Official Olympics store sells out of T-shirts commemorating Hitler’s 1936 Berlin Games

The Olympics’ official online store sells out of shirts depicting artwork used for the 1936 Berlin Games, sold as part of its “Heritage Collection,” as the International Olympic Committee defends its decision to sell merchandise relating to the Nazi-era event.

German politicians and Jewish groups had urged the IOC to withdraw the shirt because the games were used by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to promote racist and antisemitic ideology.

Christine Schmidt, co-director of London’s Wiener Holocaust Library, tells CNN that “the Nazis used the 1936 Olympics to showcase their oppressive regime to the world, aiming to smooth over international relations while at the same time preventing almost all German-Jewish athletes from competing, rounding up the 800 Roma who lived in Berlin, and concealing signs of virulent antisemitic violence and propaganda from the world’s visitors.

“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,” Schmidt says.

In a statement to a number of news outlets, the IOC is defending the sale of the shirts, saying that while they “of course acknowledge the historical issues of ‘Nazi propaganda’ related to the Berlin 1936 Olympic Games, we must also remember that the Games in Berlin saw 4,483 athletes from 49 countries compete in 149 medal events. Many of them stunned the world with their athletic achievements, including 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.”

This week, the International Olympic Committee came under fire for selling merchandise commemorating the 1936 Berlin Games, the Olympics Adolf Hitler used as a global stage to promote his racist ideology.

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