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From: dino@euclid.colorado.edu (dino)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: On the Adolf Hitler - Jesse Owens Legend
Date: 5 Mar 1995 22:47:20 GMT

All references except as noted are from _Jesse Owens: an American Life_, by William J. Baker, published by The Free Press (A Division of Macmillan, Inc.), New York, Collier Macmillan Publishers, London, if it really interests you, the book further says:

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-publication Data

Baker, William J. (William Joseph)

Jesse Owens: an American Life.

Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Owens, Jesse, 1913 -- 1980 2. Track and field athletes -- United States -- Biography. I. Title.
GV697.09B35 1986 796.4'2'0924 [B] 86-4671

ISBN 0-02-901780-7

Now down to business, all references except as noted are from the above, cited under fair use or plagiarism, whatever. As this is long enough of a post as is, I am not writing down the particular references from _Jesse Owens: An American Life_. Look them up if you like; it is well-referenced. Anything can be dug up by glancing at the index, so I am not giving page numbers. All pytos mine.

All Americans (at least) have heard it. In the Berlin Olympics of August 2 -- 16, 1936, Adolf Hitler refused to shake hands with an American runner named Jesse Owens, who was what we now call African-American in politically correct parlance, making headlines around the world, as Hitler's racial policies towards non-Aryans were quite well-known. I will comment on several other Jesse Owens related stories.

First, I would like to clear up the story of Jesse Owen's name. His real name was James Cleveland Owens, which when he drawled (he was from the dirt-poor South) to a Northern schoolteacher, "J.C.," turned into Jesse.

The Berlin Olympics of 1936 took place in an atmosphere where sport and international politics were no longer separate, despite the ostensible purpose of the Olympics. From the text:

... a backdrop of momentous world events. Just a year earlier Benito Mussolini had announced the annexation of Ethiopia ... in the early spring of of 1936 Hitler's army moved into the previously demilitarized Rhineland, ...

Further:

... In the wake of the furious debate over the participation of athletes from Western democratic nations in Nazi Germany, an alternate games -- "the People's Olympics" -- were planned for July 19 -- 26 in Barcelona, Spain. ... On the very morning of the opening ceremonies, reactionary forces led by General Francisco Franco plunged Spain into a civil war. Born of political idealism, the People's Olympics were the victim of a political crisis.

Now I again quote from the above text and we get to meet Jesse:

The Berlin Olympics reeked of politics -- of Hitler's designs and calculations, of the hopes and fears of the German people, and of the anti-Nazi bloc throughout the Western world. Little wonder that the first day of athletic competition produced a controversial episode that within the week would turn into a most memorable as politically useful myth: Hitler's legendary "snub" of Jesse Owens. In truth, the yarn was a fabrication that originally had nothing whatsoever to do with Owens.

On the first afternoon of the games, Hitler excitedly watched two German athletes, Tilly Fleischer and Hans Woellke, win gold medals, and summoned them to his box for personal, public congratulations. Shortly thereafter, he did the same for a Finnish victor. Then late in the afternoon, as drops of rain began to fall from a darkened sky, Cornelius Johnson barely beat his teammate, David Albritton, for the gold in the high jump. Just before the playing of the American national anthem announced the awarding of Johnson's medal, Hitler and his entourage left the stadium.

(my note: I seem to recall hearing other accounts that Hitler "stormed out" of the stadium, see below for an account of "leaving the stadium in a tantrum)

Did they make the hasty exit so Hitler would not have to shake hands with the black Johnson? Maybe they did. A Nazi spokesman explained that Hitler's party always entered and left the stadium on an exact prearranged schedule, but it is difficult to imagine *Der Fuhrer* publicly congratulating a black man, whom he considered only slightly less odious than a Jew. But if he snubbed any black American athlete, it was Cornelius Johnson rather than Jesse Owens. Not until the next day did Owens win his first gold medal. By then the president of the International Olympic Committee, Henri de Baillet-Latour of Belgium, had gotten word to Hitler that as the head of the host government he must be impartial in his accolades -- congratulating all or none of the victors. Hitler stopped inviting winners to his box. He was much to sensitive to world opinion to leave himself open to negative publicity.

But Hitler had not banked on the ingenuity of the American press. "Hitler greets all medalists except Americans," the front page of the _New York Times_ announced the day after the first competitive events; "Hitler ignores Negro medalists," ran the headlines the next day. Not by coincidence, the _New York Times_ had earlier led the movement to boycott the Berlin Games. Still, after those initial barrages, the _Times_ largely ceased mentioning the "snub" story. Other newspapers picked it up with a new twist. "HITLER SNUBS JESSE," read the huge, bold headlines of a black Cleveland paper, _Call and Post_, the day after Owens had won his first medal. Ignorant of Baillet-Latour's instructions and confident of its ability to read Hitler's motives, the American press shifted the focus away from Cornelius Johnson and to Jesse Owens. Every new medal won by Owens enhanced his appeal as the target of Hitler's supoosed insult.

