal opportunity of competitors. Consequently,
during a meeting at Vienna from 7 to 9 June 1933, the International
Olympic Committee (IOC), sought guarantees from the German
organisers that they would not exercise any political, racial or religious
4
ASSH Bulletin No.25 • Dec. 1996
bias in their selection and treatment of competitors. While the IOC on
this occasion received assurances that Jews would not be excluded from
the German team, the Nazis continued to expel them from sporting
clubs and associations. During the IOC’s thirty-first Congress at Athens
in May 1934, the German delegates again promised that there would be
no discrimination. They declared ‘that only German citizenship was
required of prospective members of the German team’, and ‘that the
sportsmanship and discipline of the German people made any
demonstration against Jewish competitors out of the question’. 3
Unconvinced, IOC members from Britain and the USA threatened to
boycott the Games if the pledges were not forthcoming. On 15 September
1935, Hitler proclaimed the Nuremberg Laws which officially stripped
Jews of their German citizenship and civil rights, making them ineligible
for the German Olympic team. The expected backlash from the IOC and
the announcement of American and British boycotts were not
forthcoming, leaving the recalcitrant Nazis to continue their Olympic
preparations as they saw fit.
This essay will examine the different responses in Great Britain to
the ‘Nazi Olympics’ and Nazi sports policy in general, through a study
of the columns of two daily newspapers, the Times and the Manchester
Guardian. It will be shown that the most popular response-to accept, if
not support the Nazis-was attributed to Great Britain’s most infamous
foreign policy, appeasement.
During the late 1930s, the British Government along with the
majority of the British public, frightened by the thought of a general
war, did all they could to rationalise the aggressive expansion of Fascist
Italy and Germany. This was a policy that became known as appeasement.
Efforts to achieve a friendly understanding with Germany in particular
were made at several levels, including sport. This was constantly denied
by those directly involved, as there was a deeply entrenched belief in
Great Britain that sport and politics were separate. Accordingly, some
historians have accepted these denials by suggesting that the British, in
refusing to oppose Nazi sports policy, were deceived by Nazi propaganda
and blinded by their own non-political view of sport. This study also
revealed that this was not the case, and that the British Government and
other decision-makers fully appreciated that high-profile sporting events
could play an important role in political issues such as appeasement.
Spencer • Appeasement & Sport
5
Elite Newspapers
While the Times and the Manchester Guardian were both ‘elite’ or ‘class’
newspapers in the late 1930s, they had opposite views on Nazi Germany
and the policy of appeasement.4 During its Victorian heyday, the
conservative Times was famous for ‘thundering’ out the truth. Mowbray
Morris, manager of the paper, defended this practice in a letter to a
friend in 1857. He wrote:
... we do mind our own business when we expose the evil
systems of the continent. No doubt it would be easier to
make things pleasant by false representations or by total
silence; but if all men were to pursue this course, what
would become of the world’s progress.5
The continental ‘evil’ that Morris was referring to was French Emperor,
Napoleon III. Regrettably, when the infinitely more ‘evil’ Nazi regime
menaced the continent during the 1930s, the Times, which had a national
circulation of between 180 000 and 220 000, had lost its thunder.
