CBC Digital Archives

Jewish runners pulled from Berlin Games

Every four years, the countries of the world gather to celebrate athletic achievement in an atmosphere of international cooperation. That is the goal of the Olympic Games, yet rare has been the Olympiad that is totally free of politics. Adolf Hitler used the Games as an Aryan showcase in 1936, and a string of politically motivated boycotts in the 1970s and '80s threatened to kill the Olympic movement. The Games rebounded, but in 2008 the spectre of boycott returned as protesters sought to use the Beijing Games as a political platform.

After 10 days by boat over the Atlantic, nine days for training in Berlin and eight days into the 1936 Olympic Games, Marty Glickman was ready for the race of his life. But just four hours before the start of the men's 4x100-meter relay, the American sprinter and his teammate Sam Stoller - both Jewish - learned the race was already over for them. Alluding to a German plot to hide its best sprinters, the U.S. coaches substituted two others so that, they claimed, they would ensure an American victory.

In this CBC Radio interview 40 years later, Glickman says he believes one coach was a Nazi sympathizer who wanted to spare Adolf Hitler the embarrassment of seeing the German team bested by two Jewish runners. 

• The 1916 Olympic Games were to have been held in Berlin, but were cancelled due to the First World War, which began in 1914 and ended in 1918.

• Prior to the 1936 Games, Germany took steps to keep Jews out of the ranks of its Olympic team. The United States Amateur Athletic Union threatened a boycott, but in the end voted to send a team.

• According to the 2007 book Nazi Games: The Olympics of 1936, the Berlin Games were a craftily executed exercise in pro-Nazi propaganda. At the time, the Manchester Guardian described them as a "Nazi Party rally disguised as a sporting event."

• Director Leni Riefenstahl's film about the 1936 Games, Olympia, has been hailed as a masterpiece of cinema for its pioneering techniques. See a CBC Archives clip in which Riefenstahl talks about the making of Olympia. 

Medium: Radio
Program: Olympic Magazine
Broadcast Date: July 26, 1976
Guest(s): Marty Glickman
Host: Harry Brown
Duration: 12:41
Photo: Marty Glickman, second from left, and Sam Stoller, second from right. Photo from frankwykoff.com

Last updated: July 27, 2012

Page consulted on March 26, 2013

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