WEBVTT - Hitler’s Olympics, Part 5: The Amateur’s Hour 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:06.840 Pushkin. 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:21.040 My name is Margaret Lambert. I was born a name 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:24.840 that I hate, Gretel it's too Teutonic. I hate that 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:30.720 name and Gretel Bergmann. And I was born i Bohn twelfth, 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:34.680 nineteen fourteen in a very small town in the south 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:38.760 of Germany. And it was a great life. 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:42.360 In nineteen ninety six, Margaret Lambert sat down for an 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:46.800 interview with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She was 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:50.000 eighty two years old. She looked at least fifteen years younger. 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:53.199 Being an Olympic level athlete will do that to you. 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:56.880 She started out talking about her childhood in a little 0:00:56.920 --> 0:00:59.000 German town called Laupim. 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:04.800 That was this club in that town. You just went there. 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:08.160 I could go there and unescorted because it was close 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:10.839 to my house. And I'm as happy as a lark. 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:15.240 What did you like about sports? I just loved it, 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:17.520 and you were good at it, and that was good 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:21.000 at it. There was nothing different at that stage about 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:24.040 being a Jewish athlete, none whatsoever. 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:27.960 By the nineteen thirties, Lambert's sport of choice was the 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:31.759 high jump, one of the more graceful Olympic sports. You've 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.120 probably seen it. It's the one where the jumper runs 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:37.560 up to an impossibly high bar and then rises effortlessly 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:38.040 above it. 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:42.720 Great success in it thanks to my long legs and 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:44.520 my big feet, I suppose. 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:47.760 In nineteen thirty three, the year Hitler came to power, 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:50.000 she jumped a little higher than one and a half 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:53.560 meters that's like four feet and nine inches. It was 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:57.040 one of the highest jumps in the country. She would 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:58.840 be a shoe in for the German Olympic team. 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:04.800 Except once Hitler became chancellor. You started to worry a 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:08.920 little bit, you know, But everybody thought this is going 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:11.160 to blow over. He's not going to last. 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:14.960 But it soon became very clear that this was not 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:19.120 going to blow over. Four days after becoming chancellor, Hitler 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:22.800 was already censoring the press. Things developed quickly from there, 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:26.160 and then later that year Lambert got a letter from 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:27.000 her sports club. 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:35.320 You are no longer welcome here because you're Jewish, hil Hitler, 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:37.600 and that was the end of that. So they just 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:41.480 threw me out of the club and everybody commiserated, you know, 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:43.760 what are we going to do? What's going to happen here? 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:46.399 And it was a horrible life. 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:50.679 But there was still one way that Margaret Lambert might 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:53.040 have a chance to compete at the nineteen thirty six 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:56.680 Olympic Games. The chance that had a lot to do 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:03.600 with one man, Avery. 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:09.920 Welcome to Revisionist History, my show about things overlooked and misunderstood. 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:14.399 I'm Malcolm Gladwell. Today on the show, Ben the daf 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:18.080 Haffrey and I are back with Avery Brundage, the apostle 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:22.280 of Olympia, the kingpin of cognitive dissonance, the man who 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:27.200 made the modern Olympic Games happen. Brundage believed above all 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:32.360 in the values of the Olympic religion, amateurism, total equality 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:37.280 of opportunity, the only true meritocracy. Brundage wanted to become 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:40.480 an Olympic official, and by nineteen thirty four he had 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:42.640 almost done it. He was up for a seat on 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:46.280 the International Olympic Committee, something he must have wanted more 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:51.320 than anything else. And then Adolf Hitler got in the way. 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:55.320 So Avery Brundage had to make a choice to resolve 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:58.920 the dissonance of whether his pure games could be held 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:04.119 in an impure place. Today in the show Avery Brundage's 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:06.360 very consequential. 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:14.839 Resolution, things started changing for Margaret Lambert and the rest 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:17.600 of Germany's Jewish population. As soon as Hitler came to. 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:22.800 Power, you were banned for more public places. No theaters, 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:27.400 no restaurants, no swimming pools. You couldn't go any place, 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:30.440 and you could not associate with non Jewish people. 