Geoffrey Dawson was editor of the newspaper from 1912 to 1919
and again from 1923 to 1941. At the beginning of his second innings he
decided that the public required ‘soothing’, and espoused a policy of
‘giving fair play to the Government’. This became a permanent principle
of his editorship as long as a Conservative or National Government was
in power.6 Consequently, the Times gained a reputation for being an
official organ of the British Government and its policy of appeasement,
and gave up any pretence of fulfilling the duty of the press to act as a
critic of government.7
With the Times taking a subsidiary position, it was left to
newspapers such as the Manchester Guardian to inform the public of the
true nature of the Nazi regime. Despite its regional identification, and its
small circulation of between 25 000 and 50 000, this newspaper had an
international reputation as the liberal counterpart of the Times.8 W P
Crozier, the paper’s editor from 1933 to 1944, abhorred Hitler’s racial
theory and the barbarous practices of the Nazis, and deemed it the
Manchester Guardian’s special mission to keep the issues of the Jewish
and Christian persecutions and the concentration camps before the
public eye. Soundmg much like Morris of the Times in 1857, Crozier
explained his editorial ambition in a letter to F A Voigt in January 1934:
I want so far as possible to work for peace and good
6
ASSH Bulletin No.25 • Dec. 1996
understanding, but at the same time to be quite realistic in
describing the situation. We shall get into trouble with many
people, but we are bound to do that anyway. 9
Football and the Olympic Boycott Movement
Of the numerous Olympic boycott movements, the United States
produced the biggest. Its strength came from the Amateur Athletic
Union (AAU), the largest such organisation in the USA, and the body
that supervised the Olympic trials. Its president, Jeremiah T Mahoney,
was a Catholic deeply troubled by the paganism of the Nazis. He formed
a ‘Committee on Fair Play in Sports’ to channel and make more effective
growing domestic alarm over news about Nazi atrocities.10 Unfortunately,
the AAU’s stance was not supported by the American Olympic
Committee, which was intent on seeing American athletes compete in
Nazi Germany. There is evidence to suggest that leading members of the
Committee were racist, and therefore sympathetic of Nazism. Avery
Brundage, its president, was part owner of the Montecito Country Club
in Santa Barbara which excluded all Jews and Negroes from membership.
Furthermore, Frederick Rubien, Secretary of the Committee, announced
that ‘Germans are not discriminating against Jews in their Olympic
trials. The Jews are eliminated because they are not good enough as
athletes. Why there are not a dozen Jews in the world of Olympic
calibre?´ll As E A Montague, athletic correspondent of the Manchester
Guardian, explained, the truth was that ‘if Germany today has no Jews
of Olympic calibre it is because she has denied them adequate facilities
for training and competition and has forced them into exile or suicide’. 12
Nevertheless, the AAU met on 8 December 1935 to decide whether to
participate in the Games, and in retrospect, determine the fate of the
American and British boycott movements.
Four days before this meeting, the second-ever England versus
Germany football match was played at the Tottenham Hotspur ground
in London-the first at Berlin in 1930 produced a three-all draw. When
the Times and the Manchester Guardian reported the announcement of
the fixture, both papers declared that London once again had ‘the
privilege of staging one of the most important games of the season’. 13
There were a number of people in Great Britain who were less impressed.
Those involved in arranging the fixture appeared to underestimate
the level of anti-Nazi feeling in certain sections of English society. To
Spencer • Appeasement & Sport
7
play in a strong Jewish area like Tottenham, for example, was inviting
trouble. Not long after the match was announced, the Manchester Guardian
reported that London‘s Jews were preparing ‘an unpleasantly warm
welcome’ for the German team. Jews apparently formed approximately
a third of the Tottenham Hotspur’s Club supporters, and were infuriated
when they heard that 10 000 ‘Nazi’ spectators would be coming to watch
the match.14
Making matters worse was the report that a Polish-Jewish
footballer, Edmund Baumgartner, had been murdered on a field in
Ratibor by a German crowd in September. On 17 October, the Manchester
Guardian reported that the British non-sectarian Anti-Nazi Council was
planning to distribute handbills to crowds outside all London football
grounds, protesting against the football match. This was meant to be one
of many incidents planned in a ‘campaign of opposition’. The handbills
drew attention to the death of Baumgartner, and read: ‘British
sportsmen-This is how football is played in Germany. Do you stand for
this? A German football team is playing in London in December. Don’t
go.´15 The Council also planned to make protests to the Football
Association and the Tottenham Hotspur Club. A reporter from the
Manchester Guardian had already interviewed the secretary of the club,
who stated that:
It is an FA fixture. It is a matter for them, and not for us. We
have had a lot of letters and we have called the attention of
the FA to it. The club has received letters from all parts of
England written by Jews. 16
Frank Rodgers, Organising Secretary of the Council, wrote a letter to the
