Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: Yes, So I don't know. I mean, I guess it
Speaker 2: depends on what you consider to be murder. Like, I
Speaker 2: don't really think it was murder, because you know, I was.
Speaker 2: I was pretty wasted, so like, I feel like that
Speaker 2: is a mitigating factor. But oh my god, we're recording. Hey, sorry,
Speaker 2: this was a podcast. Well, this was not a podcast.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize we were recording. I was just talking
Speaker 2: to Matt Leeb about our weekend on Sesame Street.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Mine was also good on Sesame Street. And yes
Speaker 3: on Sesame Street. Yes. Anyway, legal analysts are split on
Speaker 3: whether or not the Sesame Street weekend we had was
Speaker 3: legal or not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's I think what's most important
Speaker 2: to note is that big Bird is up in a farm,
Speaker 2: uh in the country now, and he's doing great.
Speaker 3: He's fine, he's fine, he's good.
Speaker 2: Look into like the will that that is totally legitimate,
Speaker 2: that will be found in this house. Anyway, Matt, we're
Speaker 2: still in our Burton Ernie bed reading her bedtime story,
Speaker 2: a two hour bedtime story.
Speaker 4: Yet what wait, I have an important questions and I
Speaker 4: feel like Matt would give a fantastic answer this question,
Speaker 4: which fictional TV character would you let defend you in court?
Speaker 3: Oh god? I mean the obvious one is fog Horn
Speaker 3: Leghorn because he already sounds like a rooster lawyer. But
Speaker 3: if I had to go, uh, does it have to
Speaker 3: be a cartoon? No?
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, I think I think it. I think
Speaker 4: it's just fictional, so just so it could be. And
Speaker 4: you know from from either shows that you I mean,
Speaker 4: you could pod yourself the gun or pod yourself the wire?
Speaker 3: Where are you? I think I already chose Foghorn Leghorn.
Speaker 3: But if I had to choose someone from you know,
Speaker 3: a live action television show, I don't know. I feel
Speaker 3: like a fucking I think the Good Doctor would be
Speaker 3: pretty good at it.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, see me. I'm picking my cousin Vinnie, sure,
Speaker 2: largely because I would like to meet Marisitome.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, but.
Speaker 2: He will get me off out of this murder rap
Speaker 2: that I shouldn't catch for whatever happened to Big Bird, which.
Speaker 3: Doesn't matter what happened. The point is is, you know,
Speaker 3: we're going to be fine. We're going to be fine.
Speaker 3: Big Bird is still alive.
Speaker 2: I do kind of want to see I mean, this
Speaker 2: is adjacent to Sesame Street. But I do feel like
Speaker 2: right after my cousin Vinnie, they could have done a sequel,
Speaker 2: but where the rest of the cast are muppets, and uh,
Speaker 2: that would have been a great movie.
Speaker 3: They could have done a lot of things.
Speaker 2: I feel like the original could have had muppets in
Speaker 2: it and it will worked out pretty.
Speaker 3: Were not really many movies out there that couldn't also
Speaker 3: work being a combination live action muppet movie. You know,
Speaker 3: I just Godfather.
Speaker 2: The Pianist, sure, Oh yeah, definitely the Pianist Captain Corelli's
Speaker 2: mandolin for sure.
Speaker 3: Man, it just works.
Speaker 2: So that's the cold open, everybody. We're going to talk
Speaker 2: more about Avery Brundage when we get back. And we're back. So,
Speaker 2: if Pierre de Kubertine was the Jesus Christ of the Olympics,
Speaker 2: and he kind of was, Enri de Ballets, Latour was
Speaker 2: the Apostle Paul we mentioned him in the last episode.
Speaker 2: This is kind of the guy Kubertine when he gets
Speaker 2: too old. Henri is the dude who kind of follows
Speaker 2: him as the King of the Olympics. You might say
Speaker 2: that's not what they call it, but that's what I'm
Speaker 2: going to call it because Enri de Ballet Latour was
Speaker 2: a Belgian aristocrat. His father was a count and former
Speaker 2: governor of Antwerp, which, of all the parts of Belgium,
Speaker 2: is certainly one of them. He had been elected to
Speaker 2: Kubertine's successor as President of the Olympics in nineteen twenty five,
Speaker 2: and as the nineteen thirty dawned, his primary claim to
Speaker 2: fame was that in nineteen twenty eight he had tried
Speaker 2: to ban women from the Olympics.
Speaker 3: Hell. Yeah, so that's that's Ballet la tour.
Speaker 2: Things are too easy for broads in nineteen twenty eight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, there's gonna be men only nineteen twenty eight onward,
Speaker 3: all dudes.
Speaker 2: I just want to see men in tight span dex dancing, dancing.
Speaker 4: I would like to see a man do what Simone
Speaker 4: Biles does.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Sure, literally can't because she is one of one. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much.
Speaker 3: Okay, but if I try hard and I could probably
Speaker 3: do those flips.
Speaker 2: This is what I saw the first time I met you,
Speaker 2: is you have a real Simone Biles energy, absolutely a microphone.
Speaker 3: I'm limber and I'm fun, that's right, That's right, and
Speaker 3: much too tall.
Speaker 2: You know who's not limber? Or fun was Enri Ballet
Speaker 2: la tour?
Speaker 4: Cool?
Speaker 2: Yeah, now I learned he was a piece of shit
Speaker 2: from the book burlin in Games by Guy Walters. But
Speaker 2: whenever I learned some very prominent and respected guy was
Speaker 2: actually a scumbag, I like to take a glance at
Speaker 2: their wiki just to see if they're like any funny
Speaker 2: examples of editors. They are trying to diplomatically describe how
Speaker 2: much a dude sucks, presumably while battling the horde of
Speaker 2: bots that today's International Committee commands to whitewash their history.
Speaker 2: And sure enough, when I went to Allanrie's wiki, I
Speaker 2: found this. As IOC president, he focused on preserving the
Speaker 2: traditional ideals and integrity of the Olympics and supporting amateur
Speaker 2: sport globally during a time of increasing political and commercial pressures,
Speaker 2: despite his antipathy towards Jews and his desire to exclude
Speaker 2: women from participating in the yellowcups. Oh boy, it feels
Speaker 2: like a buried lead there?
Speaker 3: Is that not the name of the sub section typathy? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 3: well this does give me an opportunity to use my
Speaker 3: net and Yahoo soundboard that I just invented. All right,
Speaker 3: there we go and here's another one. Crazy Jews, Crazy Jews.
Speaker 2: It's going to be popular. So since Ballet la Tour
Speaker 2: was a raging anti semi that's what I mean. I
Speaker 2: think we could all do that in our heads. You
Speaker 2: hear someone described as having antipathy towards Jews, that's the
Speaker 2: most racist man you've ever heard of, although not in
Speaker 2: this case, because Hitler is also a part of our story.
Speaker 3: Yes, he's around at the same time, you know, And.
Speaker 2: Because Ballet la Tour he is going to push back
Speaker 2: on some of Hitler's discrimination against Jewish athletes. He gets
Speaker 2: more credit that he deserves because he is At no
Speaker 2: point is he doing it because it's really wrong. He's
Speaker 2: doing it because, like, well, I know I should do
Speaker 2: this because the Olympics is supposed to be for everyone,
Speaker 2: and I kind of hate these people, but all, like
Speaker 2: I have to demand they at least pretend not to
Speaker 2: be racist than not against these people that I also hate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have to put on a good face, you know.
Speaker 3: It's like you need to wear a mask if you're
Speaker 3: going to hate Jews. Come on Hitler, right right.
Speaker 2: And the problem for Ballet la Tour, who's again he's
Speaker 2: president of the IOC, which is the International Committee Avery
Speaker 2: Brundage is for most of his period he's president and
Speaker 2: then like a leading official in the AOC, which is
Speaker 2: the American Olympic Committee. Right, So Brundage is like a
Speaker 2: local Olympic leader and balleyla Tour is running the whole shebang, right,
Speaker 2: And so Ballet la Tour Brundage desperately wants to be
Speaker 2: on the IOC, and he is eventually going to get
Speaker 2: on it and later will be president of the IOC,
Speaker 2: and he's looking he has to kind of he has
Speaker 2: to make balleyla Tour happy in order to be able
Speaker 2: to make that jump, right. So this is like from
Speaker 2: a career point of view, what's going on here? And
Speaker 2: the problem for both balayla Tour and Brundage is that
Speaker 2: as soon as the Nazis get into power, they start
Speaker 2: banning Jewish athletes from joining sporting organizations, from using the
Speaker 2: same sporting facilities as Aryan athletes. And this they don't
Speaker 2: like directly say Jews can't be in the Olympics, but
Speaker 2: because they have, they have made it impossible for Jewish
Speaker 2: people to be a part of any of the things
Speaker 2: that funnel people into the Olympics, right, So it's a
Speaker 2: facto band, right, Yeah, I think there is an eventually,
Speaker 2: like a straight up band, but it starts as just
Speaker 2: sort of like, well, we have now made it impossible
Speaker 2: for this to happen, right Yeah. Avery Brundage again also
Speaker 2: sees this as a problem, but he's also very racist,
Speaker 2: So they're both in this position of like, well, we
Speaker 2: have this kind of messianic belief in the Olympics and
Speaker 2: everyone should be capable of being in the Olympics. So
Speaker 2: we don't like that you've made this impossible, but we
Speaker 2: also basically agree with why you hate the Juice, right,
Speaker 2: Like we do think they run an international conspiracy.
