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The Olympic Games: The Nazi Movement

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Two years before Adolf Hitler became the chancellor of Germany, the International Olympic Committee decided that the 1936 Olympic games would take place in Berlin, Germany. The Olympic games served as the platform for Germany’s comeback after their devastating loss in World War I as well as for Hitler’s Nazi movement to gain power.()()() A primary component of the Nazi movement was the purification of the German race which focused on the declared superiority of the Aryan race to that of the German Jews. Prior to the Olympic games, Hitler introduced a set of laws that stripped Jews from their German citizenship and of some basic human rights. In addition, Jewish athletes were denied access to training facilities and participation in the Olympic game events. These events led to criticism from other countries and efforts to boycott the games in the United States. However, even with great efforts to boycott the games and not play a role in the great injustices against the Jews in Germany by the Nazi regime, the United States still attended. I consider the …show more content…
Without the participation of North American athletes, the competition aspect would have not been legitimate and Hitler’s attempt to utilize the Olympics as a way to gain political power and control would have failed. Germany needed the United States to participate, and because different interest groups in the United States did not want to involve politics and the Olympics, they stopped the boycott movement. I feel like it was totally pointless to try and stay away from political conflict, when the Nazi regime was strategically and intentionally using the Olympics to gain political power. The United States took part of a political movement by simply sending its best athletes to compete and at the same time supported the beginning of a horrifying dictatorship

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