Showing posts with label Pierre de Coubertin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pierre de Coubertin. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Olympic Games and Fascism- The Olympic Deceit of the ‘Divine Baron’ Pierre de Coubertin

Olympism and Fascism.
By Ljubodrag Simonović.
Source: Excerpt from the book “The Olympic Deceit of the ‘Divine Baron’ – Pierre de Coubertin”
Posters: Vanja Zakanji.

As early as 1929, at the time of the great recession, “father” of the modern Olympic Games Pierre de Coubertin expressed his inclination towards authoritarian regimes, namely his discontent with the inefficiency of the capitalist system in its dealing with the working class :

"First of all, it was necessary to establish the International Olympic Committee with its basic rights, that should have been acknowledged by all the nations. This was not easy, because the Constitution of the Committee was opposed to the ideas of the time. It discarded the principle of delegation, so dear to our parliamentary democracies - the principle which, having done some great good, seems to be less efficient every day". (1)

It should also be noted that Coubertin was cordially accepted and his works published in fascist Germany, in spite of being "a great French patriot", a fact important at the time of German revanchism. Theodor Lewald, the president of the Organizing Committee of the Berlin Olympics, wrote of Coubertin at the end of his Introduction to "Olympische Erinnerungen", published in Berlin in 1938:

"He understood and enthusiastically saluted the development of the
new Germany under her Great Führer". (2)