1 00:00:06,680 --> 00:00:17,400 Speaker 1: Bushkin. Yeah. Yeah, now's about you're the best thing to 2 00:00:17,440 --> 00:00:24,239 Speaker 1: think about the guy Krieger who goes from Germany to Arkansas. Yes, 3 00:00:24,280 --> 00:00:28,880 Speaker 1: he does, to Fayetteville. Yes, I'm talking to a professor 4 00:00:28,920 --> 00:00:32,360 Speaker 1: at Yale Law School, James Q. Whitman, about an all 5 00:00:32,400 --> 00:00:37,400 Speaker 1: but forgotten figure named Heinrich Krieger. In the early nineteen thirties. 6 00:00:37,520 --> 00:00:41,560 Speaker 1: Krieger was a student in Dusseldorf, an intellectual who set 7 00:00:41,600 --> 00:00:45,440 Speaker 1: out for a semester abroad. We have no pictures of him, 8 00:00:45,640 --> 00:00:49,040 Speaker 1: so we'll have to use our imaginations. A proper upper 9 00:00:49,080 --> 00:00:53,960 Speaker 1: class European waistcoat, little round glasses, bouler hat in his 10 00:00:54,040 --> 00:00:57,800 Speaker 1: briefcase about her copy of NIETZSCHEZ Beyond Good and Evil. 11 00:00:58,480 --> 00:01:01,360 Speaker 1: I'm guessing he's never been to America before. He takes 12 00:01:01,360 --> 00:01:05,039 Speaker 1: a steamship from Hamburg to New Orleans the SS Westmoreland, 13 00:01:05,520 --> 00:01:10,000 Speaker 1: his heart beating furiously with a mixture of apprehension and excitement, 14 00:01:11,040 --> 00:01:14,640 Speaker 1: he disembarks, takes a train north and west, and arrives 15 00:01:15,080 --> 00:01:18,240 Speaker 1: in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Rents a room in the house of 16 00:01:18,240 --> 00:01:21,959 Speaker 1: a German professor named of Gustav on Maple Street, right 17 00:01:22,080 --> 00:01:26,120 Speaker 1: by the University of Arkansas. The School of Law. The 18 00:01:26,200 --> 00:01:28,920 Speaker 1: law school was only ten years old. Classes were held 19 00:01:29,120 --> 00:01:32,440 Speaker 1: in the old chemistry building on campus. Today, Fayetteville has 20 00:01:32,440 --> 00:01:36,160 Speaker 1: one hundred thousand people. Back then it's just over seven thousand. 21 00:01:36,600 --> 00:01:41,160 Speaker 1: A dusty little place, a whole world away from dusudarf. 22 00:01:42,520 --> 00:01:44,880 Speaker 1: Did the University of Arkansas Law School get a lot 23 00:01:44,920 --> 00:01:49,880 Speaker 1: of overseas students in the nineteen thirties, I don't think so. 24 00:01:49,920 --> 00:01:53,000 Speaker 1: This is this is almost a comic notion that someone's 25 00:01:53,040 --> 00:01:56,160 Speaker 1: coming from this, from the cradle of European civilization to 26 00:01:56,160 --> 00:01:59,280 Speaker 1: Faytteville in the early nineteen thirties. I mean, it's like 27 00:01:59,800 --> 00:02:01,280 Speaker 1: the culture shock that poor man. 28 00:02:01,680 --> 00:02:03,880 Speaker 2: I don't know how he ended up there, I truly don't. 29 00:02:04,080 --> 00:02:06,240 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and he goes there. How much time is 30 00:02:06,280 --> 00:02:07,480 Speaker 1: he spend in just a year? 31 00:02:07,800 --> 00:02:08,080 Speaker 3: A year? 32 00:02:08,120 --> 00:02:09,720 Speaker 2: He was an exchange student for a year, and. 33 00:02:09,639 --> 00:02:13,240 Speaker 1: He ends up writing. And you've read this book, he writes, Oh. 34 00:02:13,240 --> 00:02:15,239 Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, and it's quite a good book if you 35 00:02:15,360 --> 00:02:18,320 Speaker 2: accept this basic starting premise, that's well done, you know. 36 00:02:18,680 --> 00:02:21,320 Speaker 1: So describe to us what he produces in his time 37 00:02:21,320 --> 00:02:23,679 Speaker 1: in favor. But he produced a book called Race Law 38 00:02:23,720 --> 00:02:28,160 Speaker 1: in America. Oh, I really forgot to mention Herr Krieger 39 00:02:28,800 --> 00:02:37,680 Speaker 1: is a Nazi, a serious one. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. 40 00:02:37,800 --> 00:02:40,160 Speaker 1: You're listening to Hitler's Olympics are a series of the 41 00:02:40,240 --> 00:02:46,359 Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six Berlin Games. Dorothy Thompson, Charles Cheryl, Avery Brandage, 42 00:02:46,440 --> 00:02:49,799 Speaker 1: Jesse Owens the main subjects of our series so far. 43 00:02:50,080 --> 00:02:53,240 Speaker 1: We're all Americans trying to make sense of what was 44 00:02:53,280 --> 00:02:56,560 Speaker 1: happening in Germany in the early days of the Nazi regime. 45 00:02:57,480 --> 00:03:01,120 Speaker 1: The Olympics forced us to look at them, but the 46 00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:09,640 Speaker 1: Germans were looking at us too. The bronze medalist in 47 00:03:09,680 --> 00:03:12,480 Speaker 1: the men's foundred meters in Berlin was an American named 48 00:03:12,520 --> 00:03:15,160 Speaker 1: Jimmy Luvall. He went on to become a chemist at 49 00:03:15,200 --> 00:03:18,400 Speaker 1: Stanford University. I happened to be somewhat obsessed with Jimmy 50 00:03:18,440 --> 00:03:21,040 Speaker 1: LaVall for a whole series of reasons that have nothing 51 00:03:21,080 --> 00:03:23,640 Speaker 1: to do with his running career, but that's for another time. 52 00:03:24,840 --> 00:03:27,880 Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty eight, LaVall sits for a long interview 53 00:03:27,880 --> 00:03:30,760 Speaker 1: about his experiences at the Olympics, and at one point 54 00:03:30,960 --> 00:03:34,120 Speaker 1: he describes what happened when the team first got to Germany. 55 00:03:34,920 --> 00:03:39,680 Speaker 3: We arrived eventually in the Hamburg disembarked. They took us 56 00:03:39,720 --> 00:03:44,440 Speaker 3: up to the Roth house and served us so each 57 00:03:44,480 --> 00:03:47,360 Speaker 3: of us had a small glass of twenty five year 58 00:03:47,400 --> 00:03:50,840 Speaker 3: old port. Well up to that time, I'd never realized 59 00:03:50,920 --> 00:03:55,240 Speaker 3: how delightful a good wine could taste. This was excellent wine. 60 00:03:56,240 --> 00:03:59,080 Speaker 1: The Germans saw all these Americans coming from across the 61 00:03:59,080 --> 00:04:01,800 Speaker 1: ocean and welcomed them with open arms. 62 00:04:02,440 --> 00:04:04,680 Speaker 3: I mean, you heard all this regular all about Hitler, 63 00:04:04,720 --> 00:04:07,560 Speaker 3: But certainly the German people or as nice as they 64 00:04:07,600 --> 00:04:12,240 Speaker 3: could be. I had a Jena and colonel invite me 65 00:04:12,280 --> 00:04:17,559 Speaker 3: out to his home for dinner one night, and dinner 66 00:04:17,600 --> 00:04:20,280 Speaker 3: with he and his children, his two daughters, and his wife, 67 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:24,280 Speaker 3: very pleasant. Two or three of us went along. We 68 00:04:24,360 --> 00:04:26,760 Speaker 3: saw no sign of any intolerance of any. 69 00:04:26,600 --> 00:04:33,080 Speaker 1: Type, no sign of any intolerance. Jimmy Navau was black. 