Adolf’s Games

When the Canadian athletes entered the stadium for the opening ceremonies of the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, they did something that elicited both applause and controversy. As they passed Adolf Hitler, they extended their right arms sideways and upwards. It was meant as a gesture in the spirit of the Games—an Olympic salute, as it was known—although it looked an awful lot like the Canadians were offering the Führer a hearty Nazi greeting.

As Richard Menkis and Harold Troper note when recounting this moment in More Than Just Games: Canada and the 1936 Olympics, the Canadians were not the only ones to commit this gaffe (although, oddly, Canada was the lone nation to repeat the gesture at the Summer Games in Berlin). The misunderstanding, then, is likely a moment of ignorance or naiveté. But the photograph of the Canadians’ salute, reprinted in the book, is cringe inducing and, even more so in hindsight, chilling. The same might be...