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:35.080 Fitness was really important to the Nazi project, so important 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:38.560 that eventually, in the elite Adolf Hitler schools, students would 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:41.320 spend about as much and sometimes even more time playing 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:46.719 sports than they did on academics. Sports had a military function. 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:49.640 If Germany wanted to go to war again, a strong, 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:53.760 healthy population was going to be really important. Strength also 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:55.920 matters if you're trying to prove you're the master race, 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:00.560 so just emphasizing the weakness of outsiders you could make 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:03.080 week in part by denying them access to the same 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:04.320 training the arians had. 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:09.320 But sports, for me, of course, was the thing I 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:13.839 wanted the most. Next to the Jewish school there was 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:17.560 a yard, and we tried to straighten that out, but 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:23.200 we had to fight the teacher's chickens, and they used 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:26.719 that same place for their activities and it was not 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.040 very appetizing, so we gave up on that pretty fast. 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:34.080 While Margaret Lambert was chasing chickens around a bumpy field. 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.960 The Nazis were realizing just how badly they wanted the 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:42.160 Olympics for money and propaganda power are sure, but also 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:46.720 I think for a much stranger reason they worshiped the 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:51.840 ancient Greeks. When Gebels Hitler's fame Nazi minister of Propaganda, 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:54.600 goes to Sparta in the nineteen thirties, he says that 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:57.240 to him, it was just as if he were in 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:00.559 a German city. It's why leading brand and of German 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:05.000 sunscreen was called Sparta Crown. As the scholar Helen Rosch writes, 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:09.640 Nazi fascism was seeking the rebirth of a past so 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:14.480 mythic and so ancient that it predates the nation entirely. 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.440 So what better way to prove your connection to that 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:22.760 mythic in ancient past than to host the Olympic Games. 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:28.440 Adolf Hitler tried to use these Olympics as his propaganda 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:32.320 vehicle to show the world how powerful he was, to 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:40.160 show the world how unified a Germany was, And I 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:46.080 think he tried to scare the world into not standing 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:49.320 up against him somehow. And he wanted, of course, the 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:51.840 United States and all the big nations to be there. 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:56.520 So the crucial question for our purposes is, well, Hindsight's 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:59.359 twenty twenty, how much of all this could Avery Brandage 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:02.240 in the IOC have really known in nineteen thirty three. 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:06.119 The answer is not everything, but enough. 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:09.320 The news parade goes forward. 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:15.600 I mean, this is a national radio broadcast in the 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:19.320 US from March nineteen thirty three. That's just two months 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:20.840 after Hitler became Chancellor. 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:24.760 At prosodies not being enacted daily in Germany by the Nazis. 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:28.160 Domed troops of Hitler, numerous Jewish citizens have been brutally 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:32.280 taut us. Horrified citizens in America look on in astonishment 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:36.040 as ruthless adult Hitler continues a savage campaign of anti 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:37.080 submitting brutality. 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:41.480 That summer, a New York Times journalist read a report 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:45.040 on Germany put out by the American Jewish Committee and wrote, 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:48.320 it is impossible to read it without carrying away the 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:52.080 conviction that the Nazi leaders are guilty of something more 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:58.400 than employing violence and terror. Meanwhile, the Consul General for 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:01.360 the United States in Berlin was writing back home to 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.480 the State Department about how Germans were pushing an anti 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:08.760 Jewish sport agenda, how Berlin wasn't safe, and how even 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:11.200 if the Nazis had told Charles Cheryl they'd give the 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:16.280 Jews equal opportunity, they really weren't doing that. A movement 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:19.239 for the US to boycott the thirty six Olympics began 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:23.160 to gather momentum. Other countries were thinking about boycotting too. 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:26.720 But by then Avery Brandage was the president of the 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:30.600 US Olympic Committee, and he'd grown fond of saying things 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:31.239 like this. 