70 00:04:33,560 --> 00:04:36,440 Speaker 1: He was from Los Angeles, which in the nineteen thirties 71 00:04:36,760 --> 00:04:40,920 Speaker 1: was functionally as segregated as Birmingham. In Los Angeles, white 72 00:04:40,960 --> 00:04:43,080 Speaker 1: people did not invite him to their houses for dinner 73 00:04:43,520 --> 00:04:46,000 Speaker 1: or give him a glass of twenty five year old port. 74 00:04:47,040 --> 00:04:50,080 Speaker 1: The runner who took gold in the fornded meters Archie Williams, 75 00:04:50,440 --> 00:04:53,320 Speaker 1: was also African American, also from California. 76 00:04:54,120 --> 00:04:57,560 Speaker 4: He took us outter this beautiful looked like a country 77 00:04:57,600 --> 00:05:01,440 Speaker 4: club where the Olympic village where they had was landscape 78 00:05:01,440 --> 00:05:04,839 Speaker 4: with beauty and all the buildings were brand new. In fact, 79 00:05:04,920 --> 00:05:09,760 Speaker 4: uh it later be was to become what a monitor 80 00:05:09,839 --> 00:05:12,680 Speaker 4: or military academy, and it was set up with the 81 00:05:12,720 --> 00:05:16,760 Speaker 4: cottage type barracks and they had uh all every country 82 00:05:16,760 --> 00:05:20,240 Speaker 4: had its own dining hall. And since we had one 83 00:05:20,240 --> 00:05:23,400 Speaker 4: of the largest teams and we had all the goodies, 84 00:05:23,520 --> 00:05:27,040 Speaker 4: all the foreign athletes wanted to be our friends immediately. 85 00:05:27,279 --> 00:05:28,840 Speaker 4: And in addition to that, we had some kind of 86 00:05:28,880 --> 00:05:32,919 Speaker 4: a car which allowed us to ride any transportation anywhere 87 00:05:33,800 --> 00:05:36,520 Speaker 4: in in Berlin free of charge. All you had to 88 00:05:36,560 --> 00:05:38,400 Speaker 4: do was just show it to the conductor and sit out, 89 00:05:38,440 --> 00:05:39,800 Speaker 4: and you could go wherever you wanted to. 90 00:05:40,400 --> 00:05:43,279 Speaker 1: Sit down and go anywhere you wanted to. If you 91 00:05:43,279 --> 00:05:45,839 Speaker 1: were black in Los Angeles in the nineteen thirties, you 92 00:05:45,839 --> 00:05:47,040 Speaker 1: couldn't even go to the beach. 93 00:05:47,520 --> 00:05:49,599 Speaker 3: We got on the train to go to Berlin. We 94 00:05:49,680 --> 00:05:52,000 Speaker 3: arrived in Berlin and there was this mob of uh 95 00:05:52,120 --> 00:05:56,040 Speaker 3: young people with a lot of girls. Bois Jesse, Bois Jesse, 96 00:05:56,200 --> 00:05:59,920 Speaker 3: Bois Jesse. Oh yeah, uh remember that Jesse had scept 97 00:06:00,080 --> 00:06:02,640 Speaker 3: four world records here in the United States that year, 98 00:06:02,960 --> 00:06:04,880 Speaker 3: so they wanted to see him. Well, Jesse got off 99 00:06:04,880 --> 00:06:06,880 Speaker 3: the train and these little girls had scissors and I 100 00:06:06,960 --> 00:06:11,799 Speaker 3: started slipping off his clothes. I'm not kidding. It was wonderful. 101 00:06:12,520 --> 00:06:13,960 Speaker 1: How did Jesse respond able? 102 00:06:14,440 --> 00:06:16,840 Speaker 3: Jesse got back on the train as fast as he cut. 103 00:06:19,480 --> 00:06:23,480 Speaker 1: The Germans were fascinated with the black athletes. The Nazis 104 00:06:23,480 --> 00:06:26,520 Speaker 1: were probably as obsessed with the way white Americans treated 105 00:06:26,560 --> 00:06:30,200 Speaker 1: black people as Americans were with the way Nazis treated 106 00:06:30,200 --> 00:06:33,520 Speaker 1: the Jews, because America had mastered a problem that the 107 00:06:33,600 --> 00:06:39,719 Speaker 1: Nazis were desperately trying to solve for themselves. Remember Putsy 108 00:06:40,120 --> 00:06:43,920 Speaker 1: Hitler's Harvard educated piano playing pr guy. He set up 109 00:06:43,960 --> 00:06:47,279 Speaker 1: Dorothy Thompson's nineteen thirty one interview with Hitler, where she 110 00:06:47,440 --> 00:06:51,479 Speaker 1: concludes that Hitler's eyes have the peculiar shine which often 111 00:06:51,520 --> 00:06:59,760 Speaker 1: distinguishes geniuses, alcoholics, and hysterics. After Thompson's article, Hitler refused 112 00:06:59,800 --> 00:07:02,440 Speaker 1: all all interviews with foreign journalists for about a year, 113 00:07:03,000 --> 00:07:06,479 Speaker 1: but finally Putsy convinced Hitler to sit down with Putsy's 114 00:07:06,480 --> 00:07:12,280 Speaker 1: best friend from Harvard, a radio commentator from Wisconsin named H. V. Caltenborn. 115 00:07:14,880 --> 00:07:18,520 Speaker 1: Putsy and Kaltenborn did theater together in college. Putsy has 116 00:07:18,520 --> 00:07:21,200 Speaker 1: his friend come to Hitler's chalet in the Bavarian Alps. 117 00:07:21,600 --> 00:07:25,679 Speaker 1: It's August. The views are gorgeous. Hitler's laundry is flapping 118 00:07:25,680 --> 00:07:28,680 Speaker 1: on the clothesline in the backyard. Putsy takes a picture 119 00:07:28,680 --> 00:07:31,480 Speaker 1: of Hitler and his Harvard body standing next to each 120 00:07:31,480 --> 00:07:35,080 Speaker 1: other on the porch. Hitler's all in black, looking very stern. 121 00:07:35,680 --> 00:07:40,600 Speaker 1: Kaltenborne will later write he dislikes talking to strangers. Instead 122 00:07:40,640 --> 00:07:44,960 Speaker 1: of answering an interviewer's questions, he makes excited speeches, thus 123 00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:48,560 Speaker 1: seeking to create for himself the atmosphere of the public 124 00:07:48,640 --> 00:07:53,160 Speaker 1: meeting in which he is at home. Kaltenborn asks Hitler 125 00:07:53,600 --> 00:07:57,080 Speaker 1: about the Jews. For a moment, he bored into me 126 00:07:57,400 --> 00:08:00,880 Speaker 1: with his clear blue eyes, which are his most attractive feature. 127 00:08:01,440 --> 00:08:04,680 Speaker 1: People were always fixated on Hitler's eyes. You have a 128 00:08:04,760 --> 00:08:08,280 Speaker 1: Monroe doctrine for America, he wrote at me. We believe 129 00:08:08,320 --> 00:08:11,760 Speaker 1: in a Monroe doctrine for Germany. You exclude and he 130 00:08:11,800 --> 00:08:14,160 Speaker 1: would be immigrants you do not care to admit. You 131 00:08:14,240 --> 00:08:16,600 Speaker 1: regulate their number, You demand that they come up to 132 00:08:16,640 --> 00:08:19,880 Speaker 1: a certain physical standard, you insist that they bring in 133 00:08:19,880 --> 00:08:22,440 Speaker 1: a certain amount of money, You examine them as to 134 00:08:22,480 --> 00:08:27,560 Speaker 1: their political opinions. We demand the same right. We are 135 00:08:27,600 --> 00:08:31,840 Speaker 1: concerned about any anti German elements in our own country, 136 00:08:32,360 --> 00:08:34,800 Speaker 1: and we demand the right to deal with them as 137 00:08:34,840 --> 00:08:41,520 Speaker 1: we see fit. Hitler has never visited America. He doesn't 138 00:08:41,520 --> 00:08:44,480 Speaker 1: even speak English, but here he is holding forth on 139 00:08:44,520 --> 00:08:48,120 Speaker 1: the fine points of US immigration law and foreign policy. 140 00:08:48,640 --> 00:08:52,480 Speaker 1: As first articulated by James Monroe in his seventh Annual 141 00:08:52,520 --> 00:08:56,720 Speaker 1: Message to Congress in December eighteen twenty three, there's a 142 00:08:56,760 --> 00:09:02,240 Speaker 1: project going on within Germany in the thirties to kind 143 00:09:02,280 --> 00:09:05,840 Speaker 1: of find a legal basis for what they want to 144 00:09:05,880 --> 00:09:10,200 Speaker 1: do with the Jews. Right, an incredibly naive question would 145 00:09:10,240 --> 00:09:12,520 Speaker 1: be why would they bother to find legal basis. 