Football Association and suggested that the German Government
intended to use the match for the purpose of political propaganda. He
believed that Nazi Germany was ‘extraordinarily eager to trap from a
foreign country-particularly from Britain-some action which may be
construed as approval of the Nazi Government’. Rodgers hoped that it
was not too late for the Football Association to cancel the invitation, but
it refused to make a statement. 17 The Manchester Guardian was quick to
support Rodgers, revealing that:
Hitler is more sensitive to expressions of opinion in this
country than in any other. It is known here that he is getting
anxious lest anything be done to prevent the Olympic Games
8
ASSH Bulletin No.25 • Dec. 1996
from being held in Germany next year. Wednesday’s football
match has received his special attention. The German players
and visitors are instructed to show no flags and to refrain
from demonstrating their political allegiances. Hitler would
like the match to promote good feeling between this country
and his, and he is ready to call it off if there is any chance that
it might have the opposite effect.18
The British Government, like Hitler, was also aware of the political
significance of the match. Ralph Wigram, a Foreign Office official,
informed the Home Office on 8 November 1935 that ‘the match should
help to promote friendly relations between our two countries’. 19 It was
hardly surprising, therefore, that the match went ahead despite strong
calls for it to be abandoned. As Peter J Beck explained:
Although there was some risk, such as to public order and to
Anglo-German friendship, in allowing the match to go ahead, the Foreign
Office feared even greater problems if it was abandoned. Such action
was adjudged likely to prompt a hostile German reaction, thereby
conflicting with the basic foreign policy objective of conciliating
Germany.20
While the Manchester Guardian covered the controversy surrounding the match, the Times appeared uninterested. Brian Stoddart suggests
that it published two anti-Nazi articles during the dispute which placed
added pressure on those supporting the fixture? 21 If these articles had
this effect, it was probably unintended, for when the Times finally
involved itself in the dispute, it was clearly in favour of the match. This
occurred when the London Trades Union Council (TUC) protested in
late November.
The fact that 10 000 ‘Fascist’ spectators were coming to London
was also of concern to the TUC, which had recently agreed to a trade
boycott of Nazi Germany. Sir Walter Citrine, General Secretary of the
Council, wrote a letter to the Home Secretary, Sir John Simon, appealing
for the match and the ‘visit of the Nazi contingent’ to be prohibited. In
his letter, Citrine wrote:
The cruel and brutal persecution of trade unionists, Catholics,
Protestants, Jews, and Democrats by the Nazi regime is so
well known to everyone in this country that it would be
surprising if representatives of that regime were received
here as honoured guests. 22
Spencer • Appeasement & Sport
9
The Home Secretary was also asked to receive a TUC deputation to
discuss the match.
Citrine’s comment that the persecution of minorities in Nazi
Germany was well known to everyone in Great Britain was true. Among
other newspapers, the Manchester Guardian provided regular reports of
persecution in Nazi Germany. Ignorance, therefore, was certainly not
the reason why the football match, and indeed the Olympic Games the
following year, were allowed to continue. Nor was it due to the British
belief that sport and politics were separate.
The absurdity of this claim was evident in the Times and the
Manchester Guardian. When the TUC deputation met with the Home
Secretary, Sir John Simon, on 2 December, it was told that the football
match had no political significance. The German football team arrived
the same day, and both newspapers published extracts of a press interview
with Dr Xandry, managing secretary of the German Football Association.
He also denied that the match was political, and declared that the
German team had come to London ‘for the game and the game alone’. 23
As far as the editor of the Times was concerned, the matter had now been
resolved. In a sarcastic editorial on 3 December, Dawson criticised the
TUC’s: insistence that the match was political:
Their highly excited imaginations pictured an indignant populace
identifying a football team and its supporters with the authors of the
dictatorship and the agents of the brutalities which have disfigured the
Nazi regime ... ´ 24
On the same day, the Times also published a letter, two reports
and a picture, all designed to convince its readers that sport and politics
were separate. The letter from Lord Aberdare, member of the IOC, was
interesting because it contradicted a statement from Citrine, published
in the Manchester Guardian. Aberdare refuted claims that Jews were
being excluded from sports clubs in Germany, and declared that he was
more than willing to ‘examine a case of a possible Olympic Jewish
athlete, male or female, being unable to train freely´. 25
Meanwhile, Citrine’s statement explained why the TUC chose to
protest against the football match. He said that the Council had
approached the Home Secretary to ‘prevent the match being used as a
political demonstration by the Nazi Government’. Then, in opposing
Aberdare, he stated:
10
ASSH Bulletin No. 25 • Dec. 1996
Sportsmen in this country should understand fully that the
Nazi Government had destroyed everything in the nature of
independent facilities for sport in Germany. The Nazi
