Olmpics Rings, Torch thanks to Hitler

Yea, Olympic Rings were first used by Hitler at the Olympics in Germany. Hitler had a filmmaker carve rings into a big stone in Greece to make people think they've been use forever.

And the torch? Personally designed by Hitler, the games didnt have anything REMOTELY similar to the torch race. Hitler invented it.

Ra ra ra.

The Olympic flag with the interlocking rings was designed in 1913, long before Hitler.

Still looking for info on the torch.

Nope. Designed in 1913 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin (he was French and a founding member of the IOC). They were first used on an Olympic flag at the 1920 games in Antwerp.



Again, not quite right. The torch relay was indeed something introduced in the Berlin 1936 games. Carl Diem came up with the torch relay. And it does have a history in Greece, as they did pass torches in a relay for some ancient festivals, although not for the Olympics. The games themselves hadn't had it, but it is something that was routed in Greek history.

That's what I'm coming up with as well. The Olympic flame was introduced at the '28 Amsterdam games. In '31, Diem proposed the relay, and it was implemented at the '36 Berlin games. Hitler's propaganda crew played it up for the cameras, but the ceremony itself was respectful of the Greek roots of the games and continues with modifications to this day.

Strange 1913, you say....

Ya know, Jesse Owens was born that year...
So 1913 not only marks the proof of his not inventing the symbols...it was also the birth year of the Black man who took Hitler's "racial superiority" concept and crammed it back in his face...this has nothing to do with the OP, I just love the underdog

NOTE: I never said Hitler DESIGNED the rings. But he was the FIRST one to USE them. He thought they would add to his Nazi party image so he had the filmaker carve them into a stone in Greece and to this day, people visit the rings thinking they were there since ancient times. So thank Hitler for the rings.

Carl Diem WORKED FOR HITLER so Hitler gets the credit. Thank Hitler for the relay.

And Hitler personally designed the torch designed himself.


Both these things are FROM Hitler.




Not quite a torch relay race. More like naked greek boys running around in public. The antithesis of the image Hitler wanted around his party.


And the swastika? That symbol has been around forever. Hitler thought it looked bad ass so he used it. And you cheer the rings and hiss at the swastika.

The Swastika

Hmm...supposedly older than the Ankh symbol....did not know that.

Well now I know, and knowing is half the battle.Yo Joe!

Erm, no he wasn't, which is what I was saying. They were used well before the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Actually, if you read this article:

http://groups.msn.com/GreeceCafe/olympicrelay2.msnw

It seems torch relays do have a long history with the Olympics.

The misinformation seems to be from a Discovery channel program uncovering the "secret" links between Hitler and the Olympic symbols.

Hitler did seek to use the Berlin Olympics to further his own agenda, but that blew up in his face in a most satisfying fashion.

There's an interesting part of the Olympics site which shows you pictures of all the torches there have been:

http://www.olympic.org/uk/passion/collectors/search_uk.asp?TypeId=8

Wow, I'm bored today!

PS. Here's a link to a poster from the 1928 games which shows the rings

http://www.olympic.org/uk/passion/collectors/object/index_uk.asp?ObjId=26

No they were not used before the 1936 Olympics. The idea was scraped on account of a world war. But Hilter, because he loved his symbols, and because Hitler was on good terms with the guy who started the IOC, was able to make it part of his Nazi party image.




That article links the torch relay (naked greek boys running around with fire) to Panathenaia fest. But it was held every four years also so I can understand why some people might think it's related. The Panathenaia was held in July. It turned into a cultural weapon and then they had the peloponnesian wars.




Really, 'cause after those Olympics I don't remember anything about him losing a lot local support for his party. I'm not sure what you mean by "misinformation" either. This stuff happened. He ordered the use of these symbols and personally designed the torch himself. Do you think the credit for other orders Hitler gave should go to the people who carried them out? I don't. He gets credit for it all.

Yes they were! I even posted a link to a poster for the 1928 Olympics which featured the rings on the Olympic flag in my last post. They were first used in 1920 in Antwerp - Google it, you'll find I'm right.



I guess my original point is that Hitler didn't just dream it out of thin air though, did he. It did have an important place in Greek history and so taking it for use in the Olympics isn't actually that difficult a step to make. And you're right, I misread that article to a certain extent with the link to the Olympics, but in essense what happened in ancient Greece every 4 years has just been transposed onto the Olympics.

Ok, I stand corrected on the rings. They were first used 1920 at Antwerp, Belgium.

Hitler did pay a filmaker to carve the rings into a stone in Greece so they would look ancient, and to make them a part of his Nazi image.

The rings helped him more than the swastika did.

A semi hijack here...

If you found out that hitler invented some everyday object- say cable television, the flush toilet or the cell phone, would that deter you from using it? (I've heard stories linking Bayer Asperin, IBM and Volkswagons to Nazi days but I don't know how valid they are).

Personally I'd be creeped out, but I doubt I'd stop using something because it's long-dead (and not profiting) creator was a murderous bastard. But that's just me.


Then again, I hereby want to start the rumour that hitler invented parking meters and meter maids so I can lobby to get them banned...

Hitler stormed out of the stadium after Jesse Owens won his third gold medal (and before he got the fourth). The Americans took 12 gold medals home, and half of those went to African-Americans. The propaganda machine got some milage of the event, but in the eyes of the world it was a slap in the face of Hitler's dogma. His plans to make the Berlin Olympics a showcase for Aryan superiority were shattered.