146 00:09:13,280 --> 00:09:15,440 Speaker 2: It's not a naive question, it's a crucial Well, it 147 00:09:15,480 --> 00:09:17,760 Speaker 2: may be naive, but it's a question crucial for understanding 148 00:09:17,760 --> 00:09:18,320 Speaker 2: what went on. 149 00:09:18,840 --> 00:09:22,559 Speaker 1: Our Yale law professor James Q. Whitman. Again, part of. 150 00:09:22,520 --> 00:09:25,760 Speaker 2: The answer has to do with German culture. Much more broadly, 151 00:09:26,360 --> 00:09:33,359 Speaker 2: Germans do tend to insist that things be properly legally codified, 152 00:09:33,520 --> 00:09:35,680 Speaker 2: and that was even true of the Nazis. 153 00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:39,280 Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty two when Caltenborn and Hitler meat. The 154 00:09:39,360 --> 00:09:42,080 Speaker 1: Nazis aren't yet at the stage where they've settled on 155 00:09:42,120 --> 00:09:45,160 Speaker 1: mass murderer as a solution to their Jewish problem. That's 156 00:09:45,240 --> 00:09:48,440 Speaker 1: years away. They're still trying to figure out how to 157 00:09:48,520 --> 00:09:52,160 Speaker 1: marginalize the Jews in a way that seems acceptable. 158 00:09:52,720 --> 00:09:54,760 Speaker 2: The Nazis, it is important to remember, especially in the 159 00:09:54,800 --> 00:09:57,520 Speaker 2: early years, had to run a state which was not 160 00:09:57,760 --> 00:10:03,040 Speaker 2: entirely managed Nazis. They had to have the German bureaucracy 161 00:10:03,160 --> 00:10:06,200 Speaker 2: on their side. They had to do things that would 162 00:10:06,200 --> 00:10:06,920 Speaker 2: appeal to. 163 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:09,360 Speaker 1: People. 164 00:10:09,480 --> 00:10:11,680 Speaker 2: Most of them were trained in law and would expect 165 00:10:12,440 --> 00:10:14,480 Speaker 2: law to be to govern. 166 00:10:14,200 --> 00:10:18,199 Speaker 1: What was done by through the Nazi program. So they 167 00:10:18,200 --> 00:10:21,920 Speaker 1: looked to the US, where the Constitution promised its citizens 168 00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:24,960 Speaker 1: equal protection under the laws, but with the laws made 169 00:10:24,960 --> 00:10:29,679 Speaker 1: black people second class citizens. The US systematically oppressed a 170 00:10:29,760 --> 00:10:33,440 Speaker 1: racial class, but the country was still respected around the world. 171 00:10:34,720 --> 00:10:39,440 Speaker 1: So how exactly was the US doing it? If you 172 00:10:39,480 --> 00:10:42,160 Speaker 1: were a Nazi in Germany, this seemed like a really 173 00:10:42,240 --> 00:10:45,280 Speaker 1: important question. It's like if you were a kid doing 174 00:10:45,360 --> 00:10:47,880 Speaker 1: card tricks in your bedroom and your parents take you 175 00:10:47,920 --> 00:10:50,200 Speaker 1: to a full on magic show in Las Vegas, and 176 00:10:50,240 --> 00:10:52,640 Speaker 1: you watch the lady get cut in half, and you 177 00:10:52,720 --> 00:10:58,240 Speaker 1: turn to your dad and you say, wait what, Which 178 00:10:58,280 --> 00:11:02,840 Speaker 1: brings us back to hairc Our eager law student from Dusseldorf, 179 00:11:03,000 --> 00:11:06,960 Speaker 1: with his waistcoat and his little round glasses put yourself 180 00:11:07,000 --> 00:11:10,440 Speaker 1: for a moment in his elegant hand made brogues. You're 181 00:11:10,480 --> 00:11:13,640 Speaker 1: young and idealistic. You are really interested in helping out 182 00:11:13,720 --> 00:11:17,000 Speaker 1: this grand national project to do the Jewish thing right? 183 00:11:17,880 --> 00:11:21,000 Speaker 1: So where do you go for inspiration? Well, you don't 184 00:11:21,040 --> 00:11:23,719 Speaker 1: spend a year at Harvard Law School. The Germans knew 185 00:11:23,720 --> 00:11:26,480 Speaker 1: all about Harvard. Putsey went to Harvard. What could you 186 00:11:26,600 --> 00:11:30,440 Speaker 1: learn from the brightest legal minds of Massachusetts? Not so much. 187 00:11:31,440 --> 00:11:34,480 Speaker 1: You need to go somewhere where Americans had spent years 188 00:11:34,520 --> 00:11:36,839 Speaker 1: working through the nitty gritty of how to get away 189 00:11:36,840 --> 00:11:40,839 Speaker 1: with marginalizing people. You need to go to the American South. 190 00:11:41,760 --> 00:11:46,040 Speaker 1: Did Herkrieger consider the University of Alabama Law School, possibly 191 00:11:46,600 --> 00:11:49,920 Speaker 1: a logical choice given his agenda, or maybe all miss 192 00:11:50,400 --> 00:11:53,720 Speaker 1: in Oxford, Mississippi. They knew a thing or two, definitely 193 00:11:53,720 --> 00:11:56,360 Speaker 1: on the short list. He must have spent many long 194 00:11:56,440 --> 00:11:59,079 Speaker 1: hours going over the pros and cons of each possible 195 00:11:59,120 --> 00:12:03,080 Speaker 1: destination until one day, over schnapps in the Krieger family's 196 00:12:03,120 --> 00:12:07,400 Speaker 1: elegant townhouse on Radhas for strassa right on the Rhine Promenade. 197 00:12:07,960 --> 00:12:13,600 Speaker 1: Young Kreeger turns to Papa Krieger and says, vatter it 198 00:12:13,640 --> 00:12:20,280 Speaker 1: is to be Fairdville, Arkansas, and so it was in Fatdeville. 199 00:12:20,679 --> 00:12:24,080 Speaker 1: He learns from local politicians. He has long conversations with 200 00:12:24,160 --> 00:12:27,400 Speaker 1: his law professors. After a year, he says, here is 201 00:12:27,440 --> 00:12:30,320 Speaker 1: too much to master. I must stay longer. In the 202 00:12:30,400 --> 00:12:33,840 Speaker 1: United States of America. He moves to d C so 203 00:12:33,880 --> 00:12:36,440 Speaker 1: he can do more research. At the Library of Congress, 204 00:12:36,840 --> 00:12:40,360 Speaker 1: Krieger writes up everything he's learned just in time. 205 00:12:40,800 --> 00:12:44,240 Speaker 2: He came back to Germany, and it seems that the 206 00:12:44,360 --> 00:12:46,640 Speaker 2: Justice ministry in Berlin was looking for somebody who knew 207 00:12:46,640 --> 00:12:48,840 Speaker 2: about American law, and somebody said, gee, I know this 208 00:12:48,920 --> 00:12:49,880 Speaker 2: kid Kreeger. 209 00:12:50,600 --> 00:12:54,200 Speaker 1: And he was enlisted. Yeah. But what they couldn't figure 210 00:12:54,200 --> 00:12:58,319 Speaker 1: out is so the German legal establishment, as it sort 211 00:12:58,360 --> 00:13:04,439 Speaker 1: of searches for waste to think about their their version 212 00:13:04,440 --> 00:13:08,079 Speaker 1: of a race problem. They must be kind of they 213 00:13:08,080 --> 00:13:10,280 Speaker 1: are generally aware of what's going on, obviously and going 214 00:13:10,280 --> 00:13:12,520 Speaker 1: on in the United States. But what Kreeger is doing 215 00:13:12,559 --> 00:13:17,240 Speaker 1: is he is giving them what he's giving He's giving 216 00:13:17,240 --> 00:13:20,120 Speaker 1: them a concrete picture of the range and diversity of 217 00:13:20,160 --> 00:13:22,360 Speaker 1: strategies and legal strategies that Americans use. 218 00:13:22,400 --> 00:13:25,600 Speaker 2: Absolutely and done in a very sensitive way, concrete and 219 00:13:26,160 --> 00:13:29,800 Speaker 2: extensive picture of what's going on. I mean, I say, so, 220 00:13:29,840 --> 00:13:31,520 Speaker 2: you're perfectly right. There have been plenty of interests in 221 00:13:31,520 --> 00:13:33,920 Speaker 2: American race law before that, but the knowledge was kind 222 00:13:33,920 --> 00:13:37,840 Speaker 2: of scattershot. This was a much much more systematic treatment. 