Government not only has compulsorily disbanded all sports
organisations which were attached to the Christian churches,
youth movements, and athletic bodies, and confiscated their
funds, but has imposed a political and racial test on athletes.26
Citrine made further mention of the fact that the German football team,
like all other sports organisations in Germany, was under the direct
control and instructions of the Reich Sports Commissioner appointed by
the Nazi Government.27
When the match was finally played it was obvious that it was used
as political propaganda for both the British and Nazi governments. The
Manchester Guardian’s reporter had never seen a more friendly football
match, and subtly suggested that it was orchestrated:
At times it became almost more friendship than football
...The amount of handshaking was almost comical ... Most
noticeable of all was the positively ostentatious way in which
the English forwards refrained again and again from hustling
the German goalkeeper.28
In regard to the last observation, the English forwards were renowned
for hustling the opposition goalkeeper, so they must have been under
instructions not to do this during the match. This excessive friendliness
was surely designed to improve relations between the two countries,
and it succeeded. The Times’s reporter had nothing but praise for the
way in which the match was played, and the result achieved:
As the game began, so it ended, on a pleasant and sporting
note. Szepan went forward and shook hands with the English
players, and was followed by his colleagues. The referee
congratulated the players, apparently on the clean way in
which the game had been contested. The players left the
field, some arm in arm, amid loud cheers, which continued
for some time after they had disappeared from view. Roads
leading from the ground were filled with people who waited
to give a final cheer to the teams. As long queues of Germans,
disappointed but happy, waited for their motor-aches,
people in the streets and houses waved to them. The coach
containing the players and officials had an escort of police
control cars and the party was greeted with cheers. 29
Spencer • Appeasement & Sport
11
It was frustrating to observe the inconsistency and contradiction of the
two newspapers. The Manchester Guardian, for instance, initially
declared it a privilege for London to host the football match, yet seemed
to support the call to have it abandoned. The Times, moreover, printed
an article from its Berlin correspondent on 6 December, which indicated
that the match was indeed political. It reported that one of Germany’s
leading newspapers, Der Angriff, proclaimed that 4 December was more
than the date of a football match, ‘it has, at the same time, a political
significance’. After criticising English trade union leaders, the paper
added that ‘For the provokers Wednesday was a bad disappointment;
for Germany it was an unrestricted political, psychological, and also
sporting success‘.30 In concluding, the Berlin correspondent explained
that it was hardly a secret in well-informed circles that a resumption of
closer contact with Great Britain was earnestly desired. Obviously his
editor, Dawson, knew very little having only recently ridiculed the
TUC’s claim that the match was political.
On the day of the football match, the Manchester Guardian
published the first of two articles by E A Montague on the question of
participation in the Olympic Games. He began by stating that opponents
of the Games did so on athletic rather than political grounds. This was
an important statement to make, because those who opposed sporting
relations with Nazi Germany were often accused of bringing politics
into sport. The Nazis, Montague explained, were violating the principles
laid down by the IOC, which governed the Games; namely, that ‘the
Olympic Games assemble together the amateurs of all nations on an
equal footing and under conditions as perfect as possible’, and, ‘only
those who are natives of a country, or naturalised subjects of that
country, are qualified to compete in the Olympic games under the
colours of that country’. According to Montague, Jews were unable to
compete on an equal footing because on top of general persecution, they
were deprived of sporting clubs and facilities, and were left without the
time or heart for sport’. In any event, the Nuremberg Laws had taken
away their German citizenship. 31
Montague did concede, however, that several Jews were in the
German Olympic team, notably Helene Meyer, the 1928 Olympic fencing
champion, and Gretel Bergmann, a promising young high jumper. But
their inclusion in the team was only a token gesture by Hitler designed
to undermine opposition to the Games.32 W P Crozier agreed, and
12
ASSH Bulletin No. 25 • Dec. 1996
vented his anger in a splendid editorial. He wrote:
There will be a handful of German Jewish athletes at the
Berlin Games. They will be there in order to conciliate foreign
opinion; they will be there also because if they were not
there, Britain and the United States would be absent, and the
Games would fail. But the Olympic Games, by their charter,
assemble athletes of all nations ‘on an equal footing’, and
German Jewish athletes in their own country are not equals;
they are inferiors, almost untouchables. The German
delegates at Athens in 1934 declared that ‘only German
citizenship’ was required of German athletes for the Games,
but the Jews are no longer German citizens; again, they are
inferiors, almost untouchables.