Speaker 3: We're very racist. You listen, I get where you're coming
Speaker 3: from with the whole Jews thing. What I'm just saying,
Speaker 3: you know, that's trying to ban them. Yeah, I'm trying
Speaker 3: to square that with letting everyone compete in sport. And uh,
Speaker 3: it's a tricky one.
Speaker 2: It's such a it's such an interesting because there's a
Speaker 2: lot of these kinds you even when you read through
Speaker 2: like wartime memoirs of like Americans, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: like like patent pretty racist against Jewish people, and then
Speaker 2: like the Holocaust becomes clear and there are a number
Speaker 2: of folks who are like, oh, I guess I'm not
Speaker 2: that kind of racist. I learned something about me through
Speaker 2: this whole experience, And isn't that what war is all about?
Speaker 3: Right? Yeah, learning that you're not as bad as.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the Nazis being Nazis, spark anger across the
Speaker 2: rest of the world with a chaotic series of aggressive
Speaker 2: Olympic related spasms pretty much as soon as they're in charge. Now,
Speaker 2: this goes in a number of different directions. First off,
Speaker 2: they're just kind of like, we don't even want to
Speaker 2: host the games if you guys are going to be
Speaker 2: dicks about this hole us oppressing Jewish people think.
Speaker 3: And then they're like, yeah, you guys are going to
Speaker 3: be rude about our belief system about how Jews are vermin.
Speaker 3: Then I don't even think we want to do this shit. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The other thing they do, so the guy who's the
Speaker 2: president of the German Olympic Committee, so he's like the
Speaker 2: German Avery Brundage, is a guy named Theodore Leveled and
Speaker 2: he's like half Jewish, right, and so they try to
Speaker 2: fire him, and the IOC is like, well, you can't, right,
Speaker 2: Like then we definitely will. And so like he's going
Speaker 2: to be leveled. Is like in such an awkward position
Speaker 2: where he is part Jewish, he has actively been discriminating,
Speaker 2: discriminated on in this in this entire pre and during
Speaker 2: the Olympics period. He is also the head of the
Speaker 2: German Olympic Committee still and it's one of those like
Speaker 2: I definitely know there are definitely people at the time,
Speaker 2: like Jewish refugees and stuff, who attacked him for being
Speaker 2: a trader. I also like, well, I don't know, man,
Speaker 2: what happens to your family if you are that publicly
Speaker 2: like that. I'm not gonna. I don't have it in
Speaker 2: me to judge people in that situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's a bit tricky if yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: yeah German jew at this time. Yeah, like maybe we
Speaker 3: can like reason with him.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, it's it's yeah, I just don't have it
Speaker 2: in me to come down on the guy. But it's
Speaker 2: important to understand that context and understand that there are
Speaker 2: a lot of people who consider him a trader.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: The Nazis banned Jewish athletes from from using public training
Speaker 2: facilities and from holding membership in any of the sporting
Speaker 2: organizations that funnel competitors up to the Olympics. This sparks
Speaker 2: outrage in the United States and the US we're really
Speaker 2: interested that it's interesting in this period because we are
Speaker 2: as racist as we have ever been in the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 2: But anytime somebody comes straight out and makes their politics
Speaker 2: at a national level, you can get away with at
Speaker 2: a local level in the South, especially, but if you
Speaker 2: come out at a national level and you might make
Speaker 2: your politics be about racial exclusion, Americans don't generally like that, right,
Speaker 2: But I think in large part not because we're any
Speaker 2: less racist than anyone else, but because it conflicts with
Speaker 2: the idea Americans have of themselves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that offends them right of one day not
Speaker 3: being racist or the idea that like, no, we're not
Speaker 3: actually racist. Yes, on a national level, we're really really
Speaker 3: polite about segregation.
Speaker 2: As we're going to get into, one of the awkward
Speaker 2: things about this is that a lot of some of
Speaker 2: the people who reject the boycott campaign in the US
Speaker 2: are black American athletes, and they have a really good point, right,
Speaker 2: because they're like, well, but we have like a lot
Speaker 2: of the same laws, Like I can't play in most
Speaker 2: of the same facilities that like the people running the
Speaker 2: Olympics play in. So why am I pissed about Germany
Speaker 2: in particular?
Speaker 3: Right? Yeah?
Speaker 2: And it's like, well, yeah, I mean from the position
Speaker 2: of like, yeah, you're a black boxer, like nineteen thirty
Speaker 2: five or whatever, I understand that argument. I certainly can't.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like you get with them black strike
Speaker 2: breakers during like the Cold Wars, where it's like, well,
Speaker 2: they wouldn't let you be part of the union. What
Speaker 2: are you supposed to do? Right, Like you had a
Speaker 2: family to feed? Yeah, yeah, yeah, Oh, I guess in
Speaker 2: this case, you're legally not allowed to feed your family
Speaker 2: by being good at sports. So there is that difference.
Speaker 2: So there's a boycott campaign that starts to consolidate around
Speaker 2: the nineteen thirty six games. As Carolyn Marvin lays out
Speaker 2: in an article for the Journal of American Studies, telegrams,
Speaker 2: phone calls, and letters demanding an official American reaction besieged
Speaker 2: Brundage as the president of the AOC, and he released
Speaker 2: a statement giving his personal but unofficial opinion that the
Speaker 2: IOC would not permit the games to be held wherever
Speaker 2: there might be interference with the fundamental Olympic theory of
Speaker 2: a quality of all races. To Brundage's irritation, this was
Speaker 2: reported as an official challenge to German Olympic Committee policy.
Speaker 2: He had only meant to reassure the American public, upon
Speaker 2: whose goodwill Olympic activities depended, he explained in a letter
Speaker 2: to the nervous doctor Leveled. Facing problems of his own
Speaker 2: and fearing the defection of the large and prestigious American team,
Speaker 2: so he talks when he really shouldn't have, and it
Speaker 2: causes problems for Leveled over in Germany and Levels again
Speaker 2: in a very tough position. Now, back in nineteen thirty,
Speaker 2: before the Nazis were in charge, the American Olympic Committee
Speaker 2: had sent a guy named Gustavus Kirby to observe construction
Speaker 2: efforts for the stadium to make sure that the plans
Speaker 2: for the thirty six Olympics were going according to like plan,
Speaker 2: and he was the first guy that Ballet Latour had
Speaker 2: Brundage trot out to fight back against fears that the
Speaker 2: Nazis might have plans to do some like racial violence
Speaker 2: and thus weren't fitting Olympic hosts. They were also worried
Speaker 2: like are they going to start another war?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Is there going to be a big European war? And
Speaker 2: so his job, by way of defending the Olympics, Kirby
Speaker 2: has to like argue that Germany is never going to
Speaker 2: do another war. Oh, and here's what Kirby writes, The
Speaker 2: German psychology is not that of deception. The World War
Speaker 2: was not only in their hearts but also on their
Speaker 2: lips before it was precipitated, and that if the rest
Speaker 2: of the world were blind, it certainly was not because
Speaker 2: Germany had for years been boasting. And therefore if the
Speaker 2: present activity were being directed toward a warlike end, we
Speaker 2: would certainly hear of it, know of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we know if Germany had some sort
Speaker 3: of ambitions towards a war.
Speaker 2: Yeah. God, beautiful stuff. So somehow this failed to reassure anybody.
Speaker 2: Balley la Tour, president of the Olympics, got involved and
Speaker 2: he wrote Avery Brundage a letter saying I am not
Speaker 2: personally fond of Jews and of the Jewish influence, but
Speaker 2: I will not have them molested in no way whatsoever.
Speaker 3: Godol, I love the middle ground of this. So they're
Speaker 3: just like, listen, I'm no fan of the international Jew right.
Speaker 3: I think we can all agree with that.
Speaker 2: Of course, the Nazis are right about everything except their laws.
Speaker 3: Yeah, except the whole power they're molesting them, all right,
Speaker 3: let's not molest It's so funny.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not like this is one of the
Speaker 2: worst things that ever happened in history, and it keeps
Speaker 2: being repeated in various forms down through the ages. But
Speaker 2: it's very funny whenever you read how people like talked
Speaker 2: about this, like the attempts to like we would know
Speaker 2: if the Germans wanted war. It's like that Simpson's line,
Speaker 2: no one who's German could be a bad man. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: So Ballet Latour urges Brundage to find a way to
Speaker 2: apply pressure to the Germans, while also acknowledging that the
Speaker 2: Jews quote shout before there is reason to do so
Speaker 2: they always just the good part.
Speaker 3: And there's just like and I acknowledge again, you cries
Speaker 3: out in pain before he strikes you. I acknowledge this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we've got to put pressure on the Nazis.
Speaker 2: But also I'm really bad, like maybe clear about this.
Speaker 2: I suck so hard, No, I'm just as evil as
Speaker 2: you gonna.
Speaker 3: Don't get me wrong. You know, White don't want to
Speaker 3: do anything about it.
Speaker 2: I just want to get angry on Reddit about it.
Speaker 3: You know that's me. I got like fourteen eighty eight
Speaker 3: mine fucking Twitter handle and everything.
Speaker 2: So, both Brundage and Balela Tour did strongly disagree with
Speaker 2: the fact that the Nazis had Banjews from qualifying to
Speaker 2: compete in the Olympics. And again, this isn't because of
Speaker 2: any particular respect for human rights, but more because of
Speaker 2: their religious faith in the Olympics as a concept. Right,
Speaker 2: the only people you can exclude are professional athletes because
Speaker 2: they're fundamentally bad people.
Speaker 3: For making them exactly yeah, yeah, they're destroying sport by
Speaker 3: feeding their families with it.
Speaker 2: It is a fascinating set of moral lines these people truy.