Yet Jesse denied it to interviewers at Berlin and to reporters on his return home. He would soon find, however, that the constant denial was too much bother and that to claim the "snub" for his own would work to his advantage. "And then," as Bob Greenspan says simply, "Jesse kept on using the story." Especially in his postwar public addresses, newspaper articles, and ghosted books, he would make much of Hitler's refusal to shake his hand, and his "leaving the stadium in a tantrum."

Elsewhere the text says on Jesse's experience in Berlin:

German spectators gave him the warmest ovation of his life. Just before he entered the stadium, Larry Snyder (my note: his coach) warned him to be ready for a hostile reception: "Don't let anything you hear from the stands upset you. Ignore the results and you'll be alright." Little did Snyder know that German admiration for athletic achievement transcended race prejudice. From the moment that Owens first appeared on the track, curious German athletes and coachs milled around him. ... One German coach, seemed, to Snyder, intensely interested in Jesse's graceful legs, studying them "like a scientist studying a rare species of fauna." Then, after Jesse won his first heat, the entire stadium burst out in thunderous applause. From then on he received a loud ovation every time he walked out on the track.

So much for the "Germans were unified in their hatred of non-Aryans" routine.

We may safely conclude:

F. Adolf Hitler refused to shake hands with Jesse Owens in the Berlin Olympics of 1936, intentionally snubbing him.

T. Hitler didn't shake hands with any athletes after the first day of competition, and Jesse didn't win anything until the second. Hitler did, however, snub another black American athlete, Cornelius Johnson.

But the myths don't end here. Another myth is that a few African-American (I am being politically correct) athletes ran off with all of the medals. Jesse did walk off with four gold medals, no mean achievement. However, elsewhere in our main reference:

... In the unofficial point system devised by the American Olympic Committee (ten points for first place, and five, four, three, two and one for the next five finishes, the American male track and field team scored 203 points. Owens alone scored 40, almost two-thirds of the entire German teams total.

Outside of track and field, however, the Germans dominated: 87 - 1 in gymnastics, 65 - 6 in equestrian events, 43 - 4 in canoeing, 34 - 9 in boxing, 28 - 10 in weightlifting, 27 - 0 in cycling, 20 - 2 in yachting, and 19 - 10 in fencing. Only in wrestling and basketball did American athletes make a decent showing. When the president of the International Olympic Committee, Henri Baillet-Latour, finally proclaimed the closing of the Berlin games, both German and American scoring systems gave the Germans a decisive victory over the United States. The other European fascist power, Italy, finished a distant third in team point totals.

In _Legends, Lies, and Cherished Myths of American History_, by Richard Shenkman, there is an abbreviated account of the above, and Shenkman concludes with:

It is forgotten that Germany managed to pick up more medals that all of the other countries combined. Hitler was pleased with the outcome.

It isn't so important to UL's, but of some independent interest is the fact that after the Berlin games, the once peaceful Olympic village became an infantry training center. The largest restaurant and music hall were transformed into military hospitals. Foreign athletes who hung out as little as two days after the end of the Berlin games could hear the rattle of machine-gun fire from nearby training fields. Sez the main reference:

"The army had done its best to help make the Olympic show a success," an American reporter commented, "but it now is resuming its real job."

While I am at it, I might as well knock off a couple more well-known (if I heard them prior to picking up this text, they are well-known) Jesse Owens stories.

One concerns the story of Jesse Owens and Lutz Long. This story has some truth to it, which makes it dangerous, 'cuz most of it is false.

To qualify for afternoon finals in the long jump, Jesse had to leap 23 feet 5 inches, something that he had bettered in his senior year in high school. In fact, Jesse was favored to win the gold. Notably, in a competition in Ann Arbor, he had leaped 26 feet, 8 1/4 inches, which was still a world record at the time. There are myths about the qualifying jumps. From the main text:

... His own later accounts sadly misrepresent the facts. Tacitly playing on Hitler's snub, in 1960 Owens recounted that he was so upset by Hitler's master race theories that he angrily leaped "from several inches beyond the take-off board" on his first jump, then "fouled even worse" on his second try. Later he claimed that Hitler had walked out on him just before he jumped, making him so "mad, hate-mad" that he lost his self-control. Both stories are less than credible. The athlete's utterances in 1936 contain nothing to indicate Hitler's "master race theories" were of concern to Jesse Owens at the time, and Hitler was not even in the stadium for the morning preliminaries. Even when Owens dropped Hitler from his account of his difficulties, he still got the facts wrong. In his favorite version of the event, he stepped across the front edge of the take-off board on his first attempt, then was so careful not to scratch on his second try that he made a mediocre leap, too short to qualify.

