Poster for the Antifascist Olympics1936
The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part; the important thing in Life is not triumph, but the struggle; the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well. To spread these principles is to build up a strong and more valiant and, above all, more scrupulous and more generous humanity.
–Pierre de Coubertin
I have been a huge fan of the Olympic Games for well over 50 years, with vivid memories going back to the more limited coverage at the time of the 1968 games in Mexico City. When the Olympics roll around, you will most likely find me glued to a TV screen at any time of the day. As a result, I have a pretty decent grasp of modern Olympic history and, I would like to think, of history in general but recently came across an event of which I was unaware, the Olimpiada Popular of 1936.
It seems that in the 1931 competition to determine the host city for the 1936 Olympic games it came down to two cities– Barcelona, Spain and the Berlin of pre-Nazi Germany. Berlin, as we all know, won that competition.
When Hitler rose to power in 1933 and his fascist and racist aims became ever more apparent, it very much tainted the games, going against the spirit of the Olympics as envisioned by Pierre de Coubertin, the Frenchman who in 1894 revived the ancient games and formed the International Olympic Committee. In reaction to Hitler’s attempt to use the games to sugarcoat his evil intent and showcase his idea of Aryan supremacy, the Catalan government proposed a counter-Olympics, the Olimpiada Popular, that would run at the same time as the games in Berlin. The Olimpiada Popular was advertised as being anti-racist and anti-fascist. They began recruiting like-minded athletes and setting a schedule. They also resumed construction on the Olympic stadium they had begun when still in the running for the true games.
Everything was set to go in the weeks before the beginning of the Olimpiada Popular which was slated to begin July 22, 1936. But just three days before the opening, on July 19, a military coup took place in Barcelona, setting off the Spanish Civil War and whisking the Olimpiada Popular into the wastebasket of history. However, many of the athletes slated to compete stayed and fought alongside the anti-fascist forces. Many of those who did not stay to fight went back to their homelands and were active in fundraising and campaigning against the Spanish fascist regime.
My knowledge of the Spanish Civil War is spotty at best, but I wonder if the timing of the coup in July of 1936, just days before the opening of these games that were meant to highlight Hitler’s fascist and racist views, is mere coincidence.
I am going to have to go back to the books for that answer, I guess. But the idea of a movement that saw the imminent danger of fascism while the rest of the world ignored or normalized it seems very relevant today, in this time and place.
Just thought this was an interesting tidbit to share in the days before the Olympics begin in Paris on Friday.
Redtree Times 