Speaker 2: So the American Olympic Committee voted to boycott the games
Speaker 2: of Germany didn't reverse course, and Brundage supported the resolution initially,
Speaker 2: and it passes easily because again, Americans don't like being
Speaker 2: seen as racist.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Had the story ended there, Brundage probably wouldn't ever have
Speaker 2: made behind the bastards. You would have been yet another
Speaker 2: guy in the twenties had some shitty opinions but ultimately
Speaker 2: did the right thing right supporting the boycott, I would argue,
Speaker 2: was the right thing to do. Sure, but the IOC
Speaker 2: was very unhappy with this situation because every person in
Speaker 2: the IOC is a wealthy aristocrat or at least rich
Speaker 2: in the case of the Americans, and they all thought
Speaker 2: the Nazis were actually pretty cool.
Speaker 3: I think they're on something.
Speaker 2: There's one guy who doesn't suck in the fancy boys
Speaker 2: Olympic club, and it's a commodore, ernest Yankee like JH.
Speaker 2: Ncke who is the former Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
Speaker 2: So there's another guy. I have General General Cheryl who's
Speaker 2: on the Olympic Committee who does suck and is basically
Speaker 2: a Nazi. But Comrado or Janki is like, and I'm
Speaker 2: not saying he's like woke by whatever standards people use today,
Speaker 2: but he's like, the Nazis are bad and we shouldn't.
Speaker 3: We shouldn't humor.
Speaker 2: Hitler with an Olympics, right like he wants this, and
Speaker 2: we shouldn't give Hitler the things that he wants, right
Speaker 2: love it. So yeah, his colleagues want him out as
Speaker 2: a result of this. Now they will eventually force him out.
Speaker 2: They can't do it right away. There's like you gotta
Speaker 2: have you gotta basically have a whole vote. He's got
Speaker 2: to do like some Emperor Palpatine, Star Wars, prequels, politics
Speaker 2: shit to make this happen right right right, Balleyla Tour
Speaker 2: is going to be a big part of that. So
Speaker 2: while they're waiting to be able to force him out,
Speaker 2: Balleila Tour promises Brundage, Hey, this guy, he's either going
Speaker 2: to resign or one of these days, one way or another,
Speaker 2: he will be out in the near future. And if
Speaker 2: you fix this boycott situation, his seat will go to you, right.
Speaker 2: And that's the thing, Avery, Brundage is always.
Speaker 3: All he wants advancement, that.
Speaker 2: Brave yes, and we all crave advancement. And really the
Speaker 2: only way to advance is to buy the products sponsored
Speaker 2: on their show. A lot of people don't know this, actually,
Speaker 2: but one of the products sold on this show is
Speaker 2: a seat on the IOC.
Speaker 3: You know it.
Speaker 2: And if we get enough listeners on the IOC, we
Speaker 2: can make my old hometown of Idabell, Oklahoma be the
Speaker 2: site of the new Olympics, and I just think that
Speaker 2: would be kind of funny.
Speaker 3: That would be sick of.
Speaker 2: North Korea marching through the streets of Idaba.
Speaker 3: Let's do it, guys.
Speaker 4: I do kind of feel like they're going to run
Speaker 4: actual Olympic ads on our shows during the Games. I
Speaker 4: do kind of feel like NBC probably whoever the fuck
Speaker 4: owns the streaming rights.
Speaker 3: Hell yeah, I'll.
Speaker 2: Take their money. I'll take their money, and I will
Speaker 2: make them do the discus on the cow farm where
Speaker 2: I grew up. Anyway, here's here's some ads. All right,
Speaker 2: So we're back. So I want to read a quote
Speaker 2: from Guy Walters kind of the conundrum that Avery Brundage
Speaker 2: is faced with. Well, Brundage knew that if he wanted
Speaker 2: to succeed him Jonki, he would have to do exactly
Speaker 2: as the President and the Vice President wished. With the
Speaker 2: two men looking benevolently on Germany, Brundage decided that he
Speaker 2: would change his opinion to coincide with theirs. It was
Speaker 2: nothing more than toadying. From this moment on, Brundage would
Speaker 2: do everything in his power to ensure that his masters
Speaker 2: were satisfied and The best way he could do that
Speaker 2: was to ensure American participation at Berlin. Had Brundage not
Speaker 2: been so personally ambitious, then a boycott would have been,
Speaker 2: if not inevitable, certainly more likely. Nevertheless, the road to
Speaker 2: Berlin was long, and it was to be heavy going.
Speaker 2: Brundage's first task was to go to Germany at the
Speaker 2: behest of the American Olympic Association, a decision that had
Speaker 2: been taken in February.
Speaker 3: So he's going to go to Germany and he's going
Speaker 3: to be assured. He's going to take a little tour. Yeah,
Speaker 3: everything in Germany is all good. Everyone is check ill,
Speaker 3: and don't worry about any future wars. That's just Jewish propaganda,
Speaker 3: right right.
Speaker 2: Our streets are filled with marching soldiers. Don't worry about it.
Speaker 3: No, they're just they just we just like doing fucking
Speaker 3: heel to toe walking.
Speaker 2: Okay, we like uniforms. Who does racewalking? Racewalking just like you,
Speaker 2: different kind of racewalking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a master race walking, but it's still we're
Speaker 3: into it. We're just like you, bro.
Speaker 2: We're just like you guys. It was obvious from the
Speaker 2: jump that Brundage would approve entirely of the German efforts.
Speaker 2: Before he left, he wrote this in an article for
Speaker 2: Olympic News. The German committee is making every effort to
Speaker 2: provide the finest facilities and plans to reproduce the Los
Speaker 2: Angeles Olympic village. We should see in the youth of
Speaker 2: Berlin the forebears of a race of free, independent thinkers,
Speaker 2: accustomed to the democracy of sport, a race disdainful of
Speaker 2: sharp practice, tolerant of the rights of others, and practicing
Speaker 2: the Golden Rule because it believes in it. Yes, that's
Speaker 2: how would described nineteen thirty six Germans. Tolerance of the
Speaker 2: rights of others.
Speaker 3: That sounds like the Germany I know, and I've read
Speaker 3: about in history books.
Speaker 2: People can't stop talking about how much they love an
Speaker 2: independent Poland it's the only thing on the books.
Speaker 3: You can't walk down the street without something me like.
Speaker 3: You know, Polish independence is great, great.
Speaker 2: I'm such a brand of their being because there was
Speaker 2: one last flag in Europe before Polish independence.
Speaker 3: And I like it, and I like it. It's good
Speaker 3: to happen. If there's one thing we can all agree
Speaker 3: on here in Germany is that we have enough space
Speaker 3: for everyone.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to give as much detail as I
Speaker 2: have on the trip Avery took, but I want to
Speaker 2: actually first read you a summary of the whole trip
Speaker 2: by Oliver Hilmes in his book Berlin in nineteen thirty six,
Speaker 2: which I like less than Guy's book, but I appreciated
Speaker 2: this passage. Brendage stayed in the capitol of the Third
Speaker 2: Reich for six days, inspecting construction on the Olympic Stadium
Speaker 2: and other facilities, visiting a number of museums, and generally
Speaker 2: enjoying life. He had little time left over for meeting
Speaker 2: representatives of Jewish athletics. When they told him that Jews
Speaker 2: were no longer allowed to join German sports clubs, he replied,
Speaker 2: in my club in Chicago, Jews are not permitted either.
Speaker 3: That great, great cool.
Speaker 2: I mean that's not a bad point vis a vis
Speaker 2: the United States not going well on this, but it's
Speaker 2: a bad point for you to make.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like, hey, you know, listen, we also don't
Speaker 3: allow Jews here, So yeah, do what you need to do.
Speaker 2: Who am I as hell? So who's to say the
Speaker 2: Nazis are bad?
Speaker 3: Who am I to try to change any of this shit?
Speaker 3: So now I'm going to.
Speaker 2: Give you the full story of his visit to Germany.
Speaker 2: I just really found that paragraph funny. On his way
Speaker 2: to Germany, before he actually gets there for the trip,
Speaker 2: Brundage stops at Stockholm for a meeting of some international
Speaker 2: athletic federation or another. They held a party at a
Speaker 2: villa and he meets a guy named Carl diam there,
Speaker 2: who's a He's tight with a lot of major German
Speaker 2: sporting officials. He's a big wig in German sporting. DM
Speaker 2: invites him to lunch the next day while with Leveled,
Speaker 2: that half Jewish German sporting official and Justice W. Meyerhoff,
Speaker 2: a Jewish member of Berlin's sports club. Meyerhoff had obviously
Speaker 2: faced repression at home being a German Jewish athlete. He
Speaker 2: had been forced out of athletics like every other Jewish
Speaker 2: person in Germany. But when the boycott threats cropped up,
Speaker 2: the Nazis had said, hey, go put on a show
Speaker 2: for this American or else. So he goes to lunch
Speaker 2: with Leveled, and he tells Brundage, oh man, the Nazis,
Speaker 2: those guys are great. You know, I tried to resign
Speaker 2: from my sports club. Who wouldn't even let me, wouldn't
Speaker 2: take my resignation. I was so proud of him. Great dudes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all those guys. Oh the people in the brown
Speaker 3: shirts and they're cool. Hell yeah, Oh we're all friends.
Speaker 3: We all hang out. Oh this black guy, I got
Speaker 3: it from now. We hugged to all. No.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm a runner, so like I felt like
Speaker 2: fingernails were slowing me down. I just took them all
Speaker 2: off myself, you know, to try and get more aerodynamic.
