By early 1933 Adolf Hitler had effectively become the dictator of Germany. All non-Nazi parties, organizations, and labour unions had ceased to exist. The reciprocal ideologies of pan-Germanic expansionism and anti-Semitism had taken root. Members of “non-Aryan” (non-white and Jewish) races were perceived and portrayed as inferior and degenerate. Nazi sports imagery served to promote the myth of Aryan racial superiority. So-called Aryan facial features—blonde hair and blue eyes—were accentuated in posters and journal illustrations. In April 1933 the Nazis’ sports office ordered all public athletic organizations to implement an “Aryans-only” policy. The policy sparked global outrage: just two years earlier, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had awarded the 1936 Summer Olympics to Berlin, and now Olympic organizers in the United States and Europe were considering pulling out of the Berlin Olympics altogether.
In 1934 Avery Brundage, the president of the United States Olympic Committee, responded to reports of German persecution of Jewish athletes by inspecting German sporting facilities. Brundage determined that Jewish athletes were being treated fairly and subsequently came out in favour of sending American athletes to Berlin. In December 1935 the Amateur Athletic Union, which represented the United States in international sports federations, approved U.S. participation by a narrow vote. Olympic organizations from other countries followed suit.
The Berlin Olympics officially opened on August 1, 1936. Eighteen African American athletes competed. Jesse Owens was the most successful athlete—of any race. Between August 3 and August 9, 22-year-old Owens won gold medals in the long jump, the 100- and 200-metre dashes, and the 4 x 100-metre relay. He became the first American track and field athlete to win four gold medals at a single Olympic Games.
After the Olympics ended, stories claiming that Owens had been “snubbed” by Hitler circulated widely. As the most common variant of the story goes, after Owens won his first medal, Hitler, not wanting to acknowledge a non-Aryan athlete’s ability, left the stadium. Although Owens himself initially insisted that it was not true (he later claimed it was), the report appeared in newspapers around the world.
It is true that Hitler did not shake hands with Owens. In fact, he did not congratulate any gold medalists after the first day of competition on August 2, 1936. On the first day, Hitler met and shook hands with all the German gold medalists. (He also shook hands with a few Finnish athletes.) That night, Hitler left the stadium before African American high jumper Cornelius Johnson won his first gold medal; Hitler’s staff maintained that he had a pre-scheduled appointment. Hitler was reprimanded, and the head of the IOC, Henri de Baillet-Latour, told him that he could either congratulate all the gold medalists or none. Hitler chose to honour no one.
The next day—August 3, 1936—Owens won his first gold medal in the 100-meter dash. Hitler did not meet or shake hands with Owens. That said, there are several reports of a salute or wave. According to sports reporter and author Paul Gallico, writing from Berlin, Owens was “led below the honor box, where he smiled and bowed, and Herr Hitler gave him a friendly little Nazi salute, the sitting down one with the arm bent.” Owens himself later confirmed this, claiming that they exchanged congratulatory waves.
So, Owens was not personally snubbed by Hitler. However, Owens did feel that he had been snubbed by someone: U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt. A month after the Olympic Games, Owens told a crowd, “Hitler didn’t snub me—it was [Roosevelt] who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram.” Roosevelt never publicly acknowledged Owens’s triumphs—or the triumphs of any of the 18 African Americans who competed at the Berlin Olympics. Only white Olympians were invited to the White House in 1936. A number of explanations have been offered for the president’s actions. Most likely, Roosevelt did not want to risk losing the support of Southern Democrats by appearing overly soft on the race issue. The black Olympians who competed in Berlin were not recognized by the White House until 2016, when Pres. Barack Obama invited the athletes’ relatives to an event in celebration of their lives and accomplishments.