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The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is sparking controversy over a sold-out t-shirt on the official Olympics website depicting the Nazi-run 1936 Berlin Olympics.
The limited edition t-shirt features the 1936 Games poster designed by German artist Franz Würbel that Adolf Hitler used as propaganda to promote the Nazi idea of Aryan supremacy.
That idea was deflated by African-American Jesse Owens, who won four track and field gold medals at the games.
Liora Rez, founder of StopAntisemitism, called the move a “shame” for the IOC.
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The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is sparking controversy over a sold-out t-shirt on the official Olympics website depicting the Nazi-run 1936 Berlin Olympics. (Olympic Store; Kevin Voigt/GettyImages)
“The Olympics have been a stage for anti-Semitism for decades,” Rez told Pak Gazette Digital on Friday. “At the Munich games in 1972, when terrorists massacred the Israeli Olympic team, the competition barely stopped. Even decades later, the IOC refused to properly commemorate the massacre. And this year, Jew-hatred is official.”
He added that earlier Friday an employee at the official 2026 Olympics store shouted “Free Palestine” at Israel fans at the Winter Olympics currently being held in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.
“Possibly most embarrassing is that in the official Olympic online store, as part of the ‘heritage collection’, the IOC sells t-shirts that commemorate and reproduce images related to the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, held under the racist Nazi dictatorship of Adolf Hitler. Is this the heritage the IOC wants to celebrate?” she continued. “Shame on the International Olympic Committee for this latest outrage. No medals for this pathetic performance.”
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The IOC told several media outlets that while they “of course recognize the historical issues of ‘Nazi propaganda’ related to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, we must also remember that the Berlin Games saw 4,483 athletes from 49 countries compete in 149 medal events. Many of them shocked the world with their athletic achievements, including Jesse Owens.”
“The historical context of these Games is explained in more detail at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne,” the committee continued. “For the 1936 edition, the number of shirts produced and sold by the IOC is limited, so they are currently sold out.”
Jesse Owens won the 100 meters at the 1936 Olympics. (Keystone/Getty Images)
Pak Gazette Digital has contacted the IOC for comment.
The Berlin Games t-shirts are part of the IOC Heritage Collection, which features the design of each Olympic Games.
On the website it says that the Heritage Collection “celebrates the art and design of the Olympic Games. Each edition of the Games reflects a unique time and place in history when the world came together to celebrate humanity.
Yoav Potash, director of the award-winning Holocaust documentary “Neighbors,” called the T-shirt a “disgusting affront to human decency.”
Adolf Hitler watching the Berlin Olympics in 1936. (Photos by Fox/Getty Images)
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“To say that the IOC’s sale of these shirts is in poor taste would be a huge understatement,” Potash told Pak Gazette Digital. “The IOC has the benefit of 90 years of hindsight. We know that Nazi Germany used its role as Olympic host for propaganda purposes, aiming to showcase supposed Aryan superiority.”
He added: “And we know that, within a few years of those games, Nazi Germany carried out a massive industrialized genocide, killing millions of people in an effort to promote the fantasy of Aryan superiority. To ignore all that and sell T-shirts commemorating the 1936 Olympics in Berlin is a sickening affront to human decency and our collective ability to learn from history.”
