Johnny Jones said:
I was a little confused about the part where Indy and the Nazi assassin go into the movie theater, and the Nazi jumps on a balcony and yells "Heil Hitler" and someone says "Excuse me, THIS is America," and then, although it isn't exactly explained, apparently all the blacks in the theater beat him up. Later the sheriff says something like "Only a lunatic would be crazy enough to salute Hitler in a theater full of [racist epithet]" (and Indy, to his credit, says "I don't like that word. Don't use it again." My hero!).
It just strikes me as odd. I know the Nazis were the most racist people alive and would have hated blacks but, probably because there were very few in Germany, as far as I know never devoted much effort to persecuting them. In fact, I was reading recently that when Jesse Owens, the black Olympic champion, went to Germany for the Berlin Olympics he was treated much better than back home in the good old USA. He could take any public transportation and go into any public place he wanted. The German spectators all cheered him when he won medals and sought out his autograph in the street. His German competitor in the long jump, Luz Long, gave him advice that catapulted him from barely qualifying to first place, and embraced him when he won right in front of Hitler. Now, I know average German citizens were not synonymous with Nazis but my point is he got treated like a human being, while in our country he had to ride a freight elevator to his own reception at a hotel. So, I'm wondering why the Nazis would have such a terrible reputation among blacks in 1934 that they would unanimously beat this guy up.
Black people were treated similarly to white Jewish people in Hitler's Germany and occupied territories. This web site (
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005479 ) records isolation, persecution, sterilization, medical experimentation, incarceration, brutality, and murder. "However, there was no systematic program for their elimination as there was for Jews and other groups." The Jews were originally made a special case for political gain. Whereas black people were just another example of a non-Aryan race, and thus inferior in Nazi ideology.
During the Olympics (both Summer and Winter) Germany put on a show for the rest of the world. They took down anti-semitic posters, and people were warned to be 'welcoming' towards all foreign visitors, whatever their skin colour. Hitler didn't want the world to go home with the impression that Germany was xenophobic.
This was Hitler’s great chance to prove to the world the positive nature of the ideology. He said later, "…the Olympic Games afforded us a unique opportunity to amass foreign credits, and at the same time a splendid chance of enhancing our prestige abroad." According to the International Olympic Committee, he succeeded.
Nevertheless, Hitler still refused to shake Jesse Owens' hand.
The German leadership was deeply concerned about how foreign non-white athletes would be treated, and there was actually fear that darker skinned Europeans, such as the Spanish athletes, would be subjected to abuse.
I researched the 1936 Winter Olympics at Garmisch-Partenkirchen for a history of the 1st Gebirgs Division. It mainly concerns the attitudes towards Jews, but it also explains why Jesse Owens found better treatement during the Berlin Summer Olympics, than he would have experienced in America:
The President of the Organizing Committee for the Garmisch-Partenkirchen IV. Olympic Winter Games 1936, was International Olympic Committee member Dr. Karl Ritter von Halt. On 14 May 1935 he wrote to Reich Ministry Under-Secretary of State Pfundtner.
The letter warned about the high levels of anti-Semitism in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. In summary, he referred to Kreisleiter Hartmann’s speech of 1 May which called for the removal of all Jews from the town; Halt’s witnessing first hand of Hartmann removing a Jew from the Garmisch post office; the immense number of anti-Jewish signs which were going up in the town and along the entire length of the main road to München; the German Labour Front leader’s warning to local hoteliers that anybody accepting a Jewish guest would be excluded from the Nazi Party. Halt writes that he was bringing all these incidences to the attention of the Reich Ministry because the town would be the scene of the Olympic Winter Games in 1936. The danger as he saw it, was that any "Jewish-looking" visitor might be attacked or insulted. That visitor might well be from the foreign press. If the slightest disturbance occurs, then "the Olympic Games cannot be accomplished in Berlin." The telling lines then occur:
"I express my concerns to you not therefore, in order to help the Jews, they exclusively concern the Olympic idea and the Olympic Games..." (Dr Karl Ritter von Halt, 14 May 1935. Printed in
Olympische Karrieren ohn Knick, June 2003).
Halt feared that an international backlash would be a propaganda disaster for Germany, and would cost them the Summer Games. Anti-Semitism was worryingly widespread and very public in the area. It was worrying for the National Socialists, and police and political reports at the time repeatedly commented on the number of anti-Jewish signs that kept reappearing even after orders for their removal. Dr. Carl Diem, Secretary General of the German Olympic Committee, a confirmed anti-Semite since before the First World War, mirrored Halt’s fears. His personal diary records on 24 April 1935, that local hoteliers were adamant about refusing Jewish guests to the extent that they threatened to throw them "out the window onto the road."
The Nazi Government took measures to prevent such embarrassments from occurring. On 3 December 1935, Reich Minister for the Interior Dr. Frick announced that:
"On the express instruction of the Führer I request with consideration of the pending Olympic Winter Games you see to it that on the roads and railway line between Munich and Garmisch-Partenkirchen and their proximity all placards, banners and signs that concern the Jews, are removed." (
Jugend of the World - The Film of the IVTH Olympic Winterspielen Garmisch Partenkirchen 1936, H. Bernett, (Göttingen, 1980).)
One such poster, stating "Jew admission is forbidden", had even been put up at the Olympia Tourism Office. The circulation of Julius Streicher’s pornographic and anti-Semitic
Der Stürmer magazine was also temporarily banned in the area. The
Stürmerkasten, the newspaper vending machines, were nowhere to be seen either. Hitler seemed prepared to go to all lengths to present Germany as a friendly, decent nation. International pressure on Germany over the question of Jewish athletes, forced Hitler to allow the half-Jewish Rudi Ball to play for on Germany’s ice hockey team. Even the appearance of too many military, or even military-like, uniforms was perceived to be threatening to the foreign media, who reported that the number of troop movements at Garmisch-Partenkirchen made the place look like a barracks. Word quickly came down from the Party that uniforms should not be the order of the day for soldiers not on duty.
So, the treatment of Jesse Owens in 1936 was for propaganda purposes. Both 1936 games were propaganda events for Germany. Black people were treated harshly in Germany, as they were treated harshly in many other countries, including America.