1936 Olympic Games: Jesse Owens

 

It is because the Olympic Games are on right now and Steve and I have been watching so much of the games from Rio, shouting at the TV, cheering our athletes on, that it seemed weird somehow, that we chose that very time to visit the 1936 Olympic Stadium in Berlin, pretty much on the spur of the moment as we did. 

 

 

 

Looking back at our plans on the calendar in our kitchen, I can see that we had planned to make an early departure that day on the last stage of our holiday, 525 miles is a long way and would be about an eight hour drive. We changed the original plan a couple of times, the last being Steve’s urge to go to the Berlin Olympic Stadium before we left for home, it was pushing the time limits but once we drove into the car park area and saw that mighty arena, we were mesmerised. 

Steve, who has spent our entire married life complaining that I walk too fast, suddenly found a turn of walking speed previously unknown and charged off in front of me time and again conducting the tour in his head and me trailing along behind him trying to take photos and then having to run to catch him up at the next station he had stopped at. One of these was at the far end of the arena, where there is a lasting monument engraved with the names of the gold medallists of that time and to last through time. At the very top on your right hand side it reads:

 

 

100m LAUF OWENS USA

200m LAUF OWENS USA

 

I think we have all at some point in our lives seen the old newsreel film showing Jesse Owens winning these two Gold Olympic Medals. We could not have missed that these famous wins were watched by Adolf Hitler, the most famous man in Germany at that time who was later to become the most infamous. There were reports at the time that Hitler had snubbed Jesse Owens because he had not congratulated him, as he had the first two German medal winners. There are reports from both sides of this coin. Jesse Owens himself, said later that it was not true and that as he walked past below the Chancellor, that Hitler had raised his hand to him and he had raised his hand back. I personally wonder if Hitler’s raised hand was in the ‘Hitler Greeting’, the Nazi salute and Owens, a black man of those times, star athlete or not made no difference; he used to being treated as a second class citizen in his own country and it seems, took no offence at that insult. Other reports say that it simply started raining at Hitler just left because of that. I’m not buying that. Is anybody? 

More astonishing than the Hitler snub story, is that on his return to the USA, having won Four gold medals at the Olympic Games for team USA, he was not congratulated by the then President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Not personally, not with a telegram or a letter. There was a reception at the Waldorf Astoria for returning athletes and he was asked to take the freight elevator and not the front door. He still had to get into the bus at the back. 

In fact he had to wait until 1976 to be honoured by President Gerald R. Ford who bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on this great man who had won the 100 metres and the 200 metres, he had also been part of the relay team when he stormed over the line to take them to a gold for 4 x 100. Not to mention that he won gold in the long jump with a jump that held a new record that remained unbroken for twenty five years.

 

 

Yes, I have busied myself in looking all this up again in the hope that I have my facts straight, but if not I am sorry for that. Yet, the base of my point is still here isn’t it? I have the general gist of this and let us not forget any of it. Things have changed and are changing still, but there are many things that are still not correct; there is still a long way to go and that is forward towards what is right.