1936 Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

With the world in conflict the games proceeded

Last Updated: Friday, December 18, 2009 | 3:27 PM ET

CBC Sports

German Fuhrer and Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler (centre, on balcony) greets the crowd during the snowy opening ceremonies of the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria, Germany in February 1936. (FPG/Getty Images)

Adolf Hitler presided over the opening of the 1936 Winter Games, which were held in the twin Bavarian towns of Garmisch and Partenkirchen three years before the start of the Second World War. The political climate in Germany and the Nazis’ odious racial ideology cast a pall over the Games.

Germany had been a democratic country when the International Olympic Committee awarded it the Games in 1931. When Hitler took power two years later the political climate dramatically changed.

At first it was uncertain whether Germany would agree to host the Winter Olympics, which Hitler dismissed as "an invention of Jews and freemasons" and vowed that a Nazi government would never stage them. He soon realized, however, that the Games could showcase German National Socialism, so he permitted construction of the facilities to proceed.

To prevent the Third Reich from being cast in a negative light, the Nazis allowed only German photographers access to events. The German propaganda ministry also vetted pictures intended for international use.

In Canada, the horror story was the Canadian hockey team’s shocking loss to Great Britain.

International outcry

A year before the Games, Hitler had enacted the Nuremberg Laws, which deprived German Jews of civil rights and effectively excluded them from social and cultural life. Democratic nations petitioned the IOC to move the 1936 Games away from Germany.

Canada's House of Commons debated the morality of sending athletes to these Olympics and in the U.S. a group of German expatriates attempted to organize a worldwide boycott of the Games.

The IOC was unwilling to break its tradition of not mixing sport and politics and decided the Games would go ahead as planned with one stipulation – the Germans must not exclude Jews from participating. The Nazis complied, declaring they would honour the Olympic creed. They even temporarily removed anti-Semitic signs and posters plastered throughout the country.

For their grand finale, they invited Jewish hockey star Rudi Ball home from his voluntary exile in France to lead the German hockey squad. But they fooled no one – Ball was the only Jew on the team, and his presence was recognized as a token gesture by Hitler's government to placate the IOC.

In the end, international opposition subsided and the 1936 Winter Games had more athletes than any before. Twenty-eight nations sent 668 athletes to Germany. A number of countries took part for the first time, notably Australia, Bulgaria, Greece, Liechtenstein, Spain and Turkey.

Canada was upset after losing hockey gold to British-born Canadians. Ice hockey was one of the biggest sports stories of the Games. In a stunning upset, the British defeated the Canadian team 2-1, breaking Canada's string of four straight Olympic gold medals in that sport.

It was discovered soon afterward that 11 of the British players actually lived in Canada. They were eligible to play for Britain because they were born in England.

The debut of Alpine skiing was also marred by controversy. A debate raged over whether ski instructors should be classed as professionals, which would make them ineligible for Olympic competition. In the end, they were excluded. It was an unpopular move, especially with Austria and Switzerland, which couldn’t enter some of their finest skiers.

Germans Franz Pfnur and Christl Cranz ultimately took a gold medal each in the combined downhill, which was the only Alpine event contested that year.

Less controversial was the first-ever lighting of an Olympic flame at a Winter Olympics. The flame was ignited at the Opening Ceremony on Feb. 6.

The 4x10-kilometre cross-country relay also debuted and proved to be very popular, with the Finnish team winning easily.

Norwegian skating legends

Another bright spot was Norwegian figure skater Sonja Henie, who returned to her fourth Olympics and won her third gold medal. One week later, she won the world championship for the tenth year in a row, and then decided to turn professional.

Her teammate, speed skater Ivar Ballangrud, was also a fan favourite at the 1936 Winter Games. Competing in his third Olympics, he earned three individual gold medals and one silver and then retired.

His efforts helped push Norway to the top of the medal count once more with seven gold, five silver and three bronze for a total of 15 medals.

It would be 12 years before Canada or any other nation would see another Winter Olympics. The outbreak of war in 1939 shut down Olympic competition until 1948, when the Winter Games were resurrected in St. Moritz, Switzerland.

Canada's performance

The Canadian team was in a decidedly dark mood by the time it faced off against Germany on Feb. 14. The Canadians felt they had been robbed of a gold medal. Earlier in the tournament, they had been knocked out of contention for the top prize by Great Britain, which iced a team of British-born Canadians. Canadian protests had been disregarded. Furthermore, the Canadians, like athletes from most other countries, had grown tired of ubiquitous Nazi propaganda.

In front of a crowd that included Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Goering and 10,000 German fans, Canada treated the opposition to what the Toronto Globe euphemistically termed "a lesson in the art of body-checking," and cheerfully proceeded to thump the German team nearly senseless.

Although the checks were legal, the German fans howled in outrage. The ensuing chaos was deafening. Finally Goebbels himself stood up in the officials' box and angrily motioned for everyone to quiet down so the game could continue. The Canadians pounded the Germans 6-2, and went on to win the silver medal — Canada's only medal of the 1936 Games.