Fear Germany Won’t Keep Word on Olympic Games

The International Olympic Games Committee, which voted to keep Berlin as the site of the 1936 Olympic Games after the German delegation pledged that no action would be taken to interfere with the participation of Jewish athletes, including German Jews, in the games, permitted itself to be duped, it is being charged.

Jews have been expelled from all German sports organizations under official orders and their participation, therefore, is practically impossible unless they are reinstated. This is not expected nor did the German delegation promise that this step would be taken.

Foreign diplomatic circles in Berlin express surprise that the conference at Vienna permitted itself to be misled by the German delegation regarding the Jewish question and this attitude is directed especially at the American delegation because its members must have been aware that the expulsion of Jewish members of the athletic associations of Germany was complete. It is believed that the national athletic bodies in the various countries will revive the question when their delegates return from Vienna to report on the action they took.

A Vienna dispatch to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency Friday reported it was learned from reliable sources that the German delegation had pledged the names of President Paul von Hindenburg and Chancellor Hitler that no moral or physical force would be exerted to prevent the participation of Jewish athletes in the Olympics.

Despatches in the past few weeks have revealed the almost complete exclusion of Jews from the sports bodies of the Reich. All Jewish members were ordered ousted from the Prussian sports body.