| American field and track star Jesse Owens (September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980) lands in his world record long jump during the 1936 Berlin Olympiad. There were efforts to boycott the 1936 Olympics, with Owens agreeing that if Nazi Germany was mistreating minorities, the United States Olympic Team should not attend the games. However, he was convinced that the efforts to train and equip the team would be for naught, and he acquiesced to participating, despite the efforts of the African American press to cancel American participation in the Games. Owens and Carl Ludwig “Luz” Long (April 27, 1913 – July 14, 1943) were left in an epic battle for the Gold on August 4, 1936, and the 2 jumpers traded the lead again and again. By the penultimate round both had surpassed the Olympic record. Long equaled Owens’s best distance of 7.87 meters (25.82 feet) only to have Owens roar back with a 7.94 meter (26.04 feet) jump. In a last desperate effort to defeat Owens, Long unintentionally overstepped the starting board for a disqualification. Long was killed in action in Sicily. Owens still had 1 more jump, and in his final effort, freed from any worries about who would get the gold, soared over the allegedly invincible 8-meter barrier to set a new world record of 8.06 meters (26.44 feet). This mark would not be broken in Olympic competition until American Ralph Boston (May 9, 1939 – April 30, 2023) jumped 8.23 meters (27 feet) in Rome in 1960. By all accounts Führer und Reichskanzler (“Leader and Reichchancellor”) Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945) was jubilant over the Nazi German victories on opening day of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. His pleasure was such that he showed no frustration over the Finns’ sweep of the 10,000 meter (32,808 feet) run, an event in which the Nazi Germans were not expected to do well anyway. Hitler called the victors in the shotput, women’s javelin, and 10,000 meter race to his box and personally congratulated them, shaking the hand of each. While it seemed innocuous at the time, Hitler’s gesture on that opening afternoon soon took on added significance because of what was to happen later that evening and on the following days: his failure to congratulate American black victors, including, most famously, Jesse Owens. Accounts vary regarding Hitler’s noncongratulation of the American winners in the high jump. The New York Times man on the scene had Hitler leaving the stadium 5 minutes before the award ceremony. A German eyewitness recalled him getting up and leaving just as Cornelius “Corny” Johnson (August 28, 1913 – February 15, 1946) and Dave Albritton (April 13, 1913 – May 14, 1994), both African American high jumpers, apparently expecting his congratulations, mounted the steps toward the Führer’s box. The historian Richard Mandell (October 19, 1929 – June 23, 2013) states that Hitler left the stadium “in the darkness and threatening rain” following the elimination of the German jumpers. Whatever the precise moment of his departure, he undoubtedly left not because of the lateness of the hour or the weather but because he was faced with the prospect of congratulating African Americans. Given his treatment of the other victors earlier that day, and his well-known tolerance for drawn-out functions, Hitler’s behavior here must be seen as a deliberate snub. This is certainly how Henri de Baillet-Latour (March 1, 1876 – January 6, 1942), President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), saw the matter. The next morning the IOC president had NAzi German Sports official Karl Ritter von Halt (June 2, 1891 – August 5, 1964) inform Hitler that it was not customary for heads of state publicly to congratulate Olympic medal winners, but if he insisted on doing so he must congratulate all of them without exception. Undoubtedly fearing that more African Americans would win medals, Hitler assured von Halt that he would not congratulate any of the medal winners in public from then on. Of course only a few insiders knew about this decision at the time, which is why many observers, especially Americans, felt outraged when Hitler neglected to congratulate Jesse Owens and other black victors down the line. In reality all these athletes, not Owens specifically, were snubbed by the Führer. Like all the medal winners in the 1936 games, Owens was crowned on the victory podium with a wreath fashioned from oak leaves. In previous games the winners had received olive- or laurel-leaf crowns, which became the custom again after 1936. The Germans resorted to their oak-leaf deviation because the oak tree was a symbol of the pagan god Thor and represented strength and purity in Indo-Germanic mythology. The chief organizer of the Berlin Olympic Games, Carl Diem (June 24, 1882 – December 17, 1962), declared that the oak-leaf crowns were a no less worthy reward than the olive-leaf garlands, seeing that “a great statesman” had defined the spiritual context for their use in 1936. It is probably safe to assume, however, that Diem did not have Jesse Owens in mind when he contemplated the Olympic heroes who would wear these