Olympic Games 1936 - Racial Propaganda - The German athletes are presented as the continuation of the ideal body ...

Olympic Games 1936 - Racial Propaganda - The German athletes are presented as the continuation of the ideal body model of ancient Greece

OLYMPIC GAMES 1936 - Official publication of the 11th Olympic Games Committee - July 1935. An issue surveying the preparations for the Olympics held in Nazi Germany in 1936. Racial propaganda linking the body culture of the German people with the ideal body model of ancient Greece. 

The booklet deals with Nazi Germany's preparations for hosting the Olympics in its territory, emphasizing the German physical superiority directly linked to the way the muscular athletes of ancient Greece are portrayed. The opening pages and a special article present the Nazi racial conception that views German athletes as a modern model of the body culture of ancient Greece. The designers of Nazi ideology saw in the ancient Greeks, depicted in sculptures with an ideal physique, as embodying the Aryan ideal. Nazi propaganda turned the Berlin Olympics into a stage for displaying the muscular Aryan appearance primarily through the torch relay that opened the Olympic Games and originated in ancient Greece. Thus, they presented the Germans as the legitimate heirs of an allegedly glorious past and a superior race. In this booklet, which is in fact the "official publication of the Olympic Games Committee", meant to provide objective information about the preparations for the opening of the Olympics, is instilled the message of Aryan racial superiority whose ancient ancestors are the muscular Greeks. The cover design is also intended to serve this message: a muscular German athlete against the backdrop of the columns of ancient Athens in Greece. The main article shows Greek runners from the ancient world with the headline: "The Beginning Two Thousand Years Ago", and then a photograph of German runners with the caption: "And Ends Today". The article attempts to show, through detailed explanations and statuette images from the ancient world, that the body movements of German runners while running are identical to the body movements of Greek runners in ancient Greece.

The message linking the Aryan race to ancient Greece also appeared in the famous documentary film "Olympia" by director Leni Riefenstahl. In 1936, Hitler invited Riefenstahl to film the Olympic Games in Berlin. Riefenstahl traveled to Greece to film the original site of the Olympic Games - Olympia, assisted there by a Greek photographer. The film, produced in collaboration with Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, glorifies the Nazis as the heirs of classical Greece and presents Germany as an enlightened nation that promotes sports equally. This was Riefenstahl's goal, which was aimed at public opinion in Western European countries. The film is a hymn to the Nazi body cult and reveres the athleticism that the Nazis attributed to the Aryan race.

Among other things the issue reports on the preparations of German athletes for the Olympics and the extensive urban preparations overseen by Adolf Hitler himself.

32 p. 36 cm. Open tear on the top right of the cover. On the last two pages a consecutive tear without loss or damage. Overall good condition.