4 Gold Medals in Front of Hitler
As the 1936 Olympics came to the end of its host city selection, originally 14 cities came down to two: Berlin, Germany, and Barcelona, Spain. In 1931, the Internation Olympic Committee (IOC) gathered in Barcelona for the final vote. It was only a few days after the Second Spanish Republic had been established, with the unpredictability in Spain, Berlin prevailed.
Only two years later, Germany would find itself not much better off than Spain, Weimar Germany had quickly collapsed and put in power, was the leader of the Nazi Party, Adolf Hitler.
As Hitler’s discriminations against Jews and his Aryan supremacy theory became increasingly obvious to the world, the IOC held a private session to reconsider the host city. However, Hitler, seeing the Olympics as a way to demonstrate the Party’s power to the world, assured the IOC that Jewish athletes would be allowed to participate. Berlin remained the host city.
Among the Americans to participate, was aspiring 23-year-old athlete Jesse Owens, Owens had grown up in Ohio working jobs from a young age to help support his…
