Heroes

Extract

Owens 4, master race 0

American athlete Jesse Owens was fresh off the ocean liner Manhattan on his way to the Berlin Olympics. The year was 1936. As his motor coach rolled southeast towards the German capital, he stared out from the window with increasing amazement. The streets of Germany were like nothing he had ever seen before. The old buildings fascinated him, as they did any American who had grown up in a town or city that had only recently been built. But most striking of all were the swastika flags that seemed to hang from almost every window or shop front. The crooked black cross on a blood-red banner was the symbol of the German Nazi Party. Its ubiquitous presence spoke silently of a country in the total control of its political masters.

The 1936 Olympics were held in troubled times. Italy had just conquered Ethiopia; mass unemployment plagued Europe and America; Brazil was so politically divided it sent two teams to the games (both were disqualified); civil war had broken out in Spain that very summer. Most ominously of all, a regime of alarming brutality had taken control in Germany.

The Nazis believed that the German people were the “master race” – superior human beings who were destined to rule the world. To them, the huge 110,000 capacity Berlin Olympic Stadium was to be a grand stage, where German athletes would assert their claims to racial superiority. The whole occasion was one big advertisement for their regime and its sinister beliefs.

The Nazis had strong views about other races too, especially Jews and Black people. Nazi leaders blamed Jews for every evil that had overtaken their country that century, and Jewish people in Germany were subjected to daily abuse and violence. The Nazi attitude to Black people was less complicated – they simply thought of them as subhuman.

Many people throughout the world were disgusted by the racist attitudes of the Nazis, and felt their country should boycott the Olympics. Aware of this disapproval, the Nazis had softened their extremist policies in the months leading up to the Olympics – for example, racist street graffiti, billboards and political newspaper articles denouncing Jews disappeared. For a while it looked as if the Nazis were softening their policies. Eventually 52 nations agreed to attend the Berlin Olympics.

Owens too had wondered whether he should go to Berlin. But at 22 he was one of America’s most promising athletes. He was a phenomenal runner and long jumper – in May 1935, at an athletics meeting in Michigan, USA, he had broken three world records in one amazing hour. The Olympic Games offered him the opportunity to show his skills to the entire world.

His coach had warned him to expect racist abuse from Nazi supporters among the Berlin crowds. But Owens had come to the Olympics determined not to allow this to affect his performance. But their expectations were wrong. The German people were fascinated by Owens, and no sooner had he arrived in the country than he was mobbed by sports fans who had read about his record-breaking performances.

Owens made an ideal hero. Being tall and handsome obviously helped, but the athlete had a boyish charm and modesty that made him particularly likable. As he posed for photographs and signed endless autographs, he talked to the crowd in the few words of German he had taken the trouble to learn. Curiously, his popularity proved to be just as much a problem as the hostility he had expected. At night, Owens was kept awake by fans who came to his bedroom window to take photographs or demand autographs.

The Games began on August 1 with a massive celebration designed to glorify the Nazi regime as much as it did the Olympics. Then the founder of the modern Games, Pierre de Coubertin, made a speech to the Berlin spectators, saying: “The important thing at the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part ... the most important thing about life is not to conquer, but to struggle well.” It was a philosophy the Nazi hosts of the Games would not be taking seriously.

Owens’ first race, the 100m, was on the day after the opening. This brief event is one of the most glamorous and exciting in athletics, and is always the cause of tremendous interest.

Owens felt under enormous pressure in the tense moments before the race he had worked so hard to win. As he arrived at the starting line for the final, he realized that the other five athletes there were the world’s fastest human beings. All of them wanted to beat him. Dismissing these thoughts from his head, he focused instead on the finishing line ahead, and reminded himself that the next 10 or so seconds of the race would be the climax of eight yearsof training. On that cold, wet afternoon the crowd held its breath, the sound of the starting pistol echoed around the stadium, and Owens shot from the line. He was ahead by the first 10m (30ft). Described by one journalist as having “the grace and poise of a deer”, he had a natural style that made running look easy. Sweeping to a new Olympic record and an ecstatic reception from the stadium crowd, he won the race in 10.3 seconds. He would look back on the moment he was presented with his first Olympic gold medal as the happiest of his career.

In his private stadium box, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, a regular spectator at the Games, was not amused. His dream of German athletes dominating the games was fading before his eyes. When an aide suggested he invite Owens up to congratulate him (as he had with successful German athletes), Hitler was outraged. “Do you really think I will allow myself to be photographed shaking hands with a black man?” he hissed.