Berlin Games (19 page)

There can be no doubt that George Elvin was not on the guest list for the annual dinner of the BOA held on 19 May at the Dorchester Hotel. Assembled there in white tie were the great and the good of British athletics–Lords Aberdare, Burghley and Portal, as well as Sir Thomas Inskip, the minister for co-ordination of defence. Also seated with them at the top table was none other than Lewald, who had come over to Britain for the event. He was accompanied by Prince Otto von Bismarck, the chargé d'affaires at the German embassy. The toast was proposed by Sir Robert Horne, who welcomed Lewald, and then said, ‘In these times of anxiety and trouble, might we not welcome the Games as a happy augury for Europe and the world, in which Germany plays so powerful a part?' Lord Portal replied to Sir Robert by saying that there was no need to consider sanctions in sport. ‘Here we have a wonderful country,' he said, referring to Germany, ‘which is offering hospitality and guaranteeing fair treatment. We will go to Germany with the esprit de corps and confidence of all right-minded Englishmen behind us. The contacts and the comradeship which we will establish will help enormously to restore the friendship we have always had in the past for a great nation like Germany.'

This was classic appeasing talk, but it got worse. Sir Thomas Inskip then rose, and said that he hoped one result of the Olympics would be to make his job a sinecure. ‘I hope that Prince Otto von Bismarck, when he writes his next dispatch, will record that there are a great many warm feelings towards his country,' he said, ‘and furthermore, that we would like bygones to be bygones and to march together in good will, in which alone lies the hope of posterity.' When Lewald came to speak, he told his hosts that Hitler had ‘great enthusiasm for the Olympic ideal, and he promises that the whole German population will do their utmost to make the Olympic Games a festival of peace'. Barring a meeting of the Anglo-German Fellowship, it would be hard to imagine a gathering of greater appeasers.

The AAA delegates gathered at the London Polytechnic on Regent Street four days later. Once again, Elvin presented a resolution that advocated a boycott, declaring that participation ‘would not be of service and value to sport, would not further friendship of the peoples, and would not assist the ennoblement of humanity, which were in the fundamentals of the Olympic idea'. This was perhaps a little too highfalutin for the delegates, and Elvin knew that his appeal had fallen on stony ground when all but one of the subsequent speakers spoke against the motion. D. G. A. Lowe, the honorary secretary of the AAA, made the point that not one of the 180 athletes invited to represent Britain had declined. When the vote was cast, the result was far worse than Elvin could have anticipated. Two hundred voted against him–a mere eight were in favour. If the British boycott movement was not dead before the meeting, then it was certainly dead after it.

Elvin's efforts, although valiant, were always doomed to fail. The primary reason was the appeasing mood of the times. If the politicians were not adopting a tough stance against Germany, then why should sportsmen? The Great War had ended only eighteen years earlier, and there were too many who had lost fathers, husbands, brothers and sons in the trenches. The predominant fear was that playing tough with Germany would lead to another slaughter. Far better to let Hitler have what he wanted and enjoy some peace. Many also doubted that conditions in Germany were as bad as they were being painted, and when it came to the Olympics, they were
reassured by the promises that the Germans had made to the IOC concerning the treatment of Jews. In the magazine
World Sports
, Lord Aberdare informed readers that Lewald and von Halt had ‘declared emphatically that the pledge given at Vienna had been loyally kept'. In addition, Aberdare wrote of ‘letters from the Clubs of the Association of Jewish Ex-Soldiers, and from the Club of the Makkabikreis, the two important Jewish Associations, [that] prove conclusively that as a result of the assurance given to the IOC at Vienna, Jewish athletes have received an even better opportunity to display their worth than in previous years'. This was astonishing. Aberdare was actually suggesting that conditions for Jewish sportsmen were improving in Germany. But who would dispute him? After all, not only was Aberdare a peer, he was also a member of the IOC–two seemingly excellent reasons to believe what he said. Besides, caring about the plight of Jews in Germany was not something that many gave priority to–the world was in a depression, and for many the simple act of feeding one's own family was more of a concern. Those who did care about the Jews were often dismissed as communists and Jews, a charge that stuck because it was largely correct. As neither communists nor Jews were particularly adored by the British public, then it was hardly surprising to find that their concerns were of marginal importance. Had a figure from the right spoken against the Games, then the boycott movement might have stood a chance. The only likely candidate would have been Winston Churchill, but he was languishing in the political wilderness.

