Hitler’s Games: 40-foot tall swastika flags draped buildings all around Berlin, including the approach route for the Olympic flame to the stadium for the opening ceremony
SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: The trawl through the Minster archives for Croydon’s Olympic deeds has brought DAVID MORGAN to Berlin in 1936, and one of the most notorious Games in history
Hall of famer: Olympic swimmer Phyllis Harding
The 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, with swastikas draped from seemingly every building in the city, were a massive propaganda effort by Nazi Germany to establish its place alongside the nations of the world.
The Croydon Advertiser informed its readers that Mr R Maillard Stead, the honorary secretary of the Croydon High School Old Boys’ Association, had travelled to Berlin for his fourth Olympics to report on how four Croydon competitors were getting on.
There were two Croydon swimmers, Margaret Jeffery and Phyllis Harding. Jeffrey swam in the 400metres freestyle and the 4x100metres freestyle relay, but she didn’t win a medal (Great Britain finished sixth in a final won by the Netherlands). Jeffrey would go one to win silver at 400m free two years later, at the 1938 Empire Games held in Sydney.
Harding had already won an Olympic silver medal, in 1924 at 100m backstroke, when she was still a teenager. She would later set a world record for the event. Now 28, this was to be her fourth and final Games, and just as she had done in 1924 and 1932, Harding reached the final. There, she swam a lifetime best 1min 21.5sec – nearly six seconds faster than when she won her silver – but it was only good enough for seventh place.
Harding, who lived to be 84, was a pioneer woman swimmer, and her achievements were recognised in 1995 when she was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
Burke’s clearage: Norwood-born Barbara Burke (right, in dark kit) on her way to gold (for South Africa) in the 80m hurdles at the 1938 Empire Games staged at Sydney Cricket Ground
Ernie Mills, a member of Addiscombe Cycling Club, was the only man in Croydon’s 1936 Olympic contingent. He won a bronze medal in the team pursuit. In 1937, together with clubmate Bill Paul, he set a world one-hour tandem record of 49.991 kilometres – more than 30 miles. The record stood for 63 years.
The final member of Croydon’s Berlin quartet was Barbara Burke. She was a sprinter and hurdler, and a participant in one of the most famous of Olympic Games, where the black American, Jesse Owens, won four gold medals in a statement of sporting excellence and defiance right in front of Fuehrer Adolf Hitler.
In his report for his local weekly newspaper, Stead wrote of Burke’s racing, “She did remarkably well to reach the semi-final of the women’s 100metres at her first attempt, but she still has a chance of winning a coveted Olympic medal, for Britain are favourites for the 4x100metres relay which takes place on Sunday afternoon.”
‘Weeping frauleins’: English newspaper reports were very deferential to Germany in 1936
Stead was extremely optimistic about Britain’s relay chances. Against them in the final were Germany, a formidable team who had broken the world record in winning their semi-final, and the United States who had Helen Stephens, the winner of the individual 100m, running the last leg.
Little did Burke know when she lined up for that relay final that she was to be just a few strides away from one of the biggest shocks in Olympic history.
Born in South Norwood in 1917, through her parents Burke was qualified to represent South Africa as well as Britain. She had competed for South Africa in the sprints and in the relay at the 1934 Empire Games held in London. The sprint relay at those Games consisted of just three runners: one ran 220 yards and two each ran 110 yards. Burke ran the final 110 yards for South Africa but could only finish in fourth place.
South Africa, however, only selected women to take part in the artistic competitions for the Berlin Olympics, so Burke made herself available for selection by the British Olympic Association. In Berlin, after her run in the 100m semi-final earlier in the week, she was picked to run Britain’s final leg of the sprint relay.
The final day of the athletics competition was planned to be a great celebration of German achievement. In front of a stadium packed with 100,000 people, there in the VIP box was Hitler, together with most of his Nazi High Command.
The German crowd were full of expectation of golden success. Their women’s sprinters had broken the world record in their sprint relay semi-final.
In the final, the German team looked to dominate the race from the gun. But they had tinkered with the running order from the semi, switching around the second and final-leg runners, Katthe Krauss and Ilse Dorffeldt. Marie Dollinger, the third German runner, was well in the lead as she approached the final change to hand the baton at top speed to Dorffeldt.
The crowd were on their feet cheering.
Even Hitler and his entourage were standing, too.
As she sped round the final bend, Dollinger was six… seven… eight metres clear of the best in the world as she held out the baton for Dorffeldt to grab.
The noise in the stadium reached a crescendo, but in a split second the bubble of euphoria was burst. Gasps turned to groans as the spectators saw Dorffeldt’s hands go to her head in dismay. She had dropped the baton in her first couple of strides, and Germany’s “certain” gold medal had slipped from their grasp.
Silver lining: Barbara Burke and the GB 4×100 relay squad, runners-up to the United States
It all happened in a fraction of a second, and the other teams focused on their task of getting their baton round safely. On the inside lane, Audrey Brown handed over to Burke, who scuttled away down the home straight. Way in front of her, Stephens was on her way to her second gold medal of the Games with the American quartet. Burke crossed the line to secure the silver for her and her team-mates.
Down the other end of the vast stadium, Dorffeldt was distraught on the track, crying.
When Hitler saw her and the team’s anguish, he invited them up to his box to console them. In his diary, Hitler’s henchman Joszef Goebbels wrote, “We’ve had bad luck. The girls are all broken up.”
It was another disappointment for Hitler and his regime, at an event they hoped to dominate to demonstrate their supposed superiority. At least for the athletes concerned, who demonstrated that they were, after all, only human and not some kind of “master race”, there were none of the recriminations that might have been feared.
Dorffeldt went on to have a long career as a teacher in East Germany, in Banzendorf. Dollinger, who had competed at two previous Games, would live to see her daughter, Brunhilde Hendrix, win a silver medal in the sprint relay at the Rome Olympics in 1960.
Burke carried on her athletics career into the 1938 Empire Games in Sydney. Competing again for South Africa, this was the scene of Burke’s best track performance, as she won 80m hurdles gold. She reached the final of the 100 and the 200 metres, but was just out of the medals in both of those races.
She moved to live in South Africa later in her life and died in Johannesburg aged 81 in 1998.
Two medals were won by the four Croydon competitors. Not a bad return. If the Advertiser’s Stead had taken the time also to report on the adventures of 16-year-old Dorothy Odam, a south Londoner in the high jump who won the silver and got to meet Hitler, he might have made headlines across the world.
David Morgan, pictured right, is a former Croydon headteacher, now the volunteer education officer at Croydon Minster, who offers tours or illustrated talks on the history around the Minster for local community groups
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- Addiscombe cycle shop-owner who had record-breaking career
- Swimmer who made a splash with Tarzan at Paris Olympics
- Croydon’s Lifeboat parades that answered a Mayday appeal
- The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
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