The chosen handful is paraded before foreign eyes, food for
the credulous, but German Jewish athletes in general, men
and women, are subjected to the same discrimination, the
same inequality, as all other Jews in Germany. If German
Jewish athletes are ‘on an equal footing’, how is it that the
National Sport Emblem can only be won by Germans of
‘Aryan descent, that an ‘Aryan’ team is penalised if it plays
against Jews, that Jewish athletes cannot use municipal sports
grounds or municipal swimming baths, that admission to
Jews is by placard forbidden at the very home of the Winter
Olympic Games? Politics must not be introduced in the
Olympic Games; it is a fundamental principle. But the Nazi
Party has injected the political poison of its anti-Semitism to
the principle of human equality on which the Games are
based, on which they have so far been conducted, and without
which they are spiritually dead. How can this country
approve and confirm this perversion of a noble principle by
joining in the Berlin Games? Must it not, for its self-respect,
withdraw?33
This editorial was written in response to a letter from Philip Noel Baker,
a member of the 1912 British Olympic team, Captain of the 1920 and
1924 British Olympic Athletic teams, and Deputy Commissioner of the
1928 British Olympic Council. Incidentally, he was also an MP during
the 1930s, and won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1959. Noel Baker loved the
Olympic Games, yet in 1935 he called for a British boycott. He believed
that the Nazis had injected politics into all sports, and that it had been
‘carried to a point where foreign observers and where in Germany itself
Spencer • Appeasement & Sport
13
it is the laughing-stock of those who understand what sportsmanship
involves’.34
Noel Baker was in fact one of three former British Olympic
champions to express concern over the Nazi Olympics. This was
mentioned in a book entitled The Yellow Spot: The Extermination of the
JEWS in Germany, which was published shortly after the Winter Games
held at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in February 1936. 35 An anti-Jewish
statement published in the Dietwart, the official organ of the German
Reich Sports Leadership, was used to begin a chapter devoted to the
1936 Games. On several occasions, correspondents from the Manchester
Guardian used similar statements to illustrate the political nature of
sport in Germany. On 15 January 1936, a ‘special correspondent’ reported
that the Deutschkunde uber Volk, Staat und Leibesbung (German Manual
on People, Nation, and Physical Culture), invalidated all denials that
German sport was political. He wrote:
On page 73 it is stated that gymnastics and sports are schools
for the development of political resolutions and of service to
the State, and that unpolitical, neutral gymnasts and
sportsmen are unthinkable in Hitler’s Germany.
On page 334, ff ., it is stated that national Socialism is evolving
a new form of sport -a sport that is the political education
of the body. Sport, it concludes, must help in fulfilling
Germany’s mission in the world. 36
Of course the Times never used such tactics, because it, along with the
people that it supported, were in a completely different world to the
Manchester Guardian. On 14 January 1936, the Times reported that Sir
Noel Curtis Bennett, British representative on the IOC, deplored the
attempts to mix sport with politics, and expressed the opinion that
Germany would be able to carry out the Olympic Games in the right
spirit. He suggested that ‘sport should be left to those who understand
it, and that in all competitions one competes with others and not against
them’.37
These statements were made ridiculous by a report in the
Manchester Guardian on a book by Bruno Malitz, Sports Leader of the
Storm Troopers in Berlin. The book was given official approval by its free
distribution to every sports organisation in Germany, and was placed on
the list of preferred reading for Nazis. Malitz stressed that German
14
ASSH Bulletin No. 25 • Dec. 1996
sporting activity was based on hatred, and that there was no positive
value in competing against ‘dirty Jews and negroes’. 38
Despite statements such as these, which were well-known
throughout the world, the USA and Great Britain chose not to boycott
the Games. At the AAU meeting on 8 December 1935, it was decided by
sixty-one to fifty-five votes to participate in the 1936 Games. As America
was the most powerful athletic nation in the world, this vote put an end
to both the American and British boycott movements.
The Olympic Games
The 1936 Winter Games was held at Garmisch-Partenkirchen between 6
to 16 February 1936. While only a prelude to the Olympic Games in
August, they enabled the Nazis to exhibit, for the first time, their
organisational and athletic prowess to visitors from abroad. 39 It was
vitally important, therefore, that they were carried off without any
major incidents.
