Sunday, May 13, 2012

The Olympic torch relay - an echo of Nazi Germany?


I was surprised to read that the ceremony of bringing the Olympic torch from Greece to the site of the quadrennial Olympic Games is a relic of Nazi Germany.  The Atlantic reports:

The 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics were to be ... a means of furthering Hitler's ethnic and nationalist messages, a tool of Nazi soft power. Few aspects of the bizarre and highly political '36 games exemplified Hitler's propaganda mission better than the Olympic torch relay and ceremony. Though propagandists portrayed the torch relay as ancient tradition stretching back to the original Greek competitions, the event was in fact a Nazi invention, one typical of the Reich's love of flashy ceremonies and historical allusions to the old empires. And it's a tradition we still continue today, with this morning's lighting of the flame in Olympia, the birthplace of the original games circa 776 B.C., from which it will be carried by a series of relay runners to the site of the games, in this case London.



Lighting of the Olympic Torch in Greece, May 10th, 2012


Beginning the relay in Greece and ending it roughly 1,500 miles away in Berlin reinforced the idea of a shared Aryan heritage between the ancient power and the new one. It also hinted at Hitler's idea of a natural, civilizational progression from the Greek Empire to the Roman to the German. And the route happened to go through Czechoslovakia, where the stream of Nazi propaganda that surrounded it inspired some members of the ethnic German minority to clash with member of the Czech majority. Two years later, Hitler would invade and occupy part of Czechoslovakia, where he claimed the German minority was at risk.

Hitler found yet more ways to engineer the torch relay as Nazi propaganda. The head of the Reich sports office, Hans von Tschammer und Osten, convinced him to sponsor excavations of the original Olympic game sites in Olympia, further reinforcing the image of Germany as heir and caretaker of the ancient powers. Official Nazi anthem Die Fahne Hoch was played at the torch-lighting ceremony in Greece.

According to German sports historian Arnd Krüger, "The Krupp Company, Germany's largest armament producer, created and sponsored the torches, which were to burn for ten minutes. The first torch manufactured was used to ignite a new furnace for the production of long-range Krupp canons."

There's more at the link. A gallery of photographs of this year's torch lighting ceremony may be found here.

Hmmm . . . I know the Olympic torch ceremony is popular; but with a heritage like that I'd as soon see it disappear into the mists of history, along with the Nazis who inspired it!

Peter

3 comments:

AngelaG said...

"but with a heritage like that I'd as soon see it disappear into the mists of history"

Any particular reason why? If history, especially religious history, has taught us anything it's that yes, some traditions ought to be stamped out; but there are plenty of others you hijack for your own purposes. There is nothing intrinsically Nazi-ish about carrying a torch. I think the idea that "anything the Nazis touched is tainted" is the main reason why Albert Goring had such a rough life, post-WWII.

Peter said...

@AngelaG: I hear you, and to one who's never been directly exposed to the legacy of Nazi Germany, your point is reasonable. Unfortunately, I lived in South Africa for well over half of my life, and saw the most evil side of apartheid far too many times.

Those who developed and implemented that policy were intellectual and ideological disciples of the Nazis (many were imprisoned during World War II for their support of Nazi Germany). I've seen at first hand what happens when an entire race is regarded as sub-human (even non-human), and how they can be virtually enslaved, pushed around, even tortured and murdered, without compunction.

As far as I'm concerned, anything and everything to do with the Nazis belongs in museums as a warning to future generations. If I see any vestige of their philosophies in action, I get very uptight indeed, and want it gone - yesterday if not sooner. I may be over-reacting, according to some, but they haven't experienced what I have.

Luke said...

I'm with you. As evocative as carrying a torch is, it's not a torch that connects humanity as a torch that connects the Olympics to Hitler. Come up with another new spectacle/tradition that we can get behind.

Or an alternative: extinguish the flame and light a new one each Olympic. Rebirth is just as powerful a concept as perpetual continuity