Speaker 2: That's why I lost all this weight. Yeah, I'm just
Speaker 2: trying to make a way for DM later wrote of
Speaker 2: the meeting, Brundage was visibly impressed. Avery is wined and
Speaker 2: dined in Stockholm by German officials who praise him as
Speaker 2: an athlete, a businessman, and a potential friend to the
Speaker 2: German people. When he arrived in East Prussia on September twelfth,
Speaker 2: one day short of a nine to eleven, he was
Speaker 2: ready to believe whatever the Nazis told him. Or one
Speaker 2: day long of a nine to eleven. I messed up
Speaker 2: my nine to eleven joke, but I was gotta make
Speaker 2: one anyway. I'm going to quote from Walters again. He
Speaker 2: met Jewish sports leaders, who under the watchful eyes of
Speaker 2: Nazi handlers, assured Brundage that conditions were not as the
Speaker 2: foreign newspapers were suggesting. Brundage was further handicapped by his
Speaker 2: inability to speak German, so any inferences that the Jewish
Speaker 2: sportsman may have may have made would have been blocked
Speaker 2: out by the Nazis. In turn, Brundage also met his
Speaker 2: old friend von Halt, who assured him that there were
Speaker 2: no obstacles to Jews making the Olympic team, a pledge
Speaker 2: echoed by von Schamer und Austen, with whom the American
Speaker 2: got on well. By the end of the week, Brundage
Speaker 2: not only felt content that the Jews were getting a
Speaker 2: fair deal, but he was also dazzled by the seeming
Speaker 2: prosperity in order of the new Germany. America could learn
Speaker 2: much from Germany, he was to say in a speech
Speaker 2: eighteen months later. She is efficient and hard working and
Speaker 2: has spirit.
Speaker 3: God. That so easy for this fool to be like,
Speaker 3: just well, I'm convinced.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that's all I needed to say.
Speaker 3: They said the words that I came here desperately wanting
Speaker 3: to hear, so that we could continue with the Olympics.
Speaker 2: They told me what I wanted to hear, and I
Speaker 2: didn't ask another question.
Speaker 3: God.
Speaker 2: So, like most prominent people after Avery died, people had
Speaker 2: papers back then, right, and his papers get donated to
Speaker 2: a museum, And as a result, we have the notes
Speaker 2: that he took while writing out because when he gets
Speaker 2: back to the US, he gives a speech about his
Speaker 2: trip to Remony right to the American Olympic Committee, and
Speaker 2: the notes that he had while writing that speech include
Speaker 2: three bullet points that he took during his meeting with Hitler.
Speaker 2: So while Brundage is like sitting down meeting Hitler, these
Speaker 2: are his notes. One a God, two giving back self respect,
Speaker 2: three a man of the people.
Speaker 3: His first bullet point is a god. Yes, oh my God.
Speaker 3: Bulletvoind four dreamy eyes.
Speaker 2: That is, we're gonna like that some of because other
Speaker 2: Olympic officials go and meet with Hitler, some of them
Speaker 2: are literally like man. But you know what the photographers
Speaker 2: never get across is how good this guy looks? Uh?
Speaker 3: Why did you uh draw a picture of Hitler naked?
Speaker 3: In the margins of the few notes here.
Speaker 2: Avery, this speech is just a drawing that you label
Speaker 2: as what I assume Hitler's penis looks like, are you
Speaker 2: doing okay?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So did it go well?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it is. We do get like, it's
Speaker 2: funny that the pubic hair is shaved like the mustache.
Speaker 2: We get it, we get the bit, but it lost
Speaker 2: out a speech. Really, it's a lot of detail on
Speaker 2: the vein here. Yeah. So it becomes clear at this
Speaker 2: point that Avery Brundage was not just an Olympics obsessive
Speaker 2: who got tricked by the Nazis or even cave to
Speaker 2: them because he wanted a job. He was himself a
Speaker 2: howling fascist, right, and so once he returned he gives
Speaker 2: this big speech to the American Olympic Committee, and in
Speaker 2: it he complains that before Hitler, Germany had suffered from debt,
Speaker 2: undernourished youth, feverish gayety, and night life until the hardest
Speaker 2: young men, by which he did not mean to imply gaiety,
Speaker 2: but rather the brown Shirts rose up to fight back
Speaker 2: of Hitler's things are just too gay here, it was too.
Speaker 3: Gay in Berlin.
Speaker 2: Yes, stop it with violence, that is what he's literally saying.
Speaker 2: I mean that that was a very popular conservative talking
Speaker 2: point of the day and today of the Hitler's thugs
Speaker 2: who were then murdering gay people, communist activists Jews in
Speaker 2: the street. Avery wrote that they were quote apparently doing
Speaker 2: useful work.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 2: He's like, look, maybe I'm wrong, but like it seems good,
Speaker 2: it seems fine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a dirty job, but someone literally has to do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And he's like, you know, obviously the Jews should
Speaker 2: be able to compete, but you know, they're leaders in communism,
Speaker 2: so it's it's understandable that the Germans would need to
Speaker 2: get a handle.
Speaker 3: On him, right, that's right.
Speaker 2: Avery also noted that the Germans had promised that no
Speaker 2: Jews would be prohibited from competing in any way, so
Speaker 2: there really was no need for a boycott.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: I was given positive assurance in writing that there will
Speaker 2: be no discrimination against Jews. You can't ask for more
Speaker 2: than that, and I think the guarantee will be fulfilled.
Speaker 3: Wait, he wrote down, you can't ask, you can't ask
Speaker 3: more than that.
Speaker 2: That's Fuddy Hitler said they weren't going to do anything bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, are you telling me you can't be trusted? Yeah,
Speaker 3: he wrote it down on a piece of paper. I mean,
Speaker 3: who the fuck would go against something they wrote on paper,
Speaker 3: bro It.
Speaker 2: Is like, well, not in Avery's defense, but it's wild.
Speaker 2: But basically every man who is of his socioeconomic level
Speaker 2: anywhere in power in the West during this period is
Speaker 2: doing the same thing. It's been like, well, Hitler said
Speaker 2: he's not a bad guy. Who are we to argue? Oh?
Speaker 3: Man, it is. It really does go to show that,
Speaker 3: like people really are willing to believe whatever someone in
Speaker 3: a nice suit tells them and is written down on
Speaker 3: some nice glossy paper like you know.
Speaker 2: I think the key corollary to that is if that
Speaker 2: makes their lives easier, right Right. Avery's life is made
Speaker 2: hard by challenging Hitler, so he won't challenge Hitler, so
Speaker 2: he needs to believe that Hitler's dope, right yeah.
Speaker 3: But so is everyone else. So does everyone else who's
Speaker 3: believing him. You know, there's like enough people out there
Speaker 3: who are just there. They want to believe that everything's
Speaker 3: going to be okay for whatever reason, whether it's because
Speaker 3: they to compete.
Speaker 2: In the electoral human desire, right.
Speaker 3: But it's like just this general idea of like, you know,
Speaker 3: the problem is that, uh, these oppressed people complain too much.
Speaker 3: Is kind of the through line with all these these people.
Speaker 2: Look, yeah, these people are getting invaded or whatever. But
Speaker 2: like if we stand up to fucking Russia, to the
Speaker 2: United States, to whoever's doing the invasion in this situation,
Speaker 2: that makes my life hard. So I'm just not got it.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, there's just no incentive for me to not
Speaker 3: believe this blatant line.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like George W. Bush seems problematic, but like at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, like I got I got,
Speaker 2: I got a mortgage, you know, yeah, Like, uh yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's great anyway. That's how humans, apparently are. The
Speaker 2: crux of his argument in favor of Germany actually rested
Speaker 2: on a quite cunning stance, which is that he had
Speaker 2: succeeded in getting the Nazis to promise to let Jews
Speaker 2: participate in the games. This, he told the American Olympic Committee,
Speaker 2: was all the Olympics could do since they were funded
Speaker 2: in a political organization. Every person deserved the chance to compete,
Speaker 2: and the Olympics had a responsibility to ensure that, but
Speaker 2: it would not be reasonable for the event to take
Speaker 2: any stance on Germany's internal political system. This argument works,
Speaker 2: and you can see again how that's a comforting argument
Speaker 2: to make.
Speaker 3: Right. We simply can't care about much beyond this. Right now.
Speaker 3: We're a political we have to be a political.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the AOC has another vote and they reversed their position.
Speaker 2: Balleyla Tour gives Brundage a pat on the back and
Speaker 2: assured him that the job was his. But their problems
Speaker 2: persisted because after the AOC's vote came a steady drumbeat
Speaker 2: of stories of Jews being murdered or beaten and forced
Speaker 2: from public life. Many people wondered if Avery might be
Speaker 2: full of shit. One of them was his successor at
Speaker 2: the Amateur Athletic Association, which Brundage had controlled as president
Speaker 2: into leaving that year to run the AOC. This guy
Speaker 2: was a judge, Jeremiah Mahoney, and he publicly accused Brundage
Speaker 2: of having been wined and dined by Hitler and claimed
Speaker 2: that behind the scenes, he'd sought to intimidate anyone who
Speaker 2: didn't trust the Nazis. And Mahoney is a pretty cool
Speaker 2: guy in this, although he is also going to wind
Speaker 2: up in a really awkward situation. But for the next year,
Speaker 2: Mahoney's going to be one of the leading figures in
Speaker 2: the effort to force a US boycott of the Olympics.
Speaker 2: A vote is set for December nineteen thirty five, and
Speaker 2: that August, twenty thousand people show up for an anti
Speaker 2: fascist rally at Madison Square Garden. That same month, August
Speaker 2: of thirty five, the IOC tried to deflect criticism by
Speaker 2: sending another delegation to Berlin. So they're like, well, sending
Speaker 2: Brundage didn't work because they're just like, well, he seems
Speaker 2: to really like Hitler, So what sending.
