History Assignment

Name: Du Han Yuan (04) Class: 2O4

Date: 30/06/09

Racism and discrimination a) The police and courts were controlled by the Nazis and they will ignore crimes by Nazis agents and people who opposes Nazis will not receive fair trials. There were anti-jewish exhibition and Jews were arrested and put into concentration camps for no reason. b) Sports was ignored as political studies and propaganda speeches were much more prominent during those days. c) America was opposed to Nazis policies and wanted to boycott the games. d) Some American athletes chose to compete as they did not know the purpose of Nazi persecution of Jews. Other athletes supported going to the Olympics as the United States traditionally sent one of the largest groups to the Games and did not want the 1936 Games to be an exception.

e) The “Jim Crow” laws are laws that discriminate against African Americans with concerns to attendance in public schools, and the use of facilities such as restaurants, theatres, hotels, cinemas and public baths. Trains and buses were segregated and in many states, marriage between whites and African American people were banned. There is no evidence that racism, anti-Semitism, and discriminatory practices in the United States affected American opinions about U.S. participation in the 1936 Olympics. However, some people boycott the Games because of the discrimination that was going on in Germany.

Propaganda

a) The german government in response to international pressure, included a jew into the team. This eased the tensions. Goebbels went very far in order to impress the other countries and they were amazed by what Goebbels did.

b) The effort succeeded only to a small extent. The Germans made Germany appear as a quiet and peaceful place. However, the outsiders were not taken in. They were shocked and appalled by the almost fanatical devotion of the people to Hitler and by the overt presence of the army and SS soldiers who were patrolling or standing guard

everywhere. The Germans were hiding what they were doing to the Jews, how they were treated, how their rights were removed and how their freedom was restricted.

c) They thought that the games would be good to show off the superiority of the Aryan race. When the games ended, germany got the most medals and this shows that the Aryans were better that other races. d) There were Swastika flags all over the stadium which shows the Aryan superiority.

Source Based Questions

a) The source says that the westerns were thinking that by holding the Olympic games, Germany will become more open and less repressive. From this, I can infer that the Western powers perception towards Nazis Germany was that Germany was not an open country and had a repressive society. The Western Powers were pressured into boycotting the Olympics in protest against the Nazis’ repressive regime and antiJewish policies. There were Nazis flags everywhere in order to show the power of Germany as the western powers did not think well of Nazis germany.

b) This source is reliable to a large extent. This source was written by an American Journalist, and the purpose of this source is to provide coverage for the Berlin Olympic Games. According to my contextual knowledge, the relationship between western powers and Germany was not good. There was also international pressure to boycott the Games in protest against the Nazis’ repressive regime and anti-Jewish policies. Hence, the American Journalist would not have been bias towards the Germans and would have written only about the things that he saw. The source states that the Nazis’ have run the Games on a lavish scale. According to my contextual knowledge, this is true. Goebbels built a brand new stadium to hold 100,000 people just for the Games. It was facilitated by the most modern electric lighting. Television cameras were also brought in for the first time. No expense was spared in the preparations for the games. Hence, I think that this source is reliable and is factual.