Podcast
Behind the Bastards
The book discussed how Avery Brundage was a piece of shit and gave an example of how the International Olympic Committee (IOC) whitewashed his history.
Now I learned he was a piece of shit from the book Berlin Games by Guy Walters.
— Episode: Part Two: How Avery Brundage Gave Hitler...
Episode: Part Two: How Avery Brundage Gave Hitler an Olympi...
The book discussed how Avery Brundage was a piece of shit and gave an example of how the International Olympic Committee (IOC) whitewashed his history.
Now I learned he was a piece of shit from the book Berlin Games by Guy Walters.
Brundage knew that if he wanted to succeed him, Jahnke, he would have to do exactly as the president and the vice president wished.
With the two men looking benevolently on Germany, Brundage decided that he would change his opinion to coincide with theirs.
It was nothing more than toadying. From this moment on, Brundage would do everything in his power to ensure that his masters were satisfied.
He met Jewish sports leaders who, under the watchful eyes of Nazi handlers, assured Brundage that conditions were not as the foreign newspapers were suggesting.
Brundage was further handicapped by his inability to speak German. So any inferences that the Jewish sportsmen may have made would have been blocked out by the Nazis.
By the time Hitler reached his seat at four or five p.m., there was no doubt that he was already the star of the Olympics.
These were his games now, not Ballet Latour's and most certainly not Kubertins as if to reinforce the not suffocation of the games.
The United States was one of the last teams to enter the stadium.
We were a total disgrace, recalled Joanna de Tuscan.
About 30 or 40 nonmembers of the team, fat with cigarette ashes on their clothes, marched at the head of the team.
Marty Glickman felt that the word marching was inappropriate to describe how the Americans proceeded.
American athletes don't march very well, he wrote.
We kind of moved in our usual loose gated walk.
At the team's head was Avery Brundage, who was neither fat nor a smoker and was one of the few who really did march.
As the Americans marched past Hitler, they removed their boaters and clutched them to their hearts, whereas other flags were dipped in honor of the Fuhrer, the Stars and Stripes remained resolutely aloft.
Marty Glickman recalled the moment when the team passed Hitler.
We looked up at the box where he was flanked by Gehring and Goebbels and Hess and Himmler and all the rest of the Nazi hierarchy.
And you could hear the comment run through our crowd as we were walking in.
Hey, he looks like Charlie Chaplin.