Speaker 3: You like swast on all of the official notepaper here.
Speaker 2: He's growing a mustache and I don't like where it's going.
Speaker 3: Yeah, people aren't starting to believe you may not be,
Speaker 3: you know, an impartial third party observer here.
Speaker 2: So in order to deal with the fact that people
Speaker 2: didn't trust Brundage, they decide to send a guy who's
Speaker 2: even more of a Nazi general Charles Cheryl now Cheryl Chucky.
Speaker 2: Chucky s is one of the three Americans on the
Speaker 2: iOS Bored and he has the distinction of maybe being
Speaker 2: the shittiest person in an organization that hired entirely based
Speaker 2: on how much you sucked. In Berlin nineteen thirty six,
Speaker 2: all of her Hilms writes of him quote, his main
Speaker 2: qualification for this task was something completely different, a conspicuous
Speaker 2: personal fascination with Adolf Hitler. As long ago as June
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty three, in a letter to The New York Times,
Speaker 2: Cheryl had praised the newly elected German Chancellor as the
Speaker 2: strongest man in Europe. On twenty fourth of August nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty five, when Cheryl was received by Hitler for an
Speaker 2: hour long conversation, it was a dream come true. The
Speaker 2: retired army general seemed to feel as if he'd been
Speaker 2: called to something higher. Perhaps he saw himself as the
Speaker 2: new US ambassador in Berlin. In any case, he wrote
Speaker 2: up a report on his meeting with Hitler and sent
Speaker 2: it to none other than Franklin D. Roosevelt. Cheryl raved
Speaker 2: about Hitler's personal modesty, his impressive physical condition, that his
Speaker 2: upstanding character.
Speaker 3: The bullet points on that one. Yeah, God, I was
Speaker 3: just like some guy, just send me Hitler smile. So
Speaker 3: I don't know he drew as pregnant for some reason.
Speaker 3: Not really sure what to do with this. I think
Speaker 3: this is just fan fiction at this point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and thus was created deviant art. I'm gonna continue
Speaker 2: that quote from Helms please, and his conversation with Cheryl,
Speaker 2: Hitler made no concessions. Jews were not being discriminated against,
Speaker 2: he lied, They were merely being treated as separate from
Speaker 2: the German people and thus could not be members of
Speaker 2: the German Olympic team. Cheryl pressed the Furwer on the issue.
Speaker 2: He was Germany's friend, he said, and wanted only the
Speaker 2: best for the country. But if the fewer insisted on
Speaker 2: this position, the IOC would take the games away from Berlin.
Speaker 2: Hitler snarled that in that case, the Third Reich would
Speaker 2: stage a purely German Olympic Games.
Speaker 3: Now, yeah, we'll start our own Germany with Hooker's blackjack.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was lying about this. In the early days
Speaker 2: of the Third Reich, his hold on power was not
Speaker 2: yet total, the army still represented potential resistance, and Germany
Speaker 2: was still pretty weak militarily and economically compared to its neighbors.
Speaker 2: Hitler could not afford to put on a German Games.
Speaker 2: Would have had a fraction of the grandeur of the
Speaker 2: Olympic Games, and the gesture would have made Germany look
Speaker 2: like even more of a pariah state than it actually was.
Speaker 2: The nineteen thirty six Olympics were more than anything, Germany's
Speaker 2: attempt to show themselves as turning back towards the rest
Speaker 2: of the world. For all of his talk of awetarchy
Speaker 2: of independence for Germany, this mattered to Hitler. He wanted
Speaker 2: Germany to take I mean the phrase he would use
Speaker 2: a lot was Germanys to take its place in the sun. Right,
Speaker 2: you can't do that if you're like holding your own
Speaker 2: sad loaner Olympics for people nobody likes. We're calling it
Speaker 2: the no Jews Olympics.
Speaker 3: It's going to be here in Germany and we're just
Speaker 3: mostly going to run next to each other and talk
Speaker 3: about how much he fucking hates the Jews.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was basically the ideal. But it matters a
Speaker 2: lot to Hitler that Americans in particular will be at
Speaker 2: his games, so he does actually listen when Cheryl makes
Speaker 2: an offer, And Cheryl's offer is, look, man, I'm not
Speaker 2: asking you to actually treat Jewish people better. If you
Speaker 2: just have the Jewish sports federations nominate a couple of
Speaker 2: athletes take them on, ask that the phrase Cheryl uses
Speaker 2: his token Jews for the German.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's good. Breaking racism here. Yeah. Yeah, they're just
Speaker 3: they're just saying it out loud, which is nice. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Not only does Hitler agree to the idea, but he
Speaker 2: invites Cheryl to attend a special event that year, a
Speaker 2: rally in Nuremberg, you know.
Speaker 3: The one that heard of it.
Speaker 2: Immediately after that rally, the Nuremberg Laws, which officially codified
Speaker 2: the elimination of Jewish rights in Germany, were announced. Cheryl
Speaker 2: returned home pretending this had not happened, and, like Brundage,
Speaker 2: raved about the wondrous things the Nazis were doing in
Speaker 2: Germany and promised that they would totally let a Jew
Speaker 2: play on their team. So everything's good, everything's cool. There's
Speaker 2: going to be a couple of token Jews.
Speaker 3: We got this, don't worry. Please let it go forward.
Speaker 2: And the Nazis do pick a couple of Jewish people.
Speaker 2: One of them is Helena Meyer. Meyer is a prodigy fencer.
Speaker 2: She's very good at fencing, and she is currently because
Speaker 2: you know, she's living through this whole period. She sees
Speaker 2: what's happening in Germany, and so she goes to college
Speaker 2: in California. She goes to a small college in California.
Speaker 2: Good call given the time.
Speaker 3: Yep, And it's one of those things.
Speaker 2: She actually didn't consider herself Jewish. She's raised Catholic, but
Speaker 2: her dad, I think, is Jewish. Right, So the Nazis
Speaker 2: do consider her that. But Helena also has this kind
Speaker 2: of it's going to prove to be a delusional belief
Speaker 2: that like, well, if I can just convince them I
Speaker 2: consider myself a Christian, they'll be fine with me.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, yeah, yeah, no, for sure, that's not how
Speaker 3: it works. Yeah no, it definitely works that way. It's
Speaker 3: just like no, no, no, no, no, I'm not like a
Speaker 3: jujuw right. Right.
Speaker 2: She gets publicly invited to the Olympics, and there's some
Speaker 2: back and forth. She publicly declines at a point, but
Speaker 2: basically her line is I want my citizenship restored, and
Speaker 2: they restore her in her family citizenship right. And Helena's
Speaker 2: line again is basically that like, well, I'm half Jewish
Speaker 2: and not observant, so I shouldn't be persecuted. The Nazis
Speaker 2: again don't really agree to this, but they pretend to
Speaker 2: Another German Jewish athlete they're going to pick out is
Speaker 2: Gretel Bergmann. Bergmann had immigrated to the United Kingdom for college.
Speaker 2: She was an exceptionally talented runner and long jump competitor.
Speaker 2: She was so good at this that her college in
Speaker 2: the UK gives her a handicap when she is competing
Speaker 2: at local events, and she still wins all of them.
Speaker 3: Damn.
Speaker 2: She's just very good at this. Since Jewish athletes had
Speaker 2: been banned from public competition at home, she decides to
Speaker 2: try out for the British team, and she's like, look,
Speaker 2: I'll play for Britain and I'll beat my own former country,
Speaker 2: and that'll be kind of nice as a Jewish exile, right,
Speaker 2: Like sounds satisfying, right, And she's particularly excited because when
Speaker 2: she has her big qualifying competition and does in fact
Speaker 2: qualify for the UK Olympic team, her father is there.
Speaker 3: He manages to.
Speaker 2: Secure approval to visit England on business, but after the
Speaker 2: competition he's like, hey, I'm only actually able to be
Speaker 2: here because the Nazis want to get you to compete
Speaker 2: for Germany, and his presence thus is kind of a
Speaker 2: threat for the Germans. They're like, well, we can either
Speaker 2: send your father to you or we can take them away.
Speaker 2: Whose team do you want to be on, you know,
Speaker 2: and you know again, that's why I'm not gonna got
Speaker 2: no judgment for Gretel here in deciding to, you know,
Speaker 2: try out for the German Olympic team, because Brundage and
Speaker 2: Ballet Latour didn't actually care about the welfare of German Jews,
Speaker 2: just that they could show Jewish participation in German Olympic
Speaker 2: teams to satisfy the boycotters. No real effort was made
Speaker 2: to ensure that stuff like this was like real offers,
Speaker 2: and as a result, the primary thing that the American
Speaker 2: Olympic Committee succeeds in doing is in bringing more violence
Speaker 2: and danger into the lives of German Jewish athletes, because
Speaker 2: all they care about is the look right. They don't
Speaker 2: actually care that conditions have changed, just that they can
Speaker 2: argue they have. If Brundage had been at all aware
Speaker 2: or concerned by this, he showed no sign of it.
Speaker 2: In late nineteen thirty five, his only real worry was
Speaker 2: that Jewish American sporting associations were continuing to advocate for
Speaker 2: a boycott of the Berlin Olympics. Brundage declared this a
Speaker 2: Jewish communist conspiracy, using language he may well have taken
Speaker 2: back from his nineteen thirty four trip to see the Reich.