223 00:13:38,320 --> 00:13:40,160 Speaker 2: I mean, I hate to say it's not a fine book, 224 00:13:40,200 --> 00:13:41,760 Speaker 2: but it's quite a well known book. 225 00:13:42,320 --> 00:13:46,480 Speaker 1: And what is Kreeger's conclusion? There is much much more 226 00:13:46,520 --> 00:13:50,200 Speaker 1: to American race law than anyone back home in Dusseldorff 227 00:13:50,400 --> 00:14:02,000 Speaker 1: has realized. So imagine that there is this guy from 228 00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:04,640 Speaker 1: Germany who comes over and what itever it is thirty 229 00:14:04,640 --> 00:14:10,120 Speaker 1: three or thirty four. What is that man learning about South? 230 00:14:11,160 --> 00:14:16,760 Speaker 5: I think if he went to small towns and small communities, 231 00:14:16,880 --> 00:14:21,880 Speaker 5: what he would find would be very, very complex, unexpected 232 00:14:22,040 --> 00:14:26,880 Speaker 5: relationships that crossed racial lines, also cross gender lines. 233 00:14:27,760 --> 00:14:30,840 Speaker 1: Lisa Lindquist Dor is a historian at the University of 234 00:14:30,880 --> 00:14:34,600 Speaker 1: Alabama and an expert on Jim Crow. I called Dor 235 00:14:34,720 --> 00:14:36,840 Speaker 1: because of a fascinating bit of research she did a 236 00:14:36,840 --> 00:14:40,200 Speaker 1: couple of years ago. She collected every example she could 237 00:14:40,240 --> 00:14:43,760 Speaker 1: find of accusations of black on white rape in the 238 00:14:43,800 --> 00:14:48,240 Speaker 1: state of Virginia between nineteen hundred and nineteen sixty. She 239 00:14:48,360 --> 00:14:51,080 Speaker 1: was interested in what happened to a black man during 240 00:14:51,080 --> 00:14:54,240 Speaker 1: the high water years of segregation if he was alleged 241 00:14:54,320 --> 00:14:59,120 Speaker 1: to have sexually assaulted a white woman. Now, if you 242 00:14:59,240 --> 00:15:02,720 Speaker 1: remember to kill a mockingbird, you'd assume that any black 243 00:15:02,760 --> 00:15:04,760 Speaker 1: man accused of raping a white woman in the South 244 00:15:05,160 --> 00:15:09,920 Speaker 1: ended up dead. But that's not what Lisa Linquistor finds. 245 00:15:10,400 --> 00:15:13,840 Speaker 1: She looks at two hundred and eighty eight cases. Seventeen 246 00:15:13,880 --> 00:15:17,640 Speaker 1: of the accused are killed through extra legal violence. They're lynched, 247 00:15:18,400 --> 00:15:22,560 Speaker 1: fifty are executed by the state. Forty eight people get 248 00:15:22,640 --> 00:15:26,640 Speaker 1: sentence of the maximum prison sentence, fifty two get five 249 00:15:26,720 --> 00:15:30,720 Speaker 1: years or less. But one hundred and twenty one forty 250 00:15:30,800 --> 00:15:36,160 Speaker 1: two percent, the largest of all categories, are either acquitted, pardoned, 251 00:15:36,520 --> 00:15:40,280 Speaker 1: or paroled. Take for example, a nineteen thirty one case 252 00:15:40,360 --> 00:15:44,280 Speaker 1: involving a black man in Norfolk, Virginia named William Harper. 253 00:15:44,840 --> 00:15:47,880 Speaker 5: A woman named Dorothy Skaggs, who is married to a 254 00:15:47,920 --> 00:15:50,920 Speaker 5: sailor left her home to go to a guitar lesson, 255 00:15:51,320 --> 00:15:53,760 Speaker 5: and she later testified in court that while walking along 256 00:15:53,760 --> 00:15:56,040 Speaker 5: the street, who was struck on the head dragged into 257 00:15:56,080 --> 00:15:59,480 Speaker 5: an allien rigged by a black man. William Harper was arrested, 258 00:15:59,480 --> 00:16:02,560 Speaker 5: he was identi. His trial was very predictable, and he 259 00:16:02,600 --> 00:16:05,720 Speaker 5: was sentenced to death, and then the defense revealed new 260 00:16:05,720 --> 00:16:09,200 Speaker 5: evidence and he was given a new trial. And at 261 00:16:09,200 --> 00:16:12,880 Speaker 5: the second trial, Harper produced six white witnesses who testified 262 00:16:13,160 --> 00:16:15,680 Speaker 5: that on the night in question, Dorothy Skaggs was not 263 00:16:15,760 --> 00:16:18,040 Speaker 5: on her way to a guitar lesson, but was at 264 00:16:18,040 --> 00:16:21,360 Speaker 5: a roadhouse across state lines in North Carolina, drinking and 265 00:16:21,440 --> 00:16:24,280 Speaker 5: dancing with a man who was not her husband. Harper 266 00:16:24,320 --> 00:16:27,360 Speaker 5: was quickly acquitted, but the case was not over. Dorothy 267 00:16:27,400 --> 00:16:30,000 Speaker 5: Skaggs and a white woman who corroborated her story of 268 00:16:30,080 --> 00:16:33,120 Speaker 5: rape were brought to trial on charges of perjury. Both 269 00:16:33,160 --> 00:16:35,720 Speaker 5: were initially convicted and sentenced to five years in prison, 270 00:16:36,080 --> 00:16:39,360 Speaker 5: but both eventually were granted new tiles and subsequently acquitted. 271 00:16:39,640 --> 00:16:43,240 Speaker 1: So you almost met it's like a mess. It is 272 00:16:43,440 --> 00:16:48,000 Speaker 1: right for the white men of Virginia. Clearly, there are 273 00:16:48,120 --> 00:16:52,720 Speaker 1: three separate considerations here. First, there's a black man who 274 00:16:52,760 --> 00:16:55,200 Speaker 1: might have raped one of our own. That makes us 275 00:16:55,200 --> 00:16:59,360 Speaker 1: really unhappy. Well, wait, she also cheated on her husband. 276 00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:03,600 Speaker 1: That also makes us unhappy. And then hold on, should 277 00:17:03,680 --> 00:17:05,760 Speaker 1: we really make a practice of just out and now 278 00:17:05,920 --> 00:17:09,000 Speaker 1: believing a woman who says she's been raped, Because once 279 00:17:09,040 --> 00:17:11,400 Speaker 1: you start going down that road, I mean, god knows 280 00:17:11,400 --> 00:17:16,159 Speaker 1: where that ends. If segregation was, if the foundation of 281 00:17:16,200 --> 00:17:21,440 Speaker 1: it was simply white supremacy, it gives white men one 282 00:17:21,520 --> 00:17:25,040 Speaker 1: card to play. But what you're describing is they have 283 00:17:25,080 --> 00:17:27,040 Speaker 1: two cards they can play, and they can choose when 284 00:17:27,040 --> 00:17:30,080 Speaker 1: they play them, and if it suits their interests, they 285 00:17:30,080 --> 00:17:32,800 Speaker 1: can either use the male card or the white card. 286 00:17:33,400 --> 00:17:37,240 Speaker 5: Right right, And not only that, they always have the 287 00:17:37,280 --> 00:17:41,879 Speaker 5: two cards. Then, even women who they claim an assault 288 00:17:42,119 --> 00:17:44,080 Speaker 5: and they're believed in court and the guy goes to 289 00:17:44,080 --> 00:17:48,600 Speaker 5: prison if they do anything, even subsequently, men can continue 290 00:17:48,640 --> 00:17:52,359 Speaker 5: to play that men card and say, now we don't 291 00:17:52,359 --> 00:17:55,360 Speaker 5: believe her anymore. Look what she has done. She has 292 00:17:55,400 --> 00:17:56,280 Speaker 5: behaved poorly. 