If it was not possible to boycott the Games, then there was another form of protest available to the Elvins and the Mahoneys–the grandly styled People's Olympic Games in Barcelona. This rival Olympics, which was to be staged from 19 to 26 July, was established by the Popular Front shortly after it had defeated the right-wing National Front in the Spanish general election. The Popular Front was not allowing Spanish athletes to go to Germany, and the idea of mounting an alternative Games in the city that came second to Berlin was therefore an attractive one. Its official object was ‘to counter the Berlin games with a popular sports festival which does not hope for record feats, but intends to preserve the true Olympic spirit of peace and co-operation between nations'. Avery Brundage dismissed the
event as the ‘Communist Games', which was not entirely without foundation.

The organisers of the ‘Olimpiada Popular' had a lot to achieve in a very short time. Whereas Lewald and Diem had the best part of five years to organise their Games, the Spanish had only a few months. Indeed, their invitation to the AAU in the United States was sent out only on 22 June–less than a month before the Games were due to start. The text of the invitation was both sincere and delightfully amateur:

Nevertheless, the organising committee was able to boast that over ten thousand athletes from twenty countries–including the Soviet Union, Canada, Poland, Palestine, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France and Holland–were coming. Most of these athletes were not those who were going to Berlin. Instead, they came from workers' sports associations and similarly left-wing athletic clubs. The committee claimed that 1,500 athletes were coming from France alone, and that the French government had given 500,000 francs towards the expenses of their sportsmen. (The French were still vacillating about whether they would send a team to Berlin.) The figure of 10,000 seems ludicrously high when compared to Berlin's 4,000. No doubt the committee was doing what all good salesmen do, and claiming an inflated number of takers.

For British organisations such as the British Workers' Sports Association, the People's Olympics was a great opportunity to mount a small protest against Berlin. It hoped to send some forty athletes, led by George Elvin, and the grateful Spanish agreed to send at least £50 to help cover their costs. The AAA, however, was reluctant to allow any of its members–which included the BWSA–to go, as it feared that the Spanish Amateur Athletics Association had not given its blessing to the rival games. When it was pointed out by the
Daily Worker
that the Spanish AAA did in fact support the Games, the splendidly named G. H. Hogsflesh, the assistant secretary of the AAA, declared that a permit would be issued immediately.

Elvin's team consisted of some good, although by no means top-rate, athletes. Bernard Bamber had won the men's singles and doubles in tennis at the 1935 Paris Sports Festival. L. R. Pearce held Hampshire's record for the mile and the half-mile. E. G. Cupid was not only the Workers' European 100 yards title-holder, but also the Welsh champion over the same distance. Their leader himself could claim to be an international sportsman, as the heavily bespectacled Elvin had represented the BWSA at nothing less than table tennis at a match in Czechoslovakia. The team was due to leave on Friday, 17 July, but on Tuesday 14th they received some bad news. The AAA was withdrawing their permits. Apparently, the Association had been instructed by the IAAF to do so, as the Spanish AAA had still not recognised the Games. ‘This is not the case,' Elvin fumed. ‘I received assurances by cable and letter weeks ago that everything was in order.' Elvin telephoned the Spanish, who denied that they had not sanctioned the Games and cabled the British AAA to tell it so. A conspiracy theorist might deduce that someone at the British AAA was trying to stymie Elvin and his little band, but with an absence of evidence, we must assume a glitch. On the morning of the 17th, the team departed from Victoria Station amid a fanfare of bagpipes and cheered on by a hundred well-wishers. Elvin's father made a speech that urged the team to be spurred on by what he saw as the AAA's attempt to thwart them. ‘Find incentive from such efforts to bring greater glory at Barcelona,' he enthused. ‘Return proud of your efforts. Uphold the standards of fair play and prestige which our movement enjoys.' And with that, the train steamed out of the station. They were to return sooner than they had anticipated.