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:35.440 All the participants are equal before the starter's pistol, and 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:40.600 there are no social distinctions or family distinctions. 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:44.080 That same year, he wrote to a colleague that the 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:47.840 very foundation of the modern Olympic revival will be undermined 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:52.480 if individual countries are allowed to restrict participation by reason 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:58.560 of class, creed, or race. The very foundation. So by 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:02.120 this logic, Mark A. Lambert that German Jewish high jumper 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:07.240 should have been Avery Brandage's ideal athlete, right, unpaid, highly skilled, 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:10.800 and obsessed with sport. If someone like her wasn't going 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:13.080 to get a fair shot at the Nazi Olympics, then 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:16.080 surely Avery Brundage would have to try and stop the 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:20.240 Nazi Olympics. But first he had to figure out if 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:25.040 the rumors about Germany were true. We'll be right back. 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:41.760 I always start all my speeches with the statement that 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:46.640 the Olympic moment today is the most important social force 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:51.040 in the world. The word Olympic is the magic word. 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:55.319 The year after Hitler came to power, Avery Brandage had 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:59.080 almost made it to the International Olympic Committee, his ticket 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:02.120 back to the most rarefied part of Olympia where he 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:04.880 could rub shoulders with all the princes and aristocrats in 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:09.160 that particular gentleman's club. And this is something I think 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:11.000 Avery Brandage really wanted. 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:14.439 Why does he want to hang out with these kind 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:16.640 of Pots's. 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:21.600 Malcolm and I once again psychoanalyzing Avery Brandage talking about 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:24.480 a letter he wrote to the IOC. There's one moment 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:26.200 that's quite telling in one of these when he's writing 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:29.160 to Edstrom, one of the members of the IOC, and 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:33.480 you see his typewritten note, anything may happen in these 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:36.800 perilous days, and then he crosses out perilous and he 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:40.240 handwrites in parlous, And there's a kind of like for Avery. 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:43.679 Brundage is not saying the word parless like he's second 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:46.959 guessing his own vocabulary to fit in with these guys. 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:49.360 Yeah, and that is the world of the IOC, right. 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:53.200 The IOC is a fundamently nineteenth century institution. It's just 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:56.280 one count and baron after another kind of living out 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:59.800 the glory days of there. And then Brundage comes along 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:03.360 and he is an entirely different animal. 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:05.880 He's like, yes, I may have done all these things 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:07.680 that you guys can never even dream of. I built 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:09.920 these buildings, I made my own fortune. I trained in 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:12.160 a ditch until I was good enough to compete in 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:17.560 the Olympics. But I still think Princess rock and I'll 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:19.280 go on the record as saying as much. 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:22.760 And what kind of a world is this when it's 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:24.560 come to the point where being a prince is a 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:25.800 handicapped I ask. 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:29.040 You, it's very gruteal MUCKs. I don't want to belong 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:30.000 to a club that would happen. 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:34.600 But like he knows that the only way he's going 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:36.440 to get in that club is if he, as the 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:39.920 president of the American Olympic Committee, brings the Americans to 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:40.560 the Games. 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:43.240 So why is that so? 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:46.240 He he is at that point the most powerful man 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:49.160 in amateur sport in America, so he really like he 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:52.880 holds the cards, and the United States is both the 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:55.280 most significant participant in the Olympics. They're going to bring 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:57.400 a huge team. There's going to be a medals race 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:01.400 between them and the Germans that will be extremely dramatic 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:04.880 and make for really good viewing. But also they have 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:07.480 a lot of moral authority, and if the United States 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:11.600 substains from the Olympics, it majorly undermines the Olympic project. 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:15.640 Has it been made explicit to Brundage that his future 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:19.000 in the IOC is contingent on him bringing Americans to Berlin. 