NYT Nov. 6, 1935: Hitler to take down anti-semitic signs during Olympics, IOC blasts boycott movement as “lies”

Home Gay NYT Nov. 6, 1935: Hitler to take down anti-semitic signs during Olympics, IOC blasts boycott movement as “lies”

The New York Times reported on November 6, 1935 that German Chancellor Adolf Hitler promised International Olympic Committee (IOC) chairman Count Henry Baillet-Latour that he would take down anti-Jewish signs during the two week period of the Berlin Olympics of 1936. (The article is behind the NYT pay-firewall, soat I’ll only quote a bit of it.)

The NYT added that IOC chair Baillet-Latour was “well satisfied” with Hitler’s assurances to temporarily pause his campaign of hate against Germany’s Jewish minority.

NYT (November 6, 1935)

Oh, but it gets even better.

You know who IOC chair Baillet-Latour was not “well satisfied” with?  Human rights advocates who opposed American participation in the Nazi Olympics:

[IOC chair Baillet-Latour] attacked energetically groups in the United States that have opposed American participation in the Berlin games.  He asserted that the agitation against participation was exclusively a political campaign, citing as evidence the fact that none of the national Olympic committees now opposed having the games in Berlin.

He declared that the non-participation movement was being well financed and was “based on lies,” representing nothing more than a trump card in the hand of certain interested groups that have nothing to do with sport.

And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse:

The Olympic boycott movement in the United States was referred to as a policy limiting the athletes’ freedom, while the International Olympic Committee’s policy was cited as a policy of freedom giving the individual the right to decide of his own free will.

You defend Hitler, you defend freedom.

Any questions?

 John Aravosis
@aravosis | Facebook | Google+. Editor of AMERICAblog, joint JD/MSFS from Georgetown, worked in the US Senate, World Bank, Children's Defense Fund, and as a stringer for the Economist. A frequent TV pundit, he has been on The O'Reilly Factor, Hardball, World News Tonight, Nightline & Reliable Sources. Full bio and article archive.

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