Miss Hilde (Tilly) Fleischer won the women's javelin throw and also broke the Olympic record. For once Germany's cup of joy was filled to overflowing.
The crowd was off to a good start in its applause of the Reich athletes when Miss Fleischer winged out the javelin on her first throw. And when she climbed to the victory pedestal she stood with arms outstretched in the Nazi salute to Hitler, tears in her eyes and a lump in her throat. To her went the distinction of being the first Olympic champion of 1936.
Chancellor Hitler himself witnessed the victories. With a group of State officials and National Socialist party leaders, including Julius Streicher, he spent the afternoon watching the games. He greeted the victors with a warm handclasp and a friendly pat on the back, while the welkin rang with the frenzied cheers of the spectators.
Americans also had great results for the day. Just as the setting sun dipped behind the concrete ramparts of the huge stadium America came in for her share of the glory. Cornelius Johnson, the kangaroo-legged Negro from California, won the high jump and in keeping with the general trend of things shattered the Olympic record too. This event was a slam for the United States, because Ave Albritton, Ohio State Negro, and Delos Thurber of Southern California took the other two medals.
But for politically minded persons in the crowd there was one rather disquieting incident connected with the march of these three Americans to the victory pedestal. The Führer had greeted all three medalists in other events -- the Germans and the Finns -- with a handclasp and words of congratulation. But five minutes before the United States jumpers moved in for the ceremony of the Olympic triumph Hitler left his box.
Johnson and Albritton are Negroes. None of the others were. Press box interpreters of this step chose to put two and two together. But there will be enough future Negro winners to warrant delaying passing judgment for the present.
- NYT
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I want to comment on my own post.
I took this from the New York Time almost verbatim. They used the word "negro" as a matter of fact. THough we now consider it a racial slur, in 1936 this was not the case.
I do not condone the use of the word negro as applied to a human in groups or as individuals.
A major factor in World War II was race. Everyone was guilty of some racial inequality and discrimination before, during and after the war.
In the US, being white helped but ofeten that was not even enough. The Irish had been considered black at the end of the 19th century. Italians couldn't get a fair shake.
African-Americans were called blacks and negroes. There was also another derogatory term that I will not print. During the war, many African-American soldiers fought in a segregated Army. A saying attributed to a black soldier said "The Black man protecting the white man from the yellow man".
Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos and many other Asians faced horrible discrimination even before the war. Many Japanese were placed in internment camps for the crime of being Japanese and nothing else. Their property was taken from them and their rights infringed.
I report on the racial laws of Germany, Italy and other fascist places throughout Europe and later Japan and the US. This may sting a bit but it is history. It happened. For good, bad and in between.
Remember what Buddhist philosophy says: You can never step in the same river twice. To put it plainly, we are those nations but we are not the same nations. Do not let the past define you.
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