293 00:17:57,119 --> 00:18:00,399 Speaker 1: The point is that Jim Crow isn't really systematic, not 294 00:18:00,520 --> 00:18:03,480 Speaker 1: in Virginia or Arkansas or anywhere else. It's not some 295 00:18:03,640 --> 00:18:07,480 Speaker 1: rigid set of rules. It's a Jerry built contraption with 296 00:18:07,600 --> 00:18:11,159 Speaker 1: a million different exceptions and contradictions, which allows you to 297 00:18:11,280 --> 00:18:13,240 Speaker 1: lynch the black guy when you want, or go to 298 00:18:13,240 --> 00:18:16,720 Speaker 1: the formal legal route and have him executed, or if 299 00:18:16,760 --> 00:18:20,200 Speaker 1: the whole thing feels a little too complicated, just blame 300 00:18:20,240 --> 00:18:20,840 Speaker 1: your accuser. 301 00:18:21,920 --> 00:18:30,680 Speaker 5: It is not so rigid and brutal that every instance 302 00:18:30,720 --> 00:18:32,920 Speaker 5: of misbehavior causes a crackdown. 303 00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:36,520 Speaker 1: And that's in your mind. That's why it survives as 304 00:18:36,560 --> 00:18:38,160 Speaker 1: long as it does right. 305 00:18:38,200 --> 00:18:42,119 Speaker 5: It's flexible, and it can incorporate all kinds of relationships 306 00:18:42,640 --> 00:18:46,320 Speaker 5: across racial, gender class lines that might otherwise seem to 307 00:18:46,359 --> 00:18:47,280 Speaker 5: violate the rules. 308 00:18:47,480 --> 00:18:53,920 Speaker 1: What is it that allows the South to construct this 309 00:18:54,119 --> 00:19:00,560 Speaker 1: kind of flexible, resilient I mean, you know, I'm thinking 310 00:19:00,600 --> 00:19:03,280 Speaker 1: back to our German who comes over to the South. 311 00:19:03,520 --> 00:19:07,280 Speaker 1: When our German goes home, much of what he reports 312 00:19:07,560 --> 00:19:10,880 Speaker 1: the Nazis find shocking. And the thing they find shocking 313 00:19:10,920 --> 00:19:13,399 Speaker 1: is the very thing you're describing. That They think what 314 00:19:13,480 --> 00:19:17,399 Speaker 1: they need to have is a very clear, consistent rule 315 00:19:17,720 --> 00:19:20,520 Speaker 1: which they follow to the letter. And what they can't 316 00:19:20,520 --> 00:19:24,760 Speaker 1: get over is this idea that it's just kind of discretionary. 317 00:19:25,840 --> 00:19:27,360 Speaker 1: It appalls their legal minds. 318 00:19:27,560 --> 00:19:30,960 Speaker 6: Oh sure, So I'm just curious why how did they 319 00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:35,240 Speaker 6: get there? Is it because their world was so messy 320 00:19:35,880 --> 00:19:38,000 Speaker 6: that they had to accommodate that messiness. 321 00:19:38,440 --> 00:19:42,600 Speaker 5: I suspect so because whites don't want to lose all 322 00:19:42,640 --> 00:19:46,199 Speaker 5: the benefits they get from African Americans, whether it's buying 323 00:19:46,200 --> 00:19:48,399 Speaker 5: their stuff or having them work in their houses or 324 00:19:48,440 --> 00:19:52,720 Speaker 5: on their farms. White Southerners very much want to be 325 00:19:52,720 --> 00:19:57,080 Speaker 5: able to benefit from and profit from a system based 326 00:19:57,119 --> 00:19:59,680 Speaker 5: on white supremacy, and yet to do that, it's going 327 00:19:59,720 --> 00:20:03,200 Speaker 5: to corporate all sorts of interactions all the time in 328 00:20:03,240 --> 00:20:08,720 Speaker 5: their daily lives that are often incidental, very difficult to police. 329 00:20:10,160 --> 00:20:12,960 Speaker 1: This is what Heinrich Krieger reads about in the law 330 00:20:13,040 --> 00:20:16,040 Speaker 1: library at the University of Arkansas and then later at 331 00:20:16,040 --> 00:20:20,359 Speaker 1: the Library of Congress. He reads court cases, state constitutions, 332 00:20:20,400 --> 00:20:23,199 Speaker 1: and criminal codes. He may well have read about that 333 00:20:23,240 --> 00:20:26,760 Speaker 1: William Harper case. It was all over the newspapers. What's 334 00:20:26,800 --> 00:20:29,840 Speaker 1: the right word to describe the way he makes sense 335 00:20:29,880 --> 00:20:33,480 Speaker 1: of what he finds in that year in Fayetteville. Is 336 00:20:33,520 --> 00:20:37,560 Speaker 1: it surprise? Is it shock? 337 00:20:37,920 --> 00:20:39,960 Speaker 7: Yeah, that's a great question. It's very hard to read 338 00:20:40,040 --> 00:20:42,439 Speaker 7: him because, on the one hand, he shows a certain 339 00:20:42,520 --> 00:20:45,679 Speaker 7: level of admiration and support for what he sees in 340 00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:48,600 Speaker 7: the United States, that is to say, a racial awareness 341 00:20:48,600 --> 00:20:50,280 Speaker 7: that he did texts in the South, like, you know, 342 00:20:50,359 --> 00:20:53,959 Speaker 7: people know, we know we are white, we know that 343 00:20:53,960 --> 00:20:56,359 Speaker 7: there are racial others. We have to deal with it. 344 00:20:56,440 --> 00:21:01,080 Speaker 7: But he's also strangely disgusted with the way the United 345 00:21:01,119 --> 00:21:02,040 Speaker 7: States handles it. 346 00:21:02,440 --> 00:21:05,440 Speaker 1: I'm talking to the historian Jonathan Wisen, another of the 347 00:21:05,480 --> 00:21:08,639 Speaker 1: scholars fascinated by Heinrich Grieger's time in the South. 348 00:21:08,960 --> 00:21:11,720 Speaker 7: On the one hand, he's approving and on the other hand, 349 00:21:11,760 --> 00:21:13,600 Speaker 7: he's surprised by the violence. 350 00:21:14,119 --> 00:21:17,520 Speaker 1: Kreeger is appalled by lynch bobs, but he's a Nazi. 351 00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:20,800 Speaker 1: It's not the racial violence that bothers him. The thing 352 00:21:20,800 --> 00:21:23,040 Speaker 1: about lynching that he can't take is it is so 353 00:21:23,200 --> 00:21:25,720 Speaker 1: messy and disorganized. What are the rules. 354 00:21:26,680 --> 00:21:29,439 Speaker 7: It's hard to pin him down because he has a 355 00:21:29,440 --> 00:21:32,520 Speaker 7: whole range of emotions that I think capture the general 356 00:21:32,560 --> 00:21:35,520 Speaker 7: German view. You know, the Americans are so violent, how 357 00:21:35,520 --> 00:21:38,120 Speaker 7: could they be doing this? So he's really intrigued by 358 00:21:38,119 --> 00:21:44,879 Speaker 7: this disconnect between how close Americans are to kind of 359 00:21:45,320 --> 00:21:48,520 Speaker 7: acting on their racial impulses, but how badly they are 360 00:21:48,560 --> 00:21:53,199 Speaker 7: doing it. And so it's a strange mixture of discussed surpride, 361 00:21:53,600 --> 00:21:57,560 Speaker 7: support dismissal. It's a fascinating and puzzling read in that regard. 362 00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:03,240 Speaker 1: Yeah, he agrees with America in theory, but disagrees in practice. 363 00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:04,200 Speaker 8: Absolutely. 