This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its authentic location you'll be able to go to the hyperlink bellow: https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/13/sport/ioc-nazi-era-t-shirt-scli-intl-sptand if you wish to take away this text from our web site please contact us [ad_1] The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has been criticized for promoting merchandise commemorating the 1936 Berlin video games, which Adolf Hitler used to showcase his Nazi ideology. The web site for the Olympics — at the moment within the highlight because of the ongoing Milan Cortina Winter Olympics — encompasses a males’s T-shirt marking the controversial Nazi video games. The garment, which is exhibiting as “out of stock,” is a part of the IOC’s “Heritage Collection.” The T-shirt options the unique poster for the 1936 video games, designed by Franz Würbel. It depicts an athletic male determine topped with a laurel wreath and with the Olympic rings within the background. The Brandenburg Gate sits beneath him, with the caption: “Germany Berlin 1936 Olympic Games.” The landing page for the Heritage Collection on the Olympics web site states: “Each edition of the Games reflects a unique time and place in history when the world came together to celebrate humanity.” Hitler used the video games, held three and a half years after the Nazis got here to energy, as a spectacle of Nazi propaganda. He got down to showcase the racial superiority of so-called Aryan athletes and overtly denigrated African-American individuals as “non-humans.” Nevertheless, African-American athlete Jesse Owens emerged because the star of the video games, taking to the rostrum to gather 4 gold medals, surrounded by individuals giving the Nazi salute. Christine Schmidt is the co-director of the Wiener Holocaust Library in London, the world’s oldest archive of Holocaust supplies. She informed CNN: “The Nazis used the 1936 Olympics to showcase their oppressive regime to the world, aiming to easy over worldwide relations whereas on the similar time stopping nearly all German-Jewish athletes from competing, rounding up the 800 Roma who lived in Berlin, and concealing indicators of virulent antisemitic violence and propaganda from the world’s guests. “The Nazis’ fascist and antisemitic propaganda infiltrated their promotion of the games, and many international Jewish athletes chose not to compete. The IOC would be minded to consider whether any aesthetic appreciation of these games can be comfortably separated from the horror that followed.” The resolution to promote the T-shirt was additionally criticised by Scott Saunders, CEO of International March of the Living, an annual academic program that may this yr see round 8,000 individuals gathered on the former Auschwitz demise camp to commemorate the Holocaust. He informed CNN: “As the world displays on this newest controversy, it's not possible to not recall that we're approaching 90 years for the reason that 1936 Berlin Olympics — an occasion the Nazi regime used to legitimize itself on the worldwide stage whereas persecution of Jews was already nicely underway. “Sport has the power to unite, to inspire, and to elevate the very best of humanity. But history reminds us that it can also be manipulated to sanitize hatred and normalize exclusion. The lesson of Berlin is urgent. When antisemitism resurfaces in public life, whether in stadiums, streets, or online, silence is not neutrality. It is complicity.” The IOC defended its resolution to supply and promote the T-shirt. In an announcement despatched to CNN, an IOC spokesperson stated the Olympic Heritage Collection “celebrates 130 years of Olympic art and design” and options all earlier video games. The spokesperson added: “While we in fact acknowledge the historic problems with ‘Nazi propaganda’ associated to the Berlin 1936 Olympic Games, we should additionally do not forget that the Games in Berlin noticed 4,483 athletes from 49 nations compete in 149 medal occasions. Many of them shocked the world with their athletic achievements, together with Jesse Owens. “The historical context of these Games is further explained at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. For the 1936 edition, the number of T-shirts produced and sold by the IOC is limited, which is why they are currently sold out.” [ad_2] This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its authentic location you'll be able to go to the hyperlink bellow: https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/13/sport/ioc-nazi-era-t-shirt-scli-intl-sptand if you wish to take away this text from our web site please contact us