The First Olympic Flame Was 90 Years Ago
by Philip Barker
Exactly 90 years ago, an Olympic Flame was kindled from the rays of the sun in Ancient Olympia. Thousands thronged to the village of Olympia to witness the Ceremony.
The next issue of the Journal of Olympic History will reveal why this was not a new occurrence but the Flame has attracted crowds ever since.
A Flame had burned at the Amsterdam Games in 1928 and above the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1932 but the Relay from Olympia was something else.
The relay to Berlin for the 1936 Olympics was designed to emphasise the connection between the ancient and modern Games and it proved an instant success.
It was certainly true that in the late 19th century, Germans had taken the initiative in the excavations at Ancient Olympia.
The 1936 Games were awarded to Berlin in 1931, two years before Hitler came to power. When he became Chancellor in 1933, the propaganda value of the Games dawned on his henchmen.
Nordic mythology and the notion of a ‘Master Race’ also explained why the Germans took to the idea of the Flame Relay.
The Official Report of the 1936 Games records that ministerial Councillor Wilhelm Haegert suggested the concept of holding a relay from Olympia to Berlin. It was said that the idea had been inspired by the antique relief of two “Erotes” at the Palazzo Colonna in Rome depicting a torch relay run.
The late Karl Lennartz, a former ISOH President, believed that Carl Diem was the originator. Diem, an educator, became mastermind of the organising Committee. Lennartz noted Diem first proposed the idea at his birthday party in 1931: “At my suggestion, Berlin organised a Relay.”
In 1934, at the IOC Session in Athens. Berlin Organising Committee Chairman Theodor Lewald “reported a plan, thought out by the Organising Committee, to light a Torch on the Marathon Tower by a fire brought from Olympia.”
The IOC minutes record that the members “fully approved of his plan.”
After their formal meetings, the IOC members were taken to visit Olympia. They returned to Athens by way of the village of Tegea. Whilst they were there, further discussions are said to have taken place concerning the Torch Relay.
Back in Berlin, the first plans for the route from Olympia to Berlin were drawn up in September 1934. By November, the organisers reported that seven nations had agreed to allow the Flame through.
In September 1935, a scouting trip of the proposed itinerary was made by Organising Committee official Werner Klingenberg and Pay Christian Carstensen from the propaganda ministry.
At the Hotel Olympo in Kelafari near Kiffisia, the local rotary club held a banquet in honour of their German visitors.