Speaker 2: Judge Jeremiah Mahoney, president of the Amateur Athletic Association, which
Speaker 2: organized the US Olympic trials, continued to attack him as
Speaker 2: a Nazi stooge, alongside US socialist groups and even a
Speaker 2: number of conservative politicians. And I'll give some some credit
Speaker 2: to New York Mayor Fiarella LaGuardia there, who was like, nah, man,
Speaker 2: we shouldn't do this, we shouldn't go do an Olympics
Speaker 2: over there. That congratulations LaGuardia, you earned your airport.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was gonna say, only good guy that's ever
Speaker 3: been had an airport named after them, So I don't
Speaker 3: know the rest of them. Dullest definitely, definitely not a
Speaker 3: good guy. Oh boy, bad airport guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Dulles and Reagan airports are like the warring war
Speaker 2: crimes airports up there, and then a little north you
Speaker 2: got LaGuardia, So there you go.
Speaker 3: Hey. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The anti boycott side of things, though, is also this
Speaker 2: is part of the complex history here, a lot more
Speaker 2: diverse than you might initially get, yes, because a big
Speaker 2: part of it is a number of black athletes who
Speaker 2: have a really good point. In October of nineteen thirty five,
Speaker 2: Mahoney tells a crowd at Columbia University that he wished
Speaker 2: to God quote the Nazis could witness an athletic competition
Speaker 2: in this country. The next guy up after him is
Speaker 2: Ben Johnson, a black American Olympics sprinter, And when Mahoney
Speaker 2: says this, Johnson gets kind of pissed, and he comes
Speaker 2: up and he says, I think Justice Mahoney should clean
Speaker 2: up the South where negroes are barred from his amateur
Speaker 2: athletic union and discriminated against an Olympic selections.
Speaker 3: And it's like, it's.
Speaker 2: A fair point. He probably shouldn't have said. The Nazis
Speaker 2: should see how we do sports here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, here's how we do sports here, Mahoney. Maybe you
Speaker 3: should see how we do sports here.
Speaker 2: Yeah. H Now, Jesse Owens, who I think people still
Speaker 2: broadly know know of, was going out here. I mean,
Speaker 2: he's in the thirty six Olympics. He's gonna win like
Speaker 2: fucking everything, the fastest man alive, right, But he goes
Speaker 2: back and forth on whether or not to boycott the
Speaker 2: Olympics beforehand. In thirty five, during a November of nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty five radio interview, he stated his opinion that the
Speaker 2: US should withdraw if Germany continued to discriminate against minorities,
Speaker 2: as he put it, but his coach talked to him
Speaker 2: out of it by using the same logic Ben Johnson
Speaker 2: had used, why would you oppose Germany for doing the
Speaker 2: same shit your fellow citizens due to you?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: And the NAACP head Walter White no relation writes a
Speaker 2: letter he's he considers making like a big open statement
Speaker 2: of basically the NAACP supports a boycott. He never actually
Speaker 2: does that, but he does write a letter to Owens
Speaker 2: where he's like, you should you consider boycotting basically even
Speaker 2: so you know, they never kind of tip into doing it,
Speaker 2: and Owens obviously does not ultimately boycott the Olympics, but
Speaker 2: the amount of popular support for a boycott in late
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty five terrifies Brondage, who feels his chances of
Speaker 2: being appointed to the IOC committee slipping away. In late
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty five, he was a constant voice for US participation,
Speaker 2: telling anyone who had and revolutionaries are not bred on
Speaker 2: the playing field.
Speaker 3: See this is this is how you He just becomes
Speaker 3: more anti Semitic. As this goes along, I'm sure because
Speaker 3: he's just like these fucking Jews. They don't believe it.
Speaker 3: When I brought the piece of paper, I brought the paper.
Speaker 2: Why don't they understand that Hitler says he's not gonna
Speaker 2: hurt them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Hitler is cool, he dressed his good he's godlike,
Speaker 3: and he is a strong dick vein. I've drawn it
Speaker 3: right here in the margins of my notes. Jews don't
Speaker 3: believe a word of it.
Speaker 2: Speaking of dick veins, do you know what it'll make
Speaker 2: your dick vein pop.
Speaker 3: Ooh, a lot of things, But what do you have
Speaker 3: in particular times? Possibly the sponsors of this podcast. I
Speaker 3: love it. Pop my dick vein with your hymns. I
Speaker 3: don't know if it's hymns. I think it's we've had hymns.
Speaker 2: I think anyway, we're back. So Brundage was willing to
Speaker 2: acknowledge in private his belief that quote the Hitler rites
Speaker 2: did not intend to live up to the pledges given
Speaker 2: to the IOC, but his overwhelming public sentiment was that
Speaker 2: those mean old Jews were trying to ruin everyone else's
Speaker 2: good time. Surprise Price surprise, as he told the secretary
Speaker 2: of the British Olympic Association, my own view is that
Speaker 2: we are pandering too much to the Jews. In an
Speaker 2: article for the Journal of American Studies, Carolyn Marvin summarizes
Speaker 2: his growing anti Semitic paranoia. The Jews were complaining too much,
Speaker 2: first according to a peculiarly circular IOC standard of evidence
Speaker 2: as to whether their complaints had substance, and second because
Speaker 2: they were like that. Brundage regularly observed in his correspondence
Speaker 2: with other sports officials that the Jews have been clever
Speaker 2: enough to realize the publicity value of sports. He was
Speaker 2: informed by j. Siegfried Enstrom, president of the International Amateur
Speaker 2: Athletic Federation, that the main reason of the Aryan movement
Speaker 2: in Germany was that the Jews have taken too prominent
Speaker 2: a posis in certain branches of life, and happen, as
Speaker 2: the Jews very often do when they get in the majority,
Speaker 2: misuse their positions.
Speaker 3: Oh god, it's the second point of you know, the
Speaker 3: Jews are like that, you know how they be, you
Speaker 3: know how they are are?
Speaker 2: Right, She's interesting that that not language has still been
Speaker 2: going around.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and also just like a side note
Speaker 3: to this whole thing is that it just this whole
Speaker 3: thing kind of reminds me, and maybe not even that
Speaker 3: much of a circuitous way, but like of the way
Speaker 3: that the trans athlete debate kind of like god, yes,
Speaker 3: it through everything, just this like this way of using
Speaker 3: sport and sportsmanship and kind of like the you know,
Speaker 3: oh there they're always they're overrepresented, and they're everywhere, and
Speaker 3: they complain all the time. It's like the exact same
Speaker 3: type of shit, and and it's used to uh, you know,
Speaker 3: it's I don't know, it's the beginning of what is
Speaker 3: an event, will you know, movement to try to hurt
Speaker 3: this sh.
Speaker 2: Trying to force them out of public life, yes, which
Speaker 2: is a prelude to worse things exactly. It's interesting too
Speaker 2: that you bring that up. I think we're gonna have
Speaker 2: to do another episode because there's so much. There's still
Speaker 2: more on Brundage than I've wrote, but there's also there's
Speaker 2: so much about the thirty six Olympics, and one of
Speaker 2: them is they have a trans panic, like that they
Speaker 2: have a panic over what they think are They don't
Speaker 2: use the term transgender. This of course, I don't really
Speaker 2: think anyone did, but they have, they have what is
Speaker 2: a panic over that, and like every time that happens,
Speaker 2: what actually happens is a bunch of a bunch of
Speaker 2: people who are a site we're assigned female at birth
Speaker 2: and who identified as female were just baselessly attacked because
Speaker 2: they didn't look feminine enough to some rando in the audience. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like it's it's all the same shit, Like it's the
Speaker 2: same like going over that like panic that those athletes
Speaker 2: went through, and like one of them at least is
Speaker 2: a Nazi, so it is harder to be simplified.
Speaker 3: But like that doesn't make that right, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it is like it's always the same thing.
Speaker 2: There's only one playbook. It just always works pretty well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think it's because of the way in
Speaker 3: which people kind of idealize and almost idealized sports and
Speaker 3: make them uh you know, fake themselves out into thinking
Speaker 3: they're in a political expression of like fair competition or whatever,
Speaker 3: and so they you know, this is the exact same
Speaker 3: thing where you just kind of go like you're messing
Speaker 3: with the uh my idealized version of of of what
Speaker 3: sports is and what it's supposed to be and and
Speaker 3: they you know, but really it's to mask this, like,
Speaker 3: I mean, they would say the same things. Listen, I'm
Speaker 3: no fan of trans people. I think we can all
Speaker 3: agree that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I'm big at it as ship, but we should.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, it's it's the exact same type of ship.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: In private letters to other Olympic officials, Brundage went out
Speaker 2: of his way to argue the Nazi party line claim
Speaker 2: that most of the German Jewish athletes hadn't even been
Speaker 2: good enough to qualify. Right, like they let a couple
Speaker 2: of charity cases in. Right, you're still angry at the Nazis.
Speaker 2: You know, these people would never have qualified if we
Speaker 2: hadn't put on pressure. And that's bullshit. Gretel Bergmann had
Speaker 2: to give up her seat on the British Olympic team
Speaker 2: to compete for Germany, and she didn't get to compete.
Speaker 2: She's led into a trial, and in her trial performances
Speaker 2: to qualify for the German Olympic team, she equals the
Speaker 2: all time German woman's high jump record. She does as
Speaker 2: well as the best a German woman has ever done
Speaker 2: at the high jump. In her qualifier and then after
Speaker 2: the British team departs for Berlin and she can't go back,
Speaker 2: she sent a letter saying, hey, actually you weren't good
Speaker 2: enough lmao. Sorry we fucked you over here. Wow, it's
Speaker 2: so bad for her. I mean, at least she's in
Speaker 2: the fucking UK, right, so, but it's a real bummer, man.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna quote from Carolyn Marvin again. Not only did
Speaker 2: Jews exalt there and this is her talking about Brundage,
Speaker 2: not only did Jews exalt their own medical interests above
Speaker 2: the independence of amateur sport. Not only did they fail
Speaker 2: to appreciate the contribution of the Olympic movement to whatever
Speaker 2: restraint they're at exercised. But also, Brundage argued, with increasing irritation,
Speaker 2: Jewish protest would be counterproductive.
