"Sport, like other human activties, reflects the dominant philosophy of the age. The dogma "Sport has nothing to do with politics" is a survival of the age of laissez faire Liberalism.

But it is essential for a dictator to prove that the prestige of the country is due to the regime, and sport must therefore contribute to the idiological propaganda. The young Nazis were encouraged to believe that a ski race was a competition in which Germans raced to prove, not that they were better skiers than other people, but that Nazism was better than democracy. The thing that mattered, was victory, and all means which led to this end were justifiable. At the Olympic Games in Garmisch the course was closed to all competitors on the day before the race. The Nazis, we subsequently learned, practiced down the course at dawn.

Before the Nazis came into power German skiers were decent friendly people who contributed their share to the building of a real freemasonry transcending national frontiers. But the Nazi ski teams were mobilized like ski troops. German competitors were not allowed to accept invitations as individuals. The technique of making protests was developed as a fine art. If the Nazi flag was not displayed with sufficient prominence, a protest was promptly lodged. Any decision which could be challenged was challenged."

Aus: Stan Cohen, The Games of '36. A pictural history of the 1936 Olympics in Germany (Missoula 1996) S. 166