 

While the boycott movements were in their death throes, the diplomats were still discussing how to deal with Germany. On 17 June, Sir Eric Phipps wrote to the British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, informing him that ‘the Chancellor is in great form and has no intention of replying seriously to our questions'. Phipps was referring to the questionnaire that Eden had sent Hitler the previous month.
The questionnaire was intended to flush out Hitler's ambitions, by asking him a series of direct questions that the dictator would find hard not to answer directly. First, Eden asked Hitler whether he was in a position to negotiate what he called ‘genuine treaties'. Second, Eden wondered whether Hitler drew a distinction between the Reich and the German nation. ‘I had in mind that Hitler might regard himself as a protector, or even ruler, of German communities in Austria, Danzig or Czechoslovakia,' Eden wrote. ‘If Hitler still had claims to make, the world had better know them.' The third question asked whether Hitler intended to ‘respect the existing territorial and political status of Europe'. There were other subsidiary questions, but these three constituted the meat of the document.

Phipps told Eden that ‘a very good source' had informed him that Hitler was ‘rather disposed to answer with his tongue in his cheek' the question about future treaties. There was little hope that Hitler would answer the remaining two questions, as he resented them even being asked. Phipps reported, however, that Hitler continued ‘to express feelings of admiration for Great Britain and the British people […] what he really hankers after, however, is an Anglo-German understanding to the exclusion of third or fourth parties'. From Hitler's standpoint, reaching an agreement with the British did not seem that unlikely. ‘The Chancellor's happiness would be complete,' wrote Phipps, ‘if Labour came into office in England and based their policy on the letters which appear in
The Times
, especially those over several signatures. He reads these with particular satisfaction.'
The Times
, under the editorship of Geoffrey Dawson, was ‘all for collaboration with Germany', much to the frustration of Anthony Eden, who saw the paper's position as an obstacle. ‘If we are to pursue an effective foreign policy in Europe,' he wrote, ‘it is essential that it should be made clear that
The Times
, with its defeatist leaders, does not represent His Majesty's Government.' Phipps was utterly contemptuous of Robert Barrington-Ward, the newspaper's deputy editor, with whom he had lunched in early June.

Phipps's brother-in-law was equally depressed by Britain. ‘Hitler has never meant business in our sense of the word,' Vansittart wrote to his brother-in-law in Berlin. ‘The sooner the Cabinet realise that, the better for this long misguided country.' But Vansittart and Phipps did not represent the majority opinion in Britain. With an appeasing
Times
and a misguided cabinet, it was hardly surprising that Hitler saw a chance to make an agreement with the ‘comfortable little land'.

The man Hitler thought best to negotiate any deal with the British was Joachim von Ribbentrop. Since the occupation of the Rhineland, Ribbentrop had been working on arranging a secret meeting between Hitler and the British prime minister, Stanley Baldwin. In order to achieve this, Ribbentrop had engaged in what would now be called ‘shuttle diplomacy' between Berlin and London. Ribbentrop was not well received in Britain, however, partly because he displayed an obnoxious mixture of gaucheness and arrogance. At a dinner held at Vansittart's house at the beginning of April, Ribbentrop startled the guests with his behaviour. According to the seating plan, the German ambassador to Britain, Leopold von Hoesch, was to sit at the place of honour to Lady Vansittart's right. Ribbentrop, feeling unjustifiably slighted by this, sat at the ambassador's seat before he could get to it.