Vanoc Olympic torch video contains clip from Nazi propaganda film by Leni Riefenstahl

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      A Vanoc video about the Olympic torch relay contains uncredited footage from Adolf Hitler’s favourite filmmaker.

      About 25 seconds into the video Lights Will Guide You Home on the Vanoc Web site, a runner holding the torch enters a huge sports stadium.

      The image came from Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia, which was shot during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

      In Riefenstahl’s film, you can see images of people giving the “Heil Hitler” salute with their arms extended. The Vanoc video obscures those images.

      NDP tourism critic Spencer Herbert accused the Vanoc film of trying to “black out history” by covering up the Nazi salute.

      “I think this is offensive,” Herbert said. “If you’re going to use the footage, acknowledge...where it’s from. And have some sort of remark about that dark period of the Olympics. Or you don’t use the footage. But to go in and try to correct the politically uncorrect—the Heil Hitler—and try to hide the footage, it’s just insulting to history.”

      The first-ever Olympic torch relay took place ahead of the 1936 Summer Games, which helped cement Hitler's rule over Germany.


      An excerpt from Olympia. A clip of this film is seen in the Vanoc video.

      Related article: Framing Leni Riefenstahl

      Comments

      35 Comments

      kreativekaur

      Jan 27, 2010 at 6:45pm

      Who's your daddy Vanoc? LOL...... nuff said'
      kreative kaur
      - Imagination is more important than knowledge.
      Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." - Einstein

      pleb

      Jan 27, 2010 at 7:25pm

      seems pretty telling

      therzo

      Jan 27, 2010 at 11:26pm

      Mr. Spencer Herbert puts it just right. Use the footage, but don't obscure the history. How else can we (all humans) learn other than from acknowledging our mistakes.

      Other than that, this isn't "pretty telling" as pleb puts it above.

      Strategis

      Jan 28, 2010 at 6:31am

      The dark period of the renewed Olympics pretty much covered its entire history characterised by blatant racism, fascism, corporatism, mass mind control and social exploitation. The Olympics is amateur sports (like pretty much everything else) placed in the service of the new global financial order designed to further the concentration of wealth and control of the global crime cartel that owns pretty much everything with a high and steady rate of return - weapons, security, oil, coffee, finance, media, real estate, industry, transportation, communications, pharmaceuticals, agribusiness, narcotics, gambling, the sex slave trade, alcohol, cigarettes, pornography, prisons, etc. This is the real but largely invisible but highly corrosive power behind government, banks and the media. The Oympics is just another of their countless tools to fleece the mob and distract them with mindless spectacles of physical beauty, brute force, meaningless prowess.

      Ursa Minor

      Jan 28, 2010 at 6:35am

      Michael Castanaveras - Wrong - VANOC loses: they mentioned Hitler first in the video, then tried to blur the reference. Godwin's law in effect already.

      No kidding

      Jan 28, 2010 at 9:08am

      Well... Godwin's Law is really no law at all. The likelihood that comparison to Nazis and/or Hitler will of course increase as a conversation progresses in all cases except for those where the originating topic is a comparison to Nazis and/or Hitler.

      miguel

      Jan 28, 2010 at 9:18am

      This VANOC just admitting they'll never put on a show to match the '36 games, or the Nuremberg Rally.
      Miguel

      Ajoe1982

      Jan 28, 2010 at 9:50am

      So they used footage from the first Olympics that received widespread filming for distribution by TV broadcast.....ummm...that's telling how? Yes, Hitler was evil etc. etc. (I don't mean to sound flip, but if we have to recount how evil he was every time he was mentioned, we would NEVER get to the point). Funnily enough we don't always let that get in the way of us buying Volkswagons (or Ford or GM products, both having ties to Nazi's or the German war effort), or using aspirin's made by Bayer...try again, Charlie Smith.

      Debby

      Jan 28, 2010 at 10:15am

      I can't get over how disturbed I am by this. I feel nauseous.