There had already been controversy regarding anti-Semitic signs
at Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The IOC was successful in having them
removed, but the Nazis were criticised for their existence in the first
place. It was reported in the Manchester Guardian that at an opening of a
hall in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Dr Wagner, Bavarian Minister of the
Interior, explained that the signs had been removed for two reasons.
Firstly, that Jews now knew their place in Germany; and secondly, that
the signs may have hurt or offended Germany’s foreign guests who
could not understand the many phases of National Socialism.40 In reality,
the signs were temporarily removed for the sake of propaganda, and
were part of what became known as the ‘Olympic Pause’. In late January,
a Times correspondent suggested that Garmisch-Partenkirchen was
‘admirably qualified as the site for the Winter Games’. 41 Obviously he
did not have a good look around.
The Times provided a detailed account of the opening ceremony,
and Dr Ritter von Halt’s speech was the highlight. The President of the
German Olympic Committee said:
We want to show you that Germany has spared no efforts
for agreement with the order of its Fuhrer and Chancellor to
make a reality of these festivals which symbolise peace and a
sincere understanding between all nations. 42
The Times correspondent failed to ask the question why, if the Olympics
Spencer • Appeasement & Sport
15
symbolised peace and understanding, so many German civilians were
currently in uniform. On 29 June 1936, the Manchester Guardian published
an article on Berlin’s preparations and preparedness for the Summer
Games in August. Apparently, while the city was being revamped, one
could not help but notice that Berliners were preparing for a much larger
sensation than the Olympics-war. The following prophetic words
explained the situation in Nazi Germany:
Yet not even the Olympic Games, which are the pivot of all
activity, can disturb the preoccupations with the last war or
the next war that marks the German people of the Third
Reich. War for them is the father of all things. They ceaselessly
chew the cud of the world conflict.43
This was written after Hitler’s invasion of the Rhineland in March 1936,
but it would be fair to say that Nazi Germany’s preparedness for war
was equally evident at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in February. The Times,
predicably, was unable or more likely unwilling, to see the hypocrisy in
von Halt’s comments.
Despite an incredibly rough ice-hockey match between Canada
and Germany, excessive chauvinism shown by the German crowds, and
problems with the salutes given at the opening ceremony, the Winter
Games, to the IOC’s relief, were free of major incidents. On the closing
day, the Times’s special correspondent praised Nazi Germany for its
organisation of the Games, and concluded by declaring that ‘above all
the traditional Olympic spirit of fair play and international comradeship
has been well maintained throughout’. 44 Yet again, here is this perverse
denial that there was politics in sport, despite glaring facts to the
contrary. Amazingly, this denial itself was political because it was
designed to assist the policy of appeasement. But as Bill Murray explained,
while sport was part of the political agenda in the 1930s, only in the
totalitarian countries was it used openly as an arm of foreign policy. 45
On 2 March 1936, a letter appeared in the Times that stood out for
its opposition to the Games and Nazi sports policy among the many
others that exhibited the usual complacency. ‘Aryan’ (a pseudonym),
warned fellow readers of the paper not to be blinded by the apparent
success of the Winter Games, He believed that the Summer Games was
heading in a sinister direction. Those aspects of Nazi Germany’s Olympic
preparations that he felt ought to be known were: the Games was being
16
ASSH Bulletin No.25 • Dec. 1996
used to speed up the militarisation of German youth; tourist dollars
would end up financing war preparations; the Games was being run as
a giant publicity stunt for National Socialism; the Nuremberg Laws had
broken clauses in the Olympic Charter. While declaring that he had been
looking forward to the Games, ‘Aryan’ believed that Anglo-German
cordiality would best be served in the long run by ‘putting the facts
relative to the organisation of the XIth Olympiad fairly and squarely
before the British public in good time’.46 Unfortunately, as the England
versus Germany football match and the Winter Games had shown, most
people in Great Britain did not share ‘Aryan’s’ concern.