sacred crowns. In addition to the garlands Owens and his fellow gold-medal winners in the Berlin games received potted oak-tree seedlings that they were encouraged to plant in their homelands. Most of the athletes, including Owens did so gladly. There are now full-grown oak trees all over the world that stand as living (albeit unacknowledged) symbols of the pagan-Germanic ideology surrounding the Nazi Olympic Games. If Owens expected congratulations from Hitler along with his other fruits of victory, he showed no sign of it at the time. Nor, of course, did Hitler encourage any approach from the black runner. Hitler would have behaved toward Owens had he not made his earlier face-saving concession to Baillet-Latour, but in all likelihood he would not have offered his hand. Hitler could no more abide Africans or African Americans than he could Jews, and was appalled by the very notion of physical contact with them. According to Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach (May 9, 1907 – August 8, 1974), Hitler later declared in regard to Owens and other black athletes: “The Americans should have been ashamed of themselves for allowing their medals to be won by Negroes. I would never have shaken this Negro’s [Owens’s] hand.” Schirach also relates that when he suggested that the Führer be photographed with Owens, Hitler screamed in indignation: “Do you really think I’d allow myself to be photographed shaking hands with a Negro?” Interestingly enough, however, Owens himself had no inkling of any animosity toward him on the part of the Führer. He certainly never claimed to have been snubbed by Hitler. On the contrary, on his return to America after the Games he told an audience of 1,000 blacks in Kansas City, Mis-souri, that it was President Roosevelt and not Hitler who had shown him disrespect at his moment of triumph in Berlin. “Hitler didn’t snub me-it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram.” Owens also claimed that while he had not managed to meet Hitler in Berlin, he had once caught the Führer’s eye at the stadium, and that Hitler had gracefully acknowledged him. “When I passed the chancellor he arose, waved his hand at me, and I waved back at him.” In fact, no 1 else witnessed this putative Hitler wave, and even Owens’s coach, Larry Snyder, doubted that it had actually happened. Snyder speculated that Jesse was trying “to take the sting out of Hitler’s apparently rude behavior toward him and other American blacks.” But why would Owens want to absolve Hitler of allegations of rudeness if he did not believe that he had been snubbed in the 1st place? Whatever the truth behind the wave story, Owens turned out to be something of a Hitler fan. Back in the US he chastised American journalists for having had the bad taste to criticize “the man of the hour in Germany.” And in campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Alf Landon against FDR in 1936, Owens repeatedly praised Hitler as a “man of dignity,” while condemning Roosevelt as a “socialist.” If Owens himself was not put off by Hitler’s treatment of America’s black Olympians, the American press, especially the black press, certainly was. “Hitler Snubs Jesse!” Shouted a headline in the Cleveland Call and Post; “Owens! Humiliated In Hitler’s Land,” proclaimed the Chicago Defender. In the view of the Pittsburgh Courier-Journal, Hitler revealed his own inadequacies in cold-shouldering America’s black stars: “Hitler is an individual envious of talent, suspicious of high character, devoid of chivalry, bereft of culture, a cowardly effeminate, who proved incapable of being a gentleman even at the Olympic Games, where prejudice and politics are traditionally taboo.” The Jewish War Veterans of New Jersey passed a resolution condemning the Hitler government and the German Olympic Committee “for their gross lack of sportsmanship and decency in affronting America’s supreme colored athletes. It should be noted, however, that American criticism of Hitler and the German organizers did not extend to the Nazi German fans in general, whose treatment of African American athletes was seen to be respectful and friendly. Indeed, as many American athletes noted, the people of Berlin were as hospitable toward African Americans as they were toward any of the other visiting athletes. John Woodruff (July 5, 1915 – October 30, 2007), an American black who won a gold medal in the 800-meter race, stated after the games: “A lot of people asked me how the Germans treated us. They treated us royally. They rolled out the red carpet. They were very friendly, very accommodating, very gracious, very cordial. They were considerate in every respect.” | |
| Image Filename | wwii0827.jpg |
| Image Size | 783.21 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 3000 x 2039 |
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| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | August 4, 1936 |
| Location | |
| City | Berlin |
| State or Province | Berlin |
| Country | Germany |
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| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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