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:22.800 I haven't seen anything that states it explicitly, but I 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:25.080 think it is very clear that the members of the 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:28.600 IOC want the Olympics to happen. They want them to 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:32.719 happen in Germany. But as Americans learn more about what 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:35.720 the Nazis were up to, as the last traces of 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:39.800 Weimar Democracy vanished, the pressure in the US to boycott 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:44.320 the Games got really intense, and avery Rundage was right 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:47.680 in the middle of it. Publicly, he was pro going 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:50.720 to the Games, but he expressed at least some concern 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:54.760 about what was happening in Germany. And yet in his archives, 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:57.920 I've found private letters to the IOC from as early 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:02.000 as nineteen thirty three, and in them he frames the 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:06.000 boycott campaign as a Jewish plot to sabotage the Olympics, 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:09.200 and from the beginning he knew what crowd he was 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:13.280 playing to the President of the International Committee, count Enri 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:17.360 de bayer LeTour wrote to Avery Brundage saying they should 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:20.880 work together hand in hand while we are handling this 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:24.720 difficult question. I am not personally fond of Jews and 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:27.920 of the Jewish influence, but I will not have them molested. 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:32.720 So that's a clue. But then there's also the matter 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:37.280 of Brandage's lengthy correspondence with Siegfried Edstrom. Edstrom was sort 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:40.480 of like the Swedish Avery Brundage, an engineer who'd made good. 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:44.200 He was a member of the IOC. The two were friends. 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:46.520 He's the one who wrote the letter we talked about 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:49.599 in the last episode, suggesting that he nominate Brundage for 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:54.320 a seat on the IOC, and Brundage of course responded enthusiastically. 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:59.199 But how did he begin that letter accepting this most 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:04.000 precious of all prizes. He didn't lead with his enthusiasm. Instead, 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:09.520 he started by complaining about the boycotts. Undoubtedly, the International 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:12.960 Olympic Committee will be swamped with protests from Jews and 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:17.160 Jewish organizations from many different countries. I assume that the 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:20.280 IOC will take the same stand as the American Olympic 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:23.880 Committee will, to it that it is concerned with athletic 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:27.840 affairs only and that it will not be drawn into political, religious, 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:33.600 sociological or racial controversies of any kind. Then he said 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:35.840 how much he'd like to be on the IOC. 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:42.800 Inside, deep inside that kind of engineer, self made man's 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:47.080 brain is this romantic streak. I want to be part 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:53.040 of this grand you know, sporting amateur enterprise. And it's 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:55.760 beautiful and it speaks to me, and it's you know, 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:58.520 it's this pure thing in an impure world. I really 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:00.960 do think that what how happens to him in nineteen 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:06.600 twelve at the Olympics, that failure remains with him for 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:10.520 the rest of his days. It's the thing that drives 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:14.280 him to save in his own mind, save the Olympics. 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:18.360 That is, he had failed once to live up to 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:20.640 the Olympic spirit, and he's not going to fail again. 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:25.720 But the concerns weren't going away. Hitler had already made 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:30.080 himself a dictator, Germany was re arming, and war was 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:33.440 once again on the horizon in Europe. So the American 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.680 Olympic Committee decided they needed to send someone to Berlin 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:40.720 to figure out for themselves what was going on. They chose, 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:48.840 of course, Avery Brandage. On September twelfth, nineteen thirty four, 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:52.880 two days after the Nuremberg rally that year, Avery Brandage 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:56.280 arrived in eastern Germany. His plan was to meet with 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:59.120 Jewish sports officials to suss out just how bad things 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:03.320 had actually gotten. There was, however, one problem. He didn't 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:08.240 speak German, so he did this whole trip with Nazi interpreters, 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:13.120 including the head of all Nazi sports, the Reichschportfior, Hans 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:17.280 von Schamer and Austin von Schamer. And In Austin was 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:21.160 a rather severe looking Nazi official, a small man with thinning, 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:25.040 slit hair and a paralyzed right hand. He was meant 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:28.360 to assure every Brandage that the Nazis weren't discriminating against 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.760 Jewish athletes, which maybe would have been easier had all 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:34.760 the sports clubs in Nazi Germany not recently received a 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:38.120 copy of a book called the