Crozier was well aware of this when the Summer Games began on
1 August, In a despairing editorial, he expressed the same concern about
the nature of German sport, and the ramifications of participating in the
Games. To-day the Olympic Games begin a new phase’ because ‘for the
first time we are to see them confessedly exploited not for the peace of
the world, not even for the pride of one nation, but as advertisement for
a political party’. He knew that there would be no trouble during the
proceeding fortnight because the Nazis knew ‘on which side of their
bread is buttered’. In concluding, he wrote:
Inhabitants of Berlin, it is said, are speaking of ‘the Olympic
Pause’. Which is it to be? If it is only a pause, the Olympic
Games may remain in public estimation the greatest of the
world’s athletic festivals, but faith in them as an instrument
for world peace and understanding will have been
destroyed.47
At this stage, the Manchester Guardian was beginning to realise that the
task of convincing people in Great Britain to abandon sporting relations
with Nazi Germany was impossible. Its coverage of the Olympic Games
was straightforward, and was obviously not designed to create
controversy. There were a number of incidents during the Games which
afforded opportunities for loud protest, but these were ignored. Crozier,
for instance, wrote an editorial on the wonderful exploits of the black
American athletes, in particular Jesse Owens. This was a chance to
illustrate the absurdity of Hitler’s racial policies, but he failed to do so.
Crozier did, however, stand by his promise to keep the issue of
racial and religious persecution in Nazi Germany before the public eye.
In an editorial on 5 August, he wrote:
Spencer • Appeasement & Sport
17
We have heard little about the German religious conflict
recently or about the persecution of the Jews or about the
concentration camps. But it does not follow that these matters
have faded out of existence. The contrary is true; they have
faded into the deeper darkness of the German censorship
and of official secrecy, but they go on as they did before. 48
In fact, the Orienberg concentration camp was only a few miles from the
Olympic Stadium. While the Manchester Guardian was well aware of
this, the Times was intent only in providing its own non-political version
of the Games.
The Manchester Guardian printed a review of the athletic events
when they concluded on 12 August. E A Montague was disappointed
with the ‘excessive earnestness’ displayed by the athletes.49 Jack Metcalfe,
world record holder for the Hop, Step and Jump, competed in the
Games and was similarly dismayed. When the athletes were in the
Olympic Village, they were all Tom, Dick and Harry’s’, despite the
differences in culture, language, and physical characteristics. ‘But when
we got together in our national groups’, he explained, ‘there was a
suppression of feeling because of international tensions’. 50 This was
exactly the kind of ‘serious sport’ which George Orwell denounced in
his famous essay on the failings of international sport. 51
Apart from their seriousness, the 1936 Olympic Games was a huge
success for Nazi Germany. People from around the world came away
from them with new impressions about a country they once detested. As
the Times explained, the event was ‘a great success both for those who
organised it and for their guests’. 52 For German Jews and other
‘untouchables’ they were a brief respite amidst a reign of increasing
terror.
Conclusions
There is no doubt that the Nazis were clever in their use of high-profile
sporting events. They were very quick to recognise that the Olympic
Games in 1936 would offer wonderful opportunities for propaganda
and economic growth. Moreover, they were confident and strong enough
to organise the event in the manner in which they desired. But it should
never be assumed that those who accepted Nazi sports policy were
deceived or blinded by Nazi propaganda. This essay has shown that in
Great Britain, which was one of Nazi Germany’s more ardent supporters
18
ASSH Bulletin No. 25 • Dec. 1996
during the late 1930s, the decision to support the Olympic Games and
other sporting events like the England versus Germany football match,
was in keeping with the popular foreign policy of appeasement.
As far as the two newspapers were concerned, the Times, as a
mouthpiece for the British Government, found the going a lot easier
than the Manchester Guardian. At least the latter tried to perform its duty
as ‘public watchdog’, something which the former had stopped doing a
long time ago.
NOTES:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
The main books on the 1936 Olympic Games are Richard D Mandell, The Nazi
Olympics, University of Illinois Press, Chicago, 1987 and W Hart-Davis, Hitler’s
Games: The 1936 Olympics, London, Century, 1986. These books have been
reviewed by W J Murray, ‘Berlin in 1936: Old and New Work on the Nazi Olympics’,
in International Journal of the History of Sport, vol. 9, no. 1, Apr. 1992, pp. 29-49.
Hart-Davis, Hitler’s Games, p. 45.
Manchester Guardian, 5 Dec. 1935.