364 00:22:04,920 --> 00:22:07,320 Speaker 1: Kreeger actually writes an article on that for the George 365 00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:10,719 Speaker 1: Washington University Law Review about the way the US handles 366 00:22:10,800 --> 00:22:13,760 Speaker 1: Native Americans. And if you ask Krieger to sum up 367 00:22:13,880 --> 00:22:16,879 Speaker 1: what he concluded in that article, he would have said, 368 00:22:17,520 --> 00:22:21,200 Speaker 1: lost money, ENFUNO. Don't get me started. 369 00:22:24,200 --> 00:22:27,119 Speaker 8: The Olympics are this chance, like this moment where the 370 00:22:27,119 --> 00:22:29,720 Speaker 8: whole world is put into dialogue in some way with 371 00:22:29,840 --> 00:22:33,200 Speaker 8: Nazi Germany before it's just painfully obvious what they're going 372 00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:33,520 Speaker 8: to be. 373 00:22:33,920 --> 00:22:36,520 Speaker 1: I'm talking to Ben A. Daph Haffrey, my partner in 374 00:22:36,520 --> 00:22:40,040 Speaker 1: this series on Hitler's Olympics. Midway through Ben and I 375 00:22:40,080 --> 00:22:43,040 Speaker 1: realized that we weren't all that interested in what happened 376 00:22:43,119 --> 00:22:45,760 Speaker 1: at the Olympic Games, who won, what, and all that 377 00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:49,800 Speaker 1: we were interested in what was going on around the 378 00:22:49,840 --> 00:22:53,440 Speaker 1: Olympic Games, the contortions the Americans had to go through 379 00:22:53,720 --> 00:22:57,480 Speaker 1: to justify going to Berlin at all. And Krieger's time 380 00:22:57,520 --> 00:22:59,879 Speaker 1: in Arkansas is just a flip side of what we 381 00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:03,800 Speaker 1: exploring all along, every almost every episode we have is 382 00:23:03,800 --> 00:23:09,280 Speaker 1: about an encounter between a German and an American and 383 00:23:10,040 --> 00:23:13,480 Speaker 1: the and the kind of complicated, tangled ways in which 384 00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:16,600 Speaker 1: each party strives to make sense of what happened or 385 00:23:16,640 --> 00:23:20,000 Speaker 1: makes sense of the other. And it's a it's a 386 00:23:20,080 --> 00:23:23,119 Speaker 1: kind of it's a hugely important moment for the US 387 00:23:23,119 --> 00:23:26,680 Speaker 1: in Germany, because the US is the ascended power in 388 00:23:26,760 --> 00:23:29,200 Speaker 1: the world, and Germany is at a moment in its 389 00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:31,920 Speaker 1: history when it desperately wants to be the other, right, 390 00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:35,400 Speaker 1: the other great superpower. And I think that's what we're 391 00:23:35,400 --> 00:23:36,120 Speaker 1: describing here. 392 00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:39,280 Speaker 8: Yeah, I think that's true. And I also and I 393 00:23:39,280 --> 00:23:42,639 Speaker 8: think that the the broader significance of that, to me 394 00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:46,480 Speaker 8: is the sort of implication of the Dorothy Thompson who 395 00:23:46,560 --> 00:23:51,600 Speaker 8: goes Nazi question, which is that the wrong understanding and 396 00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:56,760 Speaker 8: the popular understanding of World War two is that the 397 00:23:56,840 --> 00:23:59,480 Speaker 8: Nazis kind of am out of nowhere and are the 398 00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:03,320 Speaker 8: singular evil who then must be defeated and then good 399 00:24:03,359 --> 00:24:07,480 Speaker 8: triumphs and that's that, And of course it's not the case. 400 00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:11,160 Speaker 8: I mean, they are profoundly evil, but they're not actually 401 00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:15,200 Speaker 8: that singular, and neither is the passist impulse. 402 00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:30,240 Speaker 1: Los minidan fanga, don't get me started. The meeting is 403 00:24:30,280 --> 00:24:34,560 Speaker 1: where in Berlin. It's in Berlin, in Putstam. Actually James Whitman, 404 00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:38,040 Speaker 1: in the course of his research he uncovered a transcript 405 00:24:38,280 --> 00:24:41,840 Speaker 1: of a crucial conference held just outside Berlin in June 406 00:24:41,840 --> 00:24:45,040 Speaker 1: of nineteen thirty four. By that point, the Nazis have 407 00:24:45,119 --> 00:24:49,960 Speaker 1: seized power and put out a big proposal, the Prussian Memorandum. 408 00:24:50,359 --> 00:24:52,879 Speaker 1: It's all about how they want to handle the Jewish question, 409 00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:56,680 Speaker 1: and all the country's biggest legal experts are gathering in 410 00:24:56,760 --> 00:24:59,919 Speaker 1: Postam to try and figure out if and how they 411 00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:02,440 Speaker 1: can translate those ideas into law. 412 00:25:03,119 --> 00:25:07,520 Speaker 2: So the radicals were demanding bans on sexual relations between 413 00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:08,480 Speaker 2: Jews and Arians. 414 00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:11,760 Speaker 1: It's one thing to say that, though, but how do 415 00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:14,800 Speaker 1: you make that work in practice? Well, it was a 416 00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:18,600 Speaker 1: tough question, you know what. It remains a tough question. Now. 417 00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:23,399 Speaker 2: The Nazis were having understandably a great deal of difficulty 418 00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:27,840 Speaker 2: determining who would count biologically as a Jew. It's worth 419 00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:31,639 Speaker 2: emphasizing that they didn't know anything about genetics, right. There 420 00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:33,919 Speaker 2: was a lot of concern that if there was racial 421 00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:39,720 Speaker 2: mixing between Jews and Arians, eventually the awful Jewish blood 422 00:25:39,760 --> 00:25:44,080 Speaker 2: would come to the surface. You know, there were others 423 00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:46,120 Speaker 2: who thought that whatever the Jewish blood was, it would 424 00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:47,959 Speaker 2: be swamped in any case if there wasn't very much 425 00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:55,520 Speaker 2: of the mixing. But nobody really knew. The scientists who 426 00:25:55,560 --> 00:26:00,720 Speaker 2: were involved complained that there's absolutely no physiology logical way of. 427 00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:03,240 Speaker 1: Determining who's a Jew. Yeah, so how do I The 428 00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:05,840 Speaker 1: fuhnomental problem here is how do I erect a legal 429 00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:09,720 Speaker 1: system which seeks to, in some you know, create a 430 00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:12,399 Speaker 1: second class status for Jews when I don't know what 431 00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:17,359 Speaker 1: a Jew is? So who's thought about this issue? Well, 432 00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:20,800 Speaker 1: of course the Americans had, and Heinrich Krieger had just 433 00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:23,479 Speaker 1: written it up in his recent book Race Law in 434 00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:27,560 Speaker 1: the United States. It would become Krieger's great contribution to 435 00:26:27,680 --> 00:26:31,919 Speaker 1: Nazi ideology. He gave them a concrete understanding of the 436 00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:36,040 Speaker 1: American way of prejudice, a legal understanding, something he could 437 00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:39,080 Speaker 1: start from if you're interested in building a whole new 438 00:26:39,119 --> 00:26:41,240 Speaker 1: system of racism from scratch. 