Could there have been a link between Pierre de Coubertin, promoter of the modern Olympic Games and Adolf Hitler? At least that is what a book to be published this Friday suggests, attesting according to the author of the work, that “there were many connections between the two men”. In the work, a letter from Pierre de Coubertin, the promoter of the modern Olympic Games, to Adolf Hitler dated 1937 is reproduced in the work Pierre de Coubertin, the man who did not invent the Olympic Games, by journalist Aymeric Mantoux, published by Editions du Faubourg.
This letter is unpublished in a French publication. It comes from the archives of the Third Reich, from which the German historian Hans Joachim Teichler extracted it. “He is a researcher who revisited the entire history of sports in Germany in the 20th century. He found this letter which proves that, contrary to what Coubertin’s family and the IOC say [Comité international olympique]there was a good relationship between the two men,” Aymeric Mantoux explained to AFP.
Financial assistance
Dated March 17, 1937, the letter thanks the German regime for its contribution to its “jubilee year”, namely 50 years of its action to promote sport. Historians have found traces of payments from Nazi Germany to an endowment fund set up by Pierre de Coubertin to continue his work. And the Third Reich was preparing to open an “International Olympic Institute” in Berlin.
Pierre de Coubertin, who was 73 years old at the time of the Berlin Olympics in 1936, did not go there. ” We do not know why. The Berlin Games are, however, the pinnacle of what he wanted to do,” notes the author of this critical biography.
“We find commonalities”
During the inauguration ceremony, failing to have the Frenchman in the stadium, the organizers broadcast his voice over the loudspeakers. The man remains known for his very conservative opinions. He refused the professionalization of sport, as well as its feminization, and believed in the “superior essence” of “the white race”. “I don’t think he espoused the Nazi ideology of eradicating the enemies of the Aryan race,” underlines Aymeric Mantoux. “But between his vision and that of the Third Reich, we find common points, around the desire to revitalize a nation through sport.”
Pierre de Coubertin, who should join the Grévin museum in Paris in July, is also little highlighted in the communication from the organizers of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, from July 26 to August 11.