Newspapers appeared daily or weekly and were of three main kinds: ‘class’,
‘popular’, and ‘specialised’. ‘Class’ newspapers were those which circulated mainly
among the well-to-do and more educated sections of the population. ‘Popular’
newspapers had a general appeal to all classes of people. Specialised newspapers
appealed to political and religious groups. See PEP (Political and Economic
Planning), Report on the British Press, London, PEP, Apr. 1938. p. 3.
S Koss, The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain,Volume Two: The
Twentieth Century, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1984. p. 545.
F R Gannon, The British Press And Germany: 1936-1939, Clarendon Press, Oxford,
1971. p. 69.
Ironically, John Delane, editor of the Times from 1841 to 1877, declared that the
first duty of the press ‘is to obtain the earliest and most correct intelligence of the
events of the time, and instantly, by disclosing them, to make them the common
property of the nation’. To achieve this, the press must remain independent, and
‘can enter into no close or binding alliances with the statesmen of the day, nor can
it surrender its permanent interests to the convenience of the ephemeral power of
any Government’. See H W Steed, The Press, Harmondsworth, 1938. pp. 75-9.
Gannon, The British Press And Germany, p. 76.
Gannon, The British Press And Germany, p. 77.
Mandell, The Nazi Olympics, p. 73.
S Soldatow, Politics of the Olympics, Cassell Australia, North Ryde, 1980, p. 90.
Manchester Guardian, 5 Dec. 1935.
Times, 6 Oct. 1935 and Manchester Guardian, 8 Oct. 1935.
Manchester Guardian, 16 Oct 1935.
Manchester Guardian, 17 Oct. 1935.
Manchester Guardian, 17 Oct. 1935.
Manchester Guardian, 17 Oct. 1935.
Manchester Guardian, 30 Nov. 1935.
M Polley, ‘Olympic Diplomacy: The British Government and the Projected 1940
Olympic Games’, in International Journal of the History of Sport, vol. 9. no. 1, Aug.
1992, p. 172.
P J Beck, ‘England v Germany, 1938’. in History Today, vol. 32, June 1982. p. 32.
B Stoddart, ‘Sport, Cultural Politics and International Relations: England versus
Spencer • Appeasement & Sport
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
Text
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
Germany, 1935’, in Sport History—An Official Report of the Olympic Scientific
Congress, Schors, Niederhausen, Oregon, 1985. p. 388.
Manchester Guardian, 29 Nov. 1935.
Times, 3 Dec. 1935.
Times, 3 Dec. 1935.
Times, 3 Dec. 1935.
Manchester Guardian, 3 Dec. 1935.
Manchester Guardian, 3 Dec. 1935.
Manchester Guardian, 5 Dec. 1935.
Times, 5 Dec. 1935.
Times, 6 Dec. 1935.
Manchester Guardian, 5 Dec. 1935.
Manchester Guardian, 5 Dec. 1935.
Manchester Guardian, 7 Dec. 1935.
Manchester Guardian, 7 Dec. 1935.
This book received a favourable review by prominent anti-appeaser, Professor
Gilbert Murray, in the Manchester Guardian, 17 Mar. 1936.
Manchester Guardian, 15 Jan. 1936.
Times, 14 Jan. 1938.
Times, 14 Jan. 1936.
Hart-Davis, Hitler’s Games, p. 94.
Manchester Guardian, 3 Feb. 1936.
Times, 27 Jan. 1936.
Times, 7 Feb. 1936.
Manchester Guardian, 29 June 1936.
Times, 7 Feb. 1936.
W J Murray, ‘France, Coubertin and The Nazi Olympics: The Response’, in
Olympika: The International Journal of Olympic Studies, vol. 1, 1992. p. 60.
Times, 2 Mar. 1936.
Manchester Guardian, 1 Aug. 1936.
Manchester Guardian, 5 Aug. 1936.
Man&ester Guardian, 13 Aug. 1936.
K Donald and D Selth, Olympic Saga: The Track and Field Story, Melbourne 1956,
Futurian Press, Sydney, 1957. p. 48.
G Orwell, ‘The Sporting Spirit’, written in 1945, in George Orwell: The Penguin
Essays of George Orwell, Penguin , London, 1984, pp. 327-9.
Times, 17 Aug. 1936.
19