439 00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:48,879 Speaker 2: The difficulty that the Nazis, the main difficulty that the 440 00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:52,120 Speaker 2: Nazis faced and trying to create a new race law 441 00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:56,120 Speaker 2: was that all of the traditions of European criminal law. 442 00:26:56,200 --> 00:26:59,960 Speaker 2: Jurisprudence insisted that you had to abide by a normal 443 00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:02,320 Speaker 2: of what we call formal equality, that you just speak 444 00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:06,119 Speaker 2: of the defendant and the state party the first part 445 00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:08,640 Speaker 2: party the second part. But there's no room from their 446 00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:13,520 Speaker 2: point of view in specifying characteristics of the individuals, including 447 00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:16,800 Speaker 2: specifying their membership in a particular race. And that was 448 00:27:16,840 --> 00:27:20,360 Speaker 2: the rule all through the world, but Americans didn't care. 449 00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:24,080 Speaker 1: Then the Nazis had to make sense of all the 450 00:27:24,080 --> 00:27:27,080 Speaker 1: ways Americans banned into racial marriage and sex. 451 00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:30,879 Speaker 2: So there were many many anti missiggenation statutes, and the 452 00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:34,080 Speaker 2: miss the anti misceggonation statutes took a huge variety of 453 00:27:34,160 --> 00:27:37,320 Speaker 2: views on who counted as a member of whatever race. 454 00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:39,880 Speaker 2: The most extreme view, of course, was the notorious one 455 00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:40,640 Speaker 2: drop rule. 456 00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:45,520 Speaker 1: Among those states that used the one drop standard, meaning 457 00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:48,679 Speaker 1: even a single black ancestor made you count as black, 458 00:27:49,320 --> 00:27:53,800 Speaker 1: was Arkansas. Maybe that's why Heinrich Krieger ended up in Fayetteville. 459 00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:57,440 Speaker 1: You can Betty had many late night conversations about it 460 00:27:57,520 --> 00:28:01,359 Speaker 1: in some Fayetteville dive bar. In states where there was 461 00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:04,480 Speaker 1: no one drop rule, well, there was just a very 462 00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:07,600 Speaker 1: unteutonic patchwork of laws. 463 00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:10,080 Speaker 2: But the others just came up with a huge variety 464 00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:14,600 Speaker 2: of as the as the Nazis said, politically determined judgments 465 00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:18,159 Speaker 2: about who was going to count. What's more, and very interestingly, 466 00:28:18,720 --> 00:28:22,399 Speaker 2: to the radical Nazis, the question was effectively left to 467 00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:27,960 Speaker 2: a kind of judicial discretion. Somebody appears in court in 468 00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:30,280 Speaker 2: the questions does everybody regard this person as. 469 00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:32,000 Speaker 1: Black? 470 00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:35,120 Speaker 2: Or or does this person kind of look that way 471 00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:39,040 Speaker 2: to me? And that seemed extremely appealing to the radical Nazis, 472 00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:43,400 Speaker 2: just just cut the whole knot by making a political 473 00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:44,520 Speaker 2: decision on the spot. 474 00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:48,280 Speaker 1: Or yeah, yeah, so they're they're kind of liberated by 475 00:28:49,040 --> 00:28:55,520 Speaker 1: the by by American indifference to legal formalities on this questions. 476 00:28:55,040 --> 00:28:57,200 Speaker 2: As many Europeans who come to study in this country 477 00:28:57,240 --> 00:28:57,720 Speaker 2: still are. 478 00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:04,040 Speaker 1: Yeah, think about all the crucial meetings that led to 479 00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:08,120 Speaker 1: the American decision to send athletes to the Games. Charles 480 00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:11,280 Speaker 1: Cheryl goes to Vienna and convinces the German delegation to 481 00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:15,200 Speaker 1: commit in principle to including Jews on their team. Then, 482 00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:17,920 Speaker 1: when it seems like the Germans might not be keeping 483 00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:21,160 Speaker 1: their word, Avery Brundage goes over to visit them, and 484 00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:24,160 Speaker 1: the Nazis convince him that what they're doing to Jewish 485 00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:27,720 Speaker 1: athletes is no big deal. Then Cheryl goes back and 486 00:29:27,760 --> 00:29:30,520 Speaker 1: see the Nazis a second time, and Broker is the 487 00:29:30,520 --> 00:29:34,320 Speaker 1: grand bargain. Just put this half Jewish fencer, Helene Mayer 488 00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:38,040 Speaker 1: on your Olympic team and everything will be fine. Jesse 489 00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:40,880 Speaker 1: Owens decides to go to the games and gets hugged 