Spirit of Sport in 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:44.240 the National Socialist Ideology, which included passages like this, there 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:47.240 is no room in our German land for Jewish sports 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:51.239 leaders and their friends infested with the Talmud, for pacifists, 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:55.680 political Catholics, pan Europeans and the rest. They are worse 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:59.280 than cholera and syphilis, much worse than famine, drought and 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:03.200 poison gas. Do we want them in the Olympic Games 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:07.119 in Germany? Yes, we must have them. We think they 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:11.200 are important for international reasons. There could not be better 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:16.679 propaganda for Germany. What does it mean? It means they 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:19.119 would pretend that Jews could be allowed at the Games 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:21.399 in hopes that it would help the Nazis hoodwink the 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:24.960 world about how they were actually treating the Jews. You'd 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:28.560 think that Avery Brandage, champion of Olympic ideals like no 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:31.800 politics in sport, would hate to see the Olympics used 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:36.879 that way. Instead. Here's our second warning sign about this trip. 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:42.200 Brundage quickly saw von Schamer and Austin as a friend. 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:46.880 He spent six days exploring Germany with his various Nazi counterparts. 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:50.199 I have to imagine that he also visited the Reichs Sportsfeld, 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:53.000 the site of the giant new stadium being built for 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:56.480 the Games. Brundage new construction, after all, it was his 0:17:56.560 --> 0:18:00.280 business in This stadium would be epic, big enough to 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:02.439 fit more than one hundred thousand people. 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:05.760 This is what I can't get over. Every one of 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:09.359 the characters we've met so far have a meeting with 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:14.159 the Nazis. It's like Dorothy Thompson goes, you know, Charles 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:17.399 Cheryl has this big meeting with Hitler. Each makes this 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:19.760 pilgrimage to the Promised Land. 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:20.120 Right. 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:24.440 We don't know in thirty four exactly what Brundage is thinking. 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:27.440 He's playing his cards pretty close to his chest. 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:32.040 Yeah, we actually not a lot is known about these meetings, 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:37.560 but we did find an archival account from a dentist 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:40.600 and Jewish sport official who is president at one of 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:43.480 these meetings at the hotel Kaiserhoff in nineteen thirty four. 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:44.840 We had it translated. 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:48.320 Kaiserhoff. I would point out the same hotel where Dorothy 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:53.199 Thompson interviewed Adolf Hitler. Oh Man, I missed that this 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:54.920 is where it's all happening in Berlin. This is where 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:58.119 you when you have to do your Nazi meet and greets, 0:18:58.520 --> 0:18:59.439 you go to the kaiser Off. 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:03.199 The point is this was not friendly territory for the 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:09.240 Jewish sports officials. The Hotel kaiser Off was a grand 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:13.480 luxury hotel on Wilhelm Plotz, directly opposite the Chancellor's office. 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:17.560 Remember Hitler once had an office there. There were marble floors, 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:20.920 a dining room in a three story glass roofed atrium. 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:24.399 Brundage is in the lap of luxury at the seat 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:28.480 of Nazi power. Sigfried Edge from Brundage's IOC friend is 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:31.560 there with them. They were joined by a Nazi German 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:34.760 Organizing Committee member who was already a friend of Brundage's 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:38.879 from the nineteen twelve Olympics. The Deputy reichs sportsfure was 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:44.120 also there, dressed in full SS black boots and all. 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:47.240 So what do we know about what happens at the meeting? 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:50.600 So he begins to ask them a series of questions 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:55.840 about Jewish participation in sport. So he asks, are Jewish 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:59.680 boys allowed to play sport in large numbers? And the 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:04.280 right sport funer says yeah, absolutely, and the Jewish leaders 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:07.440 have to sit there and nod but then they say 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:09.960 they make a caveat. They're like, well, you know, maybe 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:12.399 they can play in large numbers, but there's a problem. 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:15.640 We don't actually have any municipal sports fields. And Brandage 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:18.119 immediately dismisses this and says, well, in the US, we 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:20.439 don't have municipal sports fields either. We just have our 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:25.480 own fields for each each athletic association. If you imagine 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:28.200 this from the perspective of the Jewish sports leaders, it's 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:31.960 a high wire act. Here sitting before them is Brandage 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:35.040 the man best position to put pressure on the Nazis 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:38.000 who are also seated at the table. But the Jewish 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:41.000 sports leaders have no sense really a Brandage's position on 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:43.720 all this. How could they? 