A thoroughly nostalgic Olympian - Alcyonenews

Main menu:

Miscellany

Posted August 9, 2024

A thoroughly nostalgic Olympian

In 1936 Jesse Owens went to the Berlin Olympics. It did not take him long to offend Adolf Hitler, his host. With the World looking on, Jesse sent Adolf to blink first. The story seems to have gone AWOL from the history books, yet it still resonates with those who side with David who stood up to Goliath and adore Cinderella who refused to be intimidated by the machinations of her abusive step mother.

Midday on a sunny 1941 April day, an aeroplane few over Pyrgos, the city where I was living then, and showered us in leaflets. They informed us that the Wehrmacht (= Hitler’s Army) was about to “occupy” us. Nothing to fear they wrote: All we will have to do was obey them. For as long as we do, they would not shoot us, they categorically promised.

The next day they arrived in trucks, Volkswagens and Zundapp motorcycles with machine guns mounted on the sidecars.

Thereafter life changed much for the worse. People collapsed on the sidewalks from starvation. The Germans burnt to the ground villages and towns in revenge for the actions of the Resistance who quickly formed to send the occupiers back to where they had come from.

But in Pyrgos we were “lucky”. Yes, there were numerous Wehrmacht recruits who survived the Nazi indoctrination, retained their humanity and occasionally risked their own lives to save us, their “enemies”, as they were told we were.

Lieutenant Schleif (spelling?) was “commandant” in Pyrgos. Inside his uniform he was a “Hellenistic” Prof or something of the sort. He liked to recite Homer and he wanted all of us to learn the rich heritage we had. He soon became popular with us ‘town-kids”. I remember him reciting Homer in Greek, to us, and if my memory does not deceive me, he was as good at it, if not better, than the Rt. Hon Boris Johnson of the UK. If you haven’t heard Boris recite Homer, Google it up for his recitation of the Odyssey is an acoustic delight.

Schleif was known to toss a picknik in his sidecar, ride to Olympia and meet with his friends – come fake enemies for the cause of War. The “friends” he was commissioned to kill for the glory of the Fuhrer.

One purpose of the Olympic games was ... “Sarcastically diabolic”! This was (sad to have to use the past tense), the obligatory truce to make space for the Olympic Games. In one sense, it was this that enabled Jesse Owen to meet the Fuehr. Shame on those who omitted it from the resurrected Olympic Games.

Can you imagine Churchill and Hitler spending a couple of weeks drinking Schnapps and Scotch and having fun?

The 1940 and 1944, Olympics were silently “cancelled” lest the people demand a truce, I presume. The clever people who resurrected the Olympic Games, and the Gentlemen who codified the Rules of War in Geneva and many other similar conventions which were staged to protect and preserve the “chivalry” of warriors and the “principles” of War would not let the “peacenics” spoil the game.

Eventually the first post-WWII Olympiad was scheduled for 1948 in London England. I partook in lighting the “flame” in Olympia and I remember polishing up the brass parabolic mirror and Preparing the “lighting rod” for the event. The “rod” was a twig a couple of feet long. I slit the end of the rod and inserted in the slot a piece of movie film, folded “fan” style. Maria the “Priestess” would move the stick slowly to bring the film to the focal point of the mirror and ... Boom! The Spirits would deliver the sacred light to mankind.

Then Maria lit a paraffin burner and carried the flame though the ancient ruins of the original stadium to the “entrance” of the site. There she placed the “flame” on the marble cairn which holding the heart of Baron Le Cumbertain who excavated the thick sediment layer, which the River Alpheos had laid over the site. After (or it was before?) the usual speeches, a uniformed and armed soldier appeared on the scene, saluted the people, tossed his gun and the paraphernalia of war he was wearing and began stripping the rest of his attire, moving slowly, like Lilli St. Cyr (Remember her?). Anyway, he stripped down to his shorts, then he lit his torch, and began running toward London. Maria joined the dignitaries in the buses and the rest of us who were to carry the flame rode in army trucks, except for the one serving this turn running the torch. We all ended up in Katakolon. There the flame was taken aboard a Greek warship for an overnight trip to Corfu. Thence the flame was transferred to a British warship for the short crossing hop to Bari, in Italy. From there on it resumed the traditional road trip to its destination in London.

I will close with the political part of the story, for I have not seen it expounded, elsewhere. At the time there was a civil war going on in Greece. Indeed that was the reason for the Soldier skit I mentioned above. The “powers-that-be” told the World to support the “peaceful” Greek army and condemn the Rebels-without-cause who cause civil wars n’ stuff.

The Propaganda corps spread word that traversing warring Greece was perilous. Equally bad, if not worse was traversing Yugoslavia. These were grand lies uttered to fuel the demonization of the “enemies” who would fight WWIII, aka the “Cold War.