490 00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:44,280 Speaker 1: on the field by his German competitor, loots long and 491 00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:48,120 Speaker 1: builds a myth out of it. We understand what is 492 00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:51,200 Speaker 1: motivating all of them. Brundage wants a seat on the 493 00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:55,240 Speaker 1: International Olympic Committee. Cheryl is surfing the endless waves of 494 00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:58,640 Speaker 1: his own ego. Jesse Owens is trying to justify his 495 00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:01,840 Speaker 1: decision to go to the game. But what are the 496 00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:05,440 Speaker 1: Nazis on the other side of the table. The easiest 497 00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:08,560 Speaker 1: answer is that they're con men. They played the Americans 498 00:30:08,600 --> 00:30:12,280 Speaker 1: first song. They meet Cheryl and Brundage and say to themselves, 499 00:30:12,600 --> 00:30:16,400 Speaker 1: oh my god, these guys are children puppets. But I 500 00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:19,880 Speaker 1: don't think that's right. The Nazis aren't rolling their eyes 501 00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:24,200 Speaker 1: at the Americans, They're learning from them. The Germans look 502 00:30:24,280 --> 00:30:27,600 Speaker 1: at Jesse Owens and Jimmy Laval and Archie Williams and 503 00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:30,560 Speaker 1: all the other black athletes, and they say they came 504 00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:33,920 Speaker 1: after all you put them through. You get to bask 505 00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:36,600 Speaker 1: in the glory of their success without having to treat 506 00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:40,440 Speaker 1: them like human beings. So this whole audacious project we're 507 00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:42,760 Speaker 1: launching where we want to take a portion of our 508 00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:46,920 Speaker 1: population and treat them like second class citizens and still 509 00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:50,280 Speaker 1: also win the respect of the world, be crowned as superpower. 510 00:30:50,800 --> 00:30:54,400 Speaker 1: Maybe it's possible. Maybe we don't even need some kind 511 00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:58,440 Speaker 1: of principal justification, some set of reasoned out laws. Maybe 512 00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:00,480 Speaker 1: we can just make it up as we go along. 513 00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:05,040 Speaker 1: The modern Olympics were created to bring cultures together to 514 00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:09,560 Speaker 1: promote international understanding, and Berlin maybe the potonic ideal of that, 515 00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:14,600 Speaker 1: because it's where the Germans learned to think like Americans. 516 00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:21,080 Speaker 1: Although there were some limits, These Germans, even quite serious Nazis, 517 00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:24,920 Speaker 1: were were quite alarmed to learn about the one drop rule. 518 00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:30,760 Speaker 2: They were indeed, as they described it as inhumane. How 519 00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:34,480 Speaker 2: can you possibly visit all this discrimination on someone who 520 00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:38,960 Speaker 2: just somewhere way back in the ancestry, I had some 521 00:31:39,280 --> 00:31:41,200 Speaker 2: you know, a little bit of a drop of George blood. 522 00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:44,000 Speaker 1: I mean, this is like this one of those insane 523 00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:47,200 Speaker 1: moments where I'm just curious when you how did you 524 00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:49,760 Speaker 1: when you were reading this and you come across those 525 00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:55,160 Speaker 1: moments where even the Nazis are you know, are taken 526 00:31:55,160 --> 00:32:04,720 Speaker 1: aback by what's going on? What's your reaction? My reaction was, well, 527 00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:10,320 Speaker 1: good lord, I mean, who would have imagined that there 528 00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:15,400 Speaker 1: was American racism that went too far for Nazis? And 529 00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:18,720 Speaker 1: where do you suppose Heinrich Kriger goes after he's done 530 00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:22,600 Speaker 1: with his mission to the American South South Africa to 531 00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:27,080 Speaker 1: study apartheid. Heinrich Krieger reminds us that you can't tell 532 00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:30,520 Speaker 1: the story of the nineteen thirty six Olympics by focusing 533 00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:34,080 Speaker 1: just on the nineteen thirty six Olympics. That's what Ben 534 00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:37,320 Speaker 1: and I started to understand. You have to broaden the lens. 535 00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:41,000 Speaker 1: And in our next episode, we turned the clock back 536 00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:45,040 Speaker 1: to nineteen thirty two and ask the same questions we've 537 00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:48,720 Speaker 1: been asking of Berlin about the games that came before Berlin. 538 00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:52,640 Speaker 1: A little thought experiment that will take us to Los 539 00:32:52,680 --> 00:33:08,960 Speaker 1: Angeles for a drive down Olympic Boulevard. Revisionist History is 540 00:33:09,040 --> 00:33:13,240 Speaker 1: produced by Benda daf Haffrey, Tally Emlin and Nina Bird Lawrence. 541 00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:17,640 Speaker 1: Our editor is Sarah Nix. Fact Checking by Arthur Gomperts 542 00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:22,360 Speaker 1: and Jail Goldfind Original scoring by Luis Kara, mastering by 543 00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:26,320 Speaker 1: Sarah Bruger and Jake Korski. Engineering by Nina Bird Lawrence. 544 00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:31,000 Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Special thanks to Karen Chakerji, 545 00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:35,880 Speaker 1: Laura Walker, and Zabina Schmidt. I'm Malcolm Gladwell.