Accession Number: 2022.02.2.1.35
Stamp: Special stamp series commemorating the 1936 Berlin Olympics, designed by Max Eschle
Postmark: August 16, 1936. A special 11th Olympiad 1936 Berlin postmark, featuring the Olympic bell and two swastikas.
Historical background:
Nazi Germany promoted the Olympics with colorful posters, postcards, and magazine spreads. Athletic imagery drew a link between Nazi Germany and ancient Greece, symbolizing the Nazi racial myth that a superior German civilization was the rightful heir of an “Aryan” culture of classical antiquity. This vision of classical antiquity emphasized ideal “Aryan” racial types: heroic, blue-eyed blonds with finely chiseled features.
Hitler saw Berlin 1936 as an opportunity to promote his government and ideals of racial supremacy and antisemitism, and the official Nazi Party paper wrote in the strongest terms that Jews should not be allowed to participate in the Games. German Jewish athletes were barred or prevented from taking part in the Games by a variety of methods. However, when threatened with a boycott of the Games by other nations, Hitler relented and allowed black and Jewish people to participate. In an attempt to “clean up” the host city, the German Ministry of the Interior authorized the chief of police to arrest all Romani and keep them in a “special camp”, the Berlin-Marzahn concentration camp.
