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The Olympics’ official online store has sold out of the T-shirt in its Olympic Heritage Collection that features artwork from the 1936 Berlin Games, which were used by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis to promote their antisemitic and racist regime.
The availability of the T-shirt has attracted widespread criticism, with politicians in Germany and Jewish groups around the world urging the International Olympic Committee to remove it from sale.
Several critics have also questioned the wisdom of selling a T-shirt that commemorates a Games that have become a byword for political propaganda at the same time as the IOC has refused to let skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych compete in a helmet that pays tribute to Ukrainian athletes killed in the war with Russia.
The Olympic Heritage Collection is described on the website as a celebration of 130 years of Olympic art and design. The 1936 Berlin Games shirt, which costs €39 ($47), is emblazoned with the event’s official poster.
Designed by German artist Franz Wurbel, it features the Olympic rings, a muscular male figure wearing a wreath on his head and Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate.
When asked by The Athletic if the T-shirt, which is listed as “out of stock”, had sold out or been withdrawn from sale, an IOC spokesperson said it was the former.
“While we 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,” they explained.
“Many of them stunned the world with their athletic achievements, including (American sprinter) 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.”
While it is true that Owens winning four gold medals is one of the 1936 Games’ most important stories, its most obvious legacy is a warning as to what can happen if you let dictators use the major sporting events to promote hateful political ideologies, such as the Nazi myth of Aryan racial superiority.