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:43.919 So? 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:47.000 What do they do? They have to try and read 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:51.760 between the lines of every question he's asking. Then he 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:56.040 asks can Jews join the associations? They say yes, but 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:59.359 only if they're Jewish associations, and he's like, well, in 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:02.000 my club back in Chicago, we don't allow Jews either. 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:06.800 Next question, they say like, oh, well, you know, we 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:09.440 have our own sports fields, but they keep getting closed 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:12.200 down because the Nazi party is shutting down our sports fields. 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:15.399 They're breaking into our games. They're beating people up, and Brandage, 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:18.439 according to this account of the meeting, which I have 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:21.320 to believe is reliable, just seems kind of bored by 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:25.000 this and doesn't ask follow up questions about this this report. 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:28.080 But this dentist rites of Brandage is that it was 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:30.800 clear that Brundage wanted to save the Olympics in Berlin. 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:35.359 And there's one sort of glimmer of hope towards the 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:39.520 end where Brandage asks if a Jewish athlete runs one 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:42.560 hundred meters in ten point three seconds, would he then 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:46.000 be able to participate in the Olympics? And the Jewish 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:49.000 sport leaders reply, how is he supposed to do that 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:51.920 without having had the opportunity to train the rex sport? 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:54.680 Fewer says, we'll allow him to compete. Brandage sort of 0:21:54.720 --> 0:21:56.280 times and then says, but how can he compete if 0:21:56.280 --> 0:21:58.480 he doesn't have an opportunity to train the right sport? 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:02.160 Fewer says, Oh, don't worry, will definitely have Jewish people 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:04.000 on the teams, which is just kind of just like 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:08.440 blanket assurance that everything has shown is nonsense. It's a whitewash, Yeah, 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:12.000 it's a whitewash. And Brundage accepts this and moves on 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:16.440 from the meeting and declares that there's no problem. Soon 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:19.639 after that meeting, Avery Brendage heads back to the United 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:24.680 States with his verdict all good. So the day after 0:22:24.720 --> 0:22:28.800 he gets back, the American Olympic Committee meets and votes 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:34.560 unanimously to go to Berlin. Brundage stuck to his guns. 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:40.520 Participation in these games must not be construed to be 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:44.560 an endorsement of the policies or practices of the Nazi government. 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:48.240 Measures have been adopted to ensure that there will be 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:51.399 no violation of the fundamental principles of fair play and 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:56.280 good sportsmanship, all the Olympic standards of freedom and equality 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:56.800 to all. 0:22:58.200 --> 0:23:02.080 Later. Margaret Lambert Hewish high jumper had this to say 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:03.520 about Avery Brandage's trip. 0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:10.480 He just let himself being lulled into some false security 0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:13.880 by these Nazis saying everything is fine, We're doing everything 0:23:14.160 --> 0:23:16.439 we would saying we said we would do. And he 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:18.960 came back to the United States and said everything is 0:23:19.040 --> 0:23:22.000 fabulous over there, and we'll be going. 0:23:23.720 --> 0:23:37.320 We'll be right back. There are two ways of understanding 0:23:37.320 --> 0:23:40.359 what Avery Brandage did in nineteen thirty four. The first 0:23:40.520 --> 0:23:42.959 in a chain of his actions that would lead irrevocably 0:23:43.040 --> 0:23:47.639 to us participation in the Berlin Games. The most charitable 0:23:47.680 --> 0:23:51.280 interpretation is basically what Margaret Lambert, the high Jumper said, 0:23:51.720 --> 0:23:56.040 He let himself be lulled into some false security picture Brandage, 0:23:56.040 --> 0:23:59.399 the hoodwinked idealist who maybe just believed so firmly that 0:23:59.440 --> 0:24:01.800 the Olympics were a world apart from the universe of 0:24:01.840 --> 0:24:04.840 politics and money that it didn't matter if they were 0:24:04.840 --> 0:24:09.359 held in Nazi Germany. But another way to understand what 0:24:09.400 --> 0:24:12.520 he did is to consider that his visit to Germany, 0:24:12.800 --> 0:24:15.879 and his time with the Nazis, it may all have 0:24:15.960 --> 0:24:21.280 seemed a little familiar to him. Remember Dorothy Thompson's nineteen 0:24:21.359 --> 0:24:24.639 forty one essay Who Goes Nazi? The first time we 0:24:24.680 --> 0:24:27.879 read it, we recognized Charles Cheryl as her mister B. 0:24:28.800 --> 0:24:36.720 But Avery Brundage is the perfect incarnation of Thompson's mister C, do. 0:24:36.680 --> 0:24:38.600 You have in front of you? Her description of his 0:24:38.800 --> 0:24:40.040 kind of fascist? 0:24:40.520 --> 0:24:43.480 Here we go. Mister C is a brilliant and a 0:24:43.560 --> 0:24:46.960 bittered intellectual. He was a poor white, trash Southern boy, 0:24:47.280 --> 0:24:52.360 or in our case, Midwestern boy, a scholarship student at 0:24:52.359 --> 0:24:55.320 two universities, where he took all the scholastic honors, but 0:24:55.480 --> 0:24:58.000 was never invited to join a fraternity. He has always 0:24:58.080 --> 0:25:01.119