Speaker 3: In the long run.
Speaker 2: An Olympic boycott on account of the Jews would excite dangerous,
Speaker 2: possibly uncontrollable anti Semitic sympathies in America.
Speaker 3: Yeah that's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we might have to murder you guys if
Speaker 2: you all, if you don't let us play do the
Speaker 2: high job, you know. Yeah, that's not our fault, that's
Speaker 2: on you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, you can't blame us for one is eventually
Speaker 3: went down. Yeah, this is like, it's just so fucking sickening,
Speaker 3: just like the way in which people just just hearing
Speaker 3: people complain is enough to turn anyone into a Nazi.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, and the thing that enrages them so much
Speaker 2: is that these complaints why they're reacting so negatively to
Speaker 2: the complaints. It's the same way like a two year
Speaker 2: old screams if they like grab a toy on the
Speaker 2: shelf at the store and you take it away, as
Speaker 2: they're afraid these mean old activists are going to take
Speaker 2: away their toy.
Speaker 3: They're fustrake. I was going to be in the Olympic committee.
Speaker 3: I was going to do to hundred. What was going
Speaker 3: to be the bu jumper.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, like that's that's what's going on here, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Brundage again he is kind of groundbreaking and how he
Speaker 2: publicly justifies racism because after he goes on this like
Speaker 2: you know, you guys better be worried if you if
Speaker 2: you protest you loud. He's like, now, I know a
Speaker 2: lot of smart conservative Jews and they all agree with me, right,
Speaker 2: they all think I'm in the right, So I'm not racist, right,
Speaker 2: the smart conservative Jews that I won't name all say
Speaker 2: I'm right.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, yeah, yeah, listen, I got I got
Speaker 3: binders full of Jews who think that, yeah, Jews complain
Speaker 3: too much and are not good at sports.
Speaker 2: He's also he uses the racism that's been drum up
Speaker 2: by the boycott to try and raise money for the Olympics.
Speaker 2: He writes a strategy letter to the AOC to his
Speaker 2: colleagues and says, the fact that the Jews are against
Speaker 2: us will arouse interest among thousands of people who have
Speaker 2: never subscribed before if we approached it. And because he's
Speaker 2: that kind of sociopath, and this is this is something
Speaker 2: the Nazis wouldn't do, not because it's worse, but this
Speaker 2: is just a very American.
Speaker 3: Way of being shitty. At the same time.
Speaker 2: As he's like, oh yeah, we can fund raised off
Speaker 2: of this racism, he's like, you know what else we
Speaker 2: could do. We got to tell a bunch of rich
Speaker 2: Jews that if they donate money to like put up
Speaker 2: Olympic ads, you know, that'll help convince the Germans to
Speaker 2: be less mean to the Jews. You know, you can help,
Speaker 2: you can help your fellow Jews. If you give some
Speaker 2: money to the Olympics, ye.
Speaker 3: Know right, and it'll help change it'll, it'll, it'll warm
Speaker 3: you know Hitler's cold, cold heart.
Speaker 2: That was the one thing that could have stopped Hitler
Speaker 2: from his madness is if the Olympics had had a
Speaker 2: bigger boat billboard.
Speaker 3: I've been wrong this whole time. You know, maybe I
Speaker 3: thinks this whole Jews should die thing.
Speaker 2: I'm going to call back my friend and take some ecstasy.
Speaker 2: Cut to like one of those nineties in the movie,
Speaker 2: Montash said, Shitler Vonnarus.
Speaker 3: Beautiful.
Speaker 2: At the end of nineteen thirty five, as the AAU
Speaker 2: met to take its final vote on whether or not
Speaker 2: to boycott the games, Mahoney continued to push the AAU
Speaker 2: to follow their collective conscience, telling gathered members the Nazi
Speaker 2: government wants more than American participation in a sporting contest.
Speaker 2: It wants to bring the American dollar into the very
Speaker 2: weakened Nazi treasury. And it wants you to picture Hitler
Speaker 2: with Uncle Sam standing behind him and saying we are
Speaker 2: with you, Adolph. And he is right on the money there.
Speaker 2: All of his efforts are for not. Though the AAU
Speaker 2: delegates vote fifty eight to fifty five ish in favor
Speaker 2: of attending the Olympics. Similar campaigns across the so called
Speaker 2: free world also collapsed under Hitler's charm offensive. Two days
Speaker 2: before the opening of the Games, at the thirty fifth
Speaker 2: session of the IOC, so with the session of the
Speaker 2: Committee right before the game start, Balley la Tour makes
Speaker 2: good on his promises to Avery Brunded. He orchestrates a
Speaker 2: coup against Ernst Yankee, the only member who've pronounced like
Speaker 2: three different ways, you know, the guy, the only member
Speaker 2: of the IOC who wasn't a piece of shit, the
Speaker 2: one good guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yankee is expelled by a forty nine to zero vote.
Speaker 3: J yeah.
Speaker 2: Now General Cheryl is dead by this point. He drops
Speaker 2: dead right after coming back with hell yeah from his Hitler.
Speaker 2: So at least he got to That's nice, though, you know,
Speaker 2: he died, but at least he got to see Hitler.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah. He just probably died when he was
Speaker 3: doing autoerotic exixiation to a picture he drew of Hitler's dick.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. That was the style at the time, yep.
Speaker 2: And so in nineteen thirty six, Brundage was present for
Speaker 2: the opening ceremonies of the Berlin Olympics, marching at the
Speaker 2: head of the US delegation. As you'd expect, the city
Speaker 2: was filled with battalions of uniformed Wehrmacht soldiers, a show
Speaker 2: of force somewhat at odds with the peaceable dream of
Speaker 2: Olympic competition. Some people are alike, boy, it seems like
Speaker 2: there's a lot of tens of thousands of uniforms marching
Speaker 2: around at this peaceful event.
Speaker 3: Sure are a lot of guns at this peace competition.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like the other countries don't have tens
Speaker 2: of thousands of uniformed soldiers marching around. Maybe an honor guard,
Speaker 2: you know, you do a little twenty one gun saluted.
Speaker 2: This is a lot of guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a bunch of guys. Well it's okay
Speaker 3: because they're they're doing race walking, so that's fine. Kiltoe, yeah, step,
Speaker 3: whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 2: Kind Of at the start of the events, we get
Speaker 2: a chapter of one of the more complicated sporting stories
Speaker 2: of the of the Nazi era, which is the Hindenburg
Speaker 2: Sales into Berlin, with Max Schmelling on it.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Schmelling is a He's he's a German boxer. He's
Speaker 2: one of the best boxers of his day, and he is.
Speaker 2: He has just gone up against a guy named Joe Louis.
Speaker 3: Joe Louises.
Speaker 2: If you talk to boxing people and you ask who
Speaker 2: is the best boxer of all time, you'll get a
Speaker 2: number of different names, but the name you might get
Speaker 2: most often is Joe Lewis. He's at least got to
Speaker 2: be up there. He's like twenty years. He's basically very
Speaker 2: close to undefeated. I think his records like fifty four wins,
Speaker 2: four losses, like forty two of those wins are by
Speaker 2: knockout right. And one of the very few men to
Speaker 2: beat Lewis in a fight was Smelling and Shmelling does
Speaker 2: it when he's thirty, so he's considered over the hill.
Speaker 2: Schmelling is able to win because he spends He just
Speaker 2: like obsessively watches every fight Lewis has been in and
Speaker 2: like learns his strategy and he wins. And this is
Speaker 2: seen is like this huge thing for the Nazis, proof
Speaker 2: of racial superiority. It's, you know, a great lead into
Speaker 2: these games. What's kind of weird on the backside of
Speaker 2: this is that for all of that, like Shmelling and
Speaker 2: Lewis and Schmelling will have a rematch that Lewis wins,
Speaker 2: and it's made in this very big propaganda thing for
Speaker 2: the US. Joe Lewis is treated like shit by the
Speaker 2: United States his whole life because he's a black man,
Speaker 2: like he's when he's put in the army to have
Speaker 2: like a pr role basically, and he's still discriminated against
Speaker 2: massively one of the only white guys in the world.
Speaker 2: He's not shitty to Joe Lewis, is Max smelling out
Speaker 2: and Smelling pays for his funeral when he dies. They
Speaker 2: are friends for life.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, they're best friends forever. And if you know,
Speaker 3: if at any moment you want to feel really good
Speaker 3: about the United States for like, you know, being against
Speaker 3: Nazism and all that stuff, do yourself a favor and
Speaker 3: don't just because remember that so many of the people
Speaker 3: we're talking about, whether it's ahead of these like you know,
Speaker 3: Olympic committees or like people who are like generals in
Speaker 3: the military, they're all just like, listen, we also hate Jews,
Speaker 3: and yeah, we also discriminate openly against all African Americans
Speaker 3: in this country. So it's it's really you.
Speaker 2: Know, Yeah, it's one of those I'm always every time
Speaker 2: it comes around the Normandy anniversary, the anniversary of Stalingrad.
Speaker 2: But I've got nothing but respect for the people who
Speaker 2: actually had to fight the.