Whatever Hitler and his minions contributed to the Olympics, the very symbols they sought to utilize for their own ends turned against them to demonstrate that the triumph of human will, skill and courage is the birthright of everybody.

Proving once again that actions, not symbols, are the most meaningful.

*Waves the Olympic flag* London 2012!

They should include this as an exhibition(ist?) sport at the next Olympics

Two of the most well-known symbols of the Olympic Games, the Olympic rings and the torch relay, did not originate in ancient Greece, but instead were immortalized in Nazi Germany, according to the recently published book, The Naked Olympics.
The lasting power of these symbols demonstrates how effective the Nazis were at creating powerful, dramatic images. It also reveals the association that Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and his followers wished to make between Nazi Germany and classical Greece.
According to the book's author, Tony Perrottet, German filmmaker and propagandist Leni Riefenstahl fabricated the myth that the Olympic rings hailed from Delphi, a city in ancient Greece.
Baron Pierre de Coubertain of France originally designed the rings in 1913. De Coubertain was the founder of the International Olympic Committee. He created the rings to symbolize the first five Olympic games.
Archduke Ferdinand of Austria's assassination curtailed de Coubertain's plan to feature the rings at a 1914 Olympic Congress world event in Paris. Riefenstahl, however, latched on to the creation.
"Leni Riefenstahl just liked (the ring design) as a symbol, and I believe she had it engraved at Delphi for a film shoot," Perrottet told Discovery News. "The image stayed there for years, and people thought it was from ancient Greece!"
The film she was shooting was "Olympia," which chronicled the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. In the same film, she highlighted the torch relay, which Perrottet said was conceived by a German professor named Carl Diem.
"There was never any torch relay at the ancient Olympic Games, or anything remotely like it," said Perrottet. "But what Diem, and German classicists who helped him out, did was to draw on two other traditions from ancient Greece."
He explained that flames were viewed as sacred in Greece, as they were in many ancient cultures. Greek sanctuaries had "eternal flames" placed at shrines to Hestia, goddess of the hearth. These flames were used to light the altars.
Evidence from vase paintings and other art objects reveals that race relays were held in Greece, but mostly at smaller provincial games.
"So the Germans took these (traditions) and tossed them into the modern Olympics, along with plenty of pseudo-classical kitsch, like having priestesses chant in tunics and using the sun's rays to light the first torch," he said.
The torch relay at the 1936 Berlin Games was full of Greek-inspired drama as envisioned by the Nazis. According to Perrottet's book, fourteen young girls wearing classic robes directed parabolic mirrors towards the sun.
The focused rays burst a wand into flames, which was followed by the chant, "Oh, fire, lit in an ancient and sacred place, begin your race."
Music played on old Greek instruments while the last of 3,075 relay runners used a magnesium torch to light a giant brazier in front of an approving Hitler.
Hitler's desire for Aryan supremacy during the track and field events was squashed when Jesse Owens, an African American, won four gold medals.
In his new book Ancient Greek Athletics, Stephen Miller, an archaeology professor at the University of California at Berkeley, wrote, "It should not surprise us that politics, and even occasional violence, played a part at the games."
"What is more surprising is that the episodes were so infrequent, and that the games went on nonetheless."
Outside of the Olympics, the German dictator's obsession with ancient Greece continued.
"Hitler had nutty ideas that soup from Schleswig-Holstein in Germany was the direct descendent of a certain Spartan broth," said Perrottet. "And the (Nazi) Germans loved to have events in classical-style plazas. The Konigsplaza in Munich was apparently the spot for book burning because of the Greek style of the setting."
The Nazi fabrications live on in Greece today. In fact, Perrottet said some archaeologists that he interviewed there said the hardest thing about their work was not the blazing summer heat, but the number of tourists who questioned them every day about where the ancient torch lighting ceremony was held.
He said, "It was the most common question, and the archaeologists couldn't keep explaining to them that the Olympics had no such thing, so they wanted to put up some sort of sign!"
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20040816/hitler.html

They had to name it "Olympia"

p.s. any self-rightous ass who says I have to change my name because
"Olympia" == "Swastika" gets a kick in the butt

I think it would be wrong now that you know to keep that name. It hurts to many. Change it now befor we make you.

::Lupo Clymer turns and yells back to people, “get the tickle chair set up and ready, this one may be a problem!”::

Here ya go...

...why would he design a symbol for games in the U.S.?

Please don’t get me wrong here.
#1 I know that 1920 in Antwerp (Belgium) had the 5 rings.
#2 if you read what I posted the guy said allot of I think and I take it. Were was the proof of that?
#3 Discovery Channel put that out, sad.

Actually this is somewhat of a reality. The Nazi committed horrible medical experiments on humans. While these experiments were horrible, the information they yielded was extremely valuable.

Basically you have live human testing that no other society would have participated in.

I think one of these studies was where they had babies and fed and cared for them only with mechanical devices. Basically the babies were provided everything they needed except human interaction. They all died. Amazing experiment, but not something you would want to see done again.

These are huge ethical debates over using the Nazi medical data.

Frankly, most of it was crap. They started with a forgone conclusion (Aryan superiority) and then geared up their torture labs to prove it. That's the opposite of science. The data generated is inherently untrustworthy, quite apart from any ethical qualms. Fudge and fabricate was the order of the day.