Summer and Winter Olympic Games of 1936

The 1936 Olympic Games is remembered for the speed and grace of American runner Jesse Owens, and by the gloom cast over the Games by Nazi flags, and by German dictator Adolf Hitler. Both Summer and Winter Games were most especially Olympics of firsts.

The Summer Games were held in Berlin, Germany that year. The Winter Games were also held in Germany in 1936, in the twin villages of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. There, skater Sonja Henie from Norway won her third Gold Medal in her third Olympics in ladies' figure skating. After her triumph, she went to Hollywood and acted, and skated, in several movies. It was the first Winter Games that allowed the sport of alpine, or downhill and slalom, skiing. Before 1936, skiers competed only in Nordic, or cross-country skiing.

The Summer Games of 1936, as well as the Winter Games, showed sportsmanship in a battle against politics. The International Olympic Committee, or IOC, awarded the 1936 Games to Germany in 1931, when Germany was a democracy. But, by 1936, when it was time for the Games to be held, Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party ruled Germany. Many democratic nations in the world questioned whether or not to send teams to Nazi Germany. Some felt the Games should be canceled.

The Games were allowed to continue after the Nazis promised that foreign visitors would be treated respectfully. They also promised that Jewish athletes would not be banned from the German national team. They allowed two Jews on their team, but did not let one of them, track and field athlete Gretel Bergmann, compete. The other, fencer Helene Meyer, won a silver medal.

The Nazi government passed laws taking away rights from German citizens who were Jewish. Relations with neighboring countries became tense just after the Winter Games of 1936, when the German army marched into the Rhineland. This was a zone between France and Germany where the German army had been banned by a treaty after World War I.