Teach & Learn: The 1936 Games

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Objectives

Students incorporate the story of an individual German athlete into a written expression of opinion about the 1936 Games, and reflect on the relationship between the 1936 Olympics and the Nazis' policies of persecution.

Links to Historical Thinking Concepts:

• Establish Historical Significance - Students assess the significance of one person, a "non-Aryan" German athlete, and consider what an individual's story reveals about an historical moment.

• Identify Continuity and Change - What is the relationship between the "Olympic Pause" described by Matthew Halton and Nazi racism that preceded and followed the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany?

• Use Primary Source Evidence - Students analyze the diary of a Jewish observer of the 1936 Berlin Games.

• Take Historical Perspective - Students take the perspective on a "non-Aryan" German athlete during the 1936 Olympic moment.

Conduct an Interview

Let students explore this section of the website or assign Student Reading: The 1936 Games, which provide background information about the 1936 Winter and Summer Games.

Explain that students will conduct an imaginary interview with a “non-Aryan” athlete in Nazi Germany. Working in pairs, students generate a list of questions they would like to ask such an athlete.

Alternately, provide the following questions for consideration:

• How did you get involved in sports?

• How did your career as an athlete change after the Nazis come to power?

• Were you allowed to compete during the 1936 Games? Why or why not?

Distribute the Athlete Bios, assigning one athlete to each student.

Using their questions or the questions above, students take notes during their “interview” with the athlete, generating response to their questions from the bios.

Write an Op-Ed Piece

Using Matthew Halton (See Teach & Learn: The Nazi State) as a model, students play the role of a correspondent for a Canadian newspaper stationed in Germany during the 1936 Olympics.

Assign students the task of writing an article that includes facts about either the Winter or Summer Games, and that also expresses an opinion about the Games. Students are to incorporate their athlete interviews into their piece.

Optional: assemble the completed articles into a newspaper and circulate copies among the students.

Class Discussion

The 1936 Games marked a watershed moment between the Nazis ascension to power and the outbreak of the Second World War. Matthew Halton described the 1936 Olympic moment as "the Olympic pause."

As a class, students discuss: What do you think Halton meant by this? How does learning about the 1936 Olympics contribute to your understanding of the Holocaust?

Extension: The Diary of Victor Klemperer

Distribute Extension: The Diary of Victor Klemperer to students and have them read the background information and diary excerpt.

Discuss the following as a class:

• What does Klemperer think about the Olympics?

• What does he suggest that the Olympics reveal about Nazi racism?

• What is Klemperer anxious about? What does he think will follow the Games?

• What does Klemperer’s diary reveal about the time that other sources - such as photographs, documents, newspapers, history books etc - migh not tell us?

• Why is it important to consider the perspective of Jews when considering this moment in history?

Students write a diary entry with observations about Nazi Germany from the perspective of the athlete they wrote about during this activity.

Student Reading: The 1936 Games [PDF | 2.1 MB]

Athlete Bios [PDF | 1.3 MB]

Extension: The Diary of Victor Klemperer [PDF | 341 KB]