The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has defended the sale of a T-shirt featuring a motif of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, which were held under Nazi rule.
In the Olympics online shop, the shirt is offered as part of the so-called “Heritage Collection” and is currently sold out during the Milan/Cortina Winter Olympics.
Beneath Olympic rings, a male figure with a laurel wreath is pictured on the shirt above the Brandenburg Gate. The inscription is “Germany Berlin 1936 Olympic Games.”
Klara Schedlich, the Greens’ spokeswoman for sports in the Berlin state parliament, accused the IOC “of apparently failing to reflect adequately on its own history.” She called for the sale to be halted.
“The 1936 Olympic Games were a central propaganda instrument of the Nazi regime. The T-shirt visually gives the impression of harking back to that aesthetic,” she said in a statement, adding that there was no context.
“This choice of imagery is problematic and unsuitable for a T-shirt.”
But the IOC stressed in a statement that it of course recognizes the historical problem of Nazi propaganda in connection with the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
At the same time, it said people should not forget that 4,483 athletes from 49 countries competed for medals in 149 events in Berlin.
The IOC added that the historical context of those Games continues to be explained at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne.
Berlin hopes to host the Olympics again, with a 2036 bid – 100 years after the Nazi-organized Games – a possibility.