Speaker 3: Not and every single soldier went in there and kicked
Speaker 3: Nazi ass. I love country.
Speaker 2: This country wound up politics just barely missing, you know that.
Speaker 3: Yes, so by by a fucking by a fraction, by
Speaker 3: a hair we ended up not being aligned with this
Speaker 3: Nazi project, and.
Speaker 2: A lot of guys like Brundage probably went to his
Speaker 2: grave regretting that, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well you at least you would hope.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, so we have our Nazi Games. The Berlin
Speaker 2: Games start out. The theme of the day is this,
Speaker 2: like you know, the the opening of the Olympics is
Speaker 2: all of these German like military marches, right, and everyone
Speaker 2: else kind of just with their athletes walking around being like, boy,
Speaker 2: it seems like there's a weird number of soldiers every ship.
Speaker 3: We didn't bring enough guns? Should we have guns?
Speaker 2: In fact, when he shows up, when Hitler shows up,
Speaker 2: he's he's marching with ballet letur and leveled.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: These other IOC representatives, right, and they are like fucking
Speaker 2: The President of the Olympics is next to Hitler and
Speaker 2: they are flanked by dozens of SS men like a
Speaker 2: political games. Nothing going on with this, this SS march
Speaker 2: to the Olympic stadium.
Speaker 3: This is all just about piece and sports spainship.
Speaker 2: In the book Berlin Games, Guy Walters writes, by the
Speaker 2: time Hitler reached his seat at four h five pm,
Speaker 2: there was no doubt that he was already the star
Speaker 2: of the Olympics. These were his games now, not ballet
Speaker 2: le Tours and most certainly not Kubertin's. As if to
Speaker 2: reinforce the Nazification of the Games, the orchestra struck up
Speaker 2: with Deutschland uber Alles and the Horst Wessel Song, both
Speaker 2: of which and herald at the start of the Winter
Speaker 2: Games back in February. So that's great now. A major
Speaker 2: topic of discussion was the precise nature of the salutes
Speaker 2: that different Olympic teams chose to make as they marched
Speaker 2: past Hitler in the reviewing stand. This was complicated by
Speaker 2: the fact that the Olympic salute. There's an Olympic salute.
Speaker 3: Oh, I didn't know there was an Olympic salute.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't think we use it anymore because it's
Speaker 2: basically a reversed Nazi salute. They're very similar, and this
Speaker 2: is because we've been doing variants of the solute that
Speaker 2: the Nazis what like for a long time. But also
Speaker 2: Hitler is known for he's kind of a lazy guy
Speaker 2: a lot of the time, and so sometimes when Hitler,
Speaker 2: prior even to this, he'll give he'll use the wrong
Speaker 2: arm to do his fascist salute. When the Greeks give
Speaker 2: an Olympic salute and Hitler responds with an Olympic salute,
Speaker 2: no one's really sure. Well, we're not sure if the
Speaker 2: Greeks meant to do a fascist salute, and we're not
Speaker 2: sure what Hitler meant to do. Nobody actually knows.
Speaker 3: Hitler is the one guy he always says that that
Speaker 3: little hile, right, he's really lazy with it. He has
Speaker 3: a lazy hile. He really he really half asses the higle. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I guess it's because they're him. He's like, I don't
Speaker 3: have to hile that much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean to be fair to Hitler, which I
Speaker 2: usually don't say. It is all like, yeah, he shouldn't
Speaker 2: hile him. That is kind of weird, right, I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't know, I'm not going to be seat.
Speaker 3: Fair to Hitler, he said, yeah.
Speaker 2: So the French come by next and they do another
Speaker 2: Olympic salute, but the crowd is mostly Germans. They did
Speaker 2: mostly Germans who lived through World War One and like
Speaker 2: the starvation and mass death and so a lot of
Speaker 2: people kind of interpret what the French team is doing
Speaker 2: as a fascist salute, which they see is not that
Speaker 2: they don't see that as the French thing we're fascist too.
Speaker 2: They see it as like the French being like, hey,
Speaker 2: things are good now, We're not going to have another
Speaker 2: war because like most of this audience of Germans really
Speaker 2: don't want another war with France. It was a bad
Speaker 2: time that yeah, And so they the audience cheers when
Speaker 2: they see the French do this because they're like, hey,
Speaker 2: maybe wait, maybe I don't have to send my son
Speaker 2: off to dialect my brother did and Flanders or whatever
Speaker 2: my friend's drowning mud. Yeah sounds great. Hitler is really
Speaker 2: unhappy with this because he hears a bunch of Germans
Speaker 2: cheering for the French and he's like, well, maybe they
Speaker 2: really don't want.
Speaker 3: What what is about to happen? Right? Albert Nazis, like
Speaker 3: what is going on here?
Speaker 2: Albert Spear describes Hitler as quote more disturbed than pleased
Speaker 2: by the Berliners cheers. The British come next, and this
Speaker 2: is there's some moments of pride for both the Brits
Speaker 2: and the Americans. Here the British and also India and Australia,
Speaker 2: who are part of the British Empire. They don't salute
Speaker 2: at all, and neither do the Americans, who are lit
Speaker 2: in their march by Avery Brundage. And here's how Guy
Speaker 2: Walters describes that moment. The United States was one of
Speaker 2: the last teams to enter the stadium. We were a
Speaker 2: total disgrace, recalled Joanna de Tuscan. About thirty or forty
Speaker 2: non members of the team, fat with cigarette actions on
Speaker 2: their clothes, marched at the head of the team. Marty
Speaker 2: Glickman felt that the word marching was inappropriate to describe
Speaker 2: how the Americans proceeded. American athletes don't march very well,
Speaker 2: he wrote, We kind of moved in our usual loose
Speaker 2: skated walk, and the team's head was Avery Brundage, who
Speaker 2: was neither fat nor a smoker, and was one of
Speaker 2: the few who really did march, and honestly, I have
Speaker 2: some American pride for that. Yeah, we've bet are fascist
Speaker 2: at the front, but everyone else just.
Speaker 3: Looks like shit still around, hungover as hell, Chane smoking. Yes,
Speaker 3: that is shit like that. That makes America great. You know.
Speaker 3: That's the fact that we're just like Listen, I learned
Speaker 3: how to do one thing really well. I'm not also
Speaker 3: going to get march. Yeah, I'm gonna get good at this.
Speaker 2: Fuck you, I'm literally Jesse Owens.
Speaker 3: I don't have to impress you. Yeah, I'm doing this
Speaker 3: for a metal later.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm going to continue that quote. As the
Speaker 2: Americans marched past Hitler, they removed their boaters and clutched
Speaker 2: them to their hearts. Whereas other flags were dipped in
Speaker 2: honor of the fewer, the stars and stripes remained resolutely aloft,
Speaker 2: which caused a murmur of discontent around the stadium. Marty
Speaker 2: Glickman recalled the moment when the team passed Hitler. We
Speaker 2: looked up at the box where he was flanked by
Speaker 2: Gerrying and Gebels and Hesse and Himmler and all the
Speaker 2: rest of the Nazi hierarchy, and you could hear the
Speaker 2: comment run through our crowd as we were walking in. Hey,
Speaker 2: he looks like Charlie Chaplin. And this has been pretty
Speaker 2: America critical, as we often are, but by God, am
Speaker 2: I proud to hear that.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's beautiful. I've got that Lee Greenwood song running
Speaker 3: in my heart. Now it's beautiful. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So we will continue at some later date with the
Speaker 2: story of Hitler at the Olympics and maybe finish up
Speaker 2: some Avery brundage. But you get the gist of why
Speaker 2: brundage sucks with all this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems like a dickhead to complete. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: don't I don't like him, and I don't support him.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you that he's a bastard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I reckon. That'll do it for us. Here
Speaker 2: at Behind the Podcast a podcast about bastards. Matt leeb
Speaker 2: Bara podcast Bar New pod h A S B A
Speaker 2: R A h.
Speaker 3: A s B A r A. Uh. Yeah, you can
Speaker 3: check it out wherever podcasts are given it away for free.
Speaker 3: Uh and you know to uh, you know, to quote
Speaker 3: Benjamin and Yahoo. I want you to come should it come,
Speaker 3: So check it out. Also, I just want to give
Speaker 3: a quick shout out to just a couple of live
Speaker 3: shows Francesca and I are doing. We're going to be
Speaker 3: in We're going to be in Chicago during the DNC
Speaker 3: doing a couple of shows Monday, August sixteenth, and I
Speaker 3: think Tuesday, August seventeenth, we're going to be at Lincoln Launch.
Speaker 3: One is going to be a live podcast Situation Room
Speaker 3: Slash Bad Haspara. The other is going to be a
Speaker 3: stand up show. So yeah, check out, check out that
Speaker 3: if you're in Chicago August, you know, fucking nineteenth, August twentieth,
Speaker 3: come please, it'll be fun.
Speaker 2: So yes, check that out. See Matt and Francesca live.
Speaker 2: And you won't see us live because we don't have
Speaker 2: any plans to do that in these time soon. Maybe
Speaker 2: someday again.
Speaker 3: You guys should. It would be sick.
Speaker 2: One of these days I'll leave my house again, Matt.
Speaker 2: I keep saying in that and not leaving my house,
Speaker 2: but one of these days I might.
Speaker 3: Anyway, it's great out there in the world, bro, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's what everyone says about the world. Yeah. Everyone loves
Speaker 3: the world and how good it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the overwhelming thing I get from social media.
Speaker 2: People are happy about the world.
Speaker 3: If you go outside world good, nothing bad ever happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, everybody go be like an Olympian and
Speaker 2: touch grass.
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