In Arthur Daley's account of Jesse's qualifying attempts at the long jump from the _New York Times_ we have:

Owens strolled over to the runway and, still in his pullover, raced to the pit and ran right through, a customary warm-up gesture. But the red flag was raised in a token greatly to the Buckeye Bullet's astonishment. That counted as one of his three jumps.

Apparently this practice run through the pit was only customary in the US. The text continues with Daley continuing:

On his second try, which he made in earnest, Jesse hit the take-off board cleanly and sailed through the air. Again the red flag was raised.

Owens had stepped over the front edge of the take-off board.

One more "scratch" would disqualify him, placing the world's greatest long-jumper on the sidelines for the afternoon finals. ...

As Owens later told the story with various embellishments and varying degrees of consistency, his reveried of self-disgust were interrupted by a German competitor, Lutz Long, who came to his rescue with words of consolation and advice. An inch or two taller than Owens, Long was blond, lean, and blue-eyed, a walking advertisement for Hitler's Aryan ideal. According to Owens's reminiscences, Long initiated a conversation. ... Then Long reportedly suggested that Jesse make a mark 6 inches back off of the take-off board (as one version of the story has it) or that he place the towel 6 inches back of the board (according to another of Owens's accounts) in order to avoid fouling.

If Long did, in fact, make the helpful suggestion, no one but Owens heard it. No one else even observed the two men in conversation at the time. The doyen of American sports writers, Grantland Rice, was in the press box with binoculars trained on Owens between his second and third attempts to qualify. ... (Rice saw) only a calm mask of a face as Jesse walked down the sprint path to the take-off board, re-traced his steps, then "anteloped" down the path to make his final jump. ... left the ground with half-foot clearance at the take-off and went past 25 feet to safety.

So Jesse qualified for the long jump. Jesse had the gold locked up before his final jump, but on the final jump:

"As he hurled himself through space," noted Rice, ... "... seemed to be jumping clear out of Germany." ... That final majestic jump, captured memorably by Leni Riefenstahl's cameramen, carried to a new Olympic record of 8.06 meters (26 feet, 5 1/4 inches).

(the text is fuzzy, but I believe that Long came in second)

... Lutz Long's response, however, was most unexpected: Long rushed up to congratulate him. Years later, for select audiences, Owens indicated that this was, in fact, the first time Long and he ever spoke to each other.

The text further comments that when speaking before large groups, Owens would give the other version, complete with Long's advice in the preliminaries, and, as Jesse told it, after his final jump, Long took Owens's hand, held it high, and shouted to the crowd, "Jesse Owens! Jesse Owens!" and the entire stadium thundered with a chanting of "Jaz-ee-ooh-wenz." According to those who actually saw it, all that the two men did was walk arm-in-arm off of the field toward the dressing rooms. The truth can be *so* dull, but this is alt.folklore.urban.

It is true that Owens and Long became good friends during their time in Berlin. Owens explained their "unique friendship" as "simply two uncertain young men in an uncertain world."

Uncertain it was. Long died in combat fighting for the Third Reich in Sicily. As an aside, the quaint story of Owens meeting Long's son in Berlin in 1951 and autographing a photo of his father may actually be true. Owens claims that Hitler glared angrily at the sight of his Aryan athlete shaking hands with Owens. However, Hitler virtually ignored the incident, and I know of no solid evidence that Hitler intentionally had Long sent to the front lines to be killed in action for congratulating Owens. Comments the text:

He reserved his evil irrationality for Jews, Poles, and foriegn foes, not for his Olympic athletes. Proud of Long's valient effort, he congratulated him privately just before leaving the stadium. As one reporter commented, "his eagerness to receive the youthful German was so great that the Fuerher condescended to wait until his emmissaries had pried Long loose from Owens."

This is getting too long, so I will only briefly comment on the story of the two American Jewish runners, Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller getting bumped and replaced by Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe, is true. They had the dubious distinction of being the only American runners who went to the Berlin games without competing. Owens and Metcalfe may have been better runners, but the whole thing was questionable. Look it up if you like.

Another legend of Jesse is true: he really did run a 100 yard exhibition race against a thoroughbred horse, and actually won. Owens had this to say in 1971: "People say that it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals. There was no television, no big advertising, no endorsements then. Not for a black man, anyway."

I am getting to far afield from the handshaking thing, the original motivation to post this, so I will conclude with this gem from _The People's Almanac_:

... Long hugged him in congratulation, but Hitler -- eager to congratulate Long -- shunned Owens.

Believe it or not, Jesse took up smoking and ultimately dying of lung cancer in 1980.

dino

"... when the sharp-tongued Benjamin Disraeli, so the story goes, was ordered in the last century to withdraw his declaration that half of the cabinet were asses. `Mr. Speaker, I withdraw,' was Disraeli's response. `Half the cabinet are not asses.'"

• seen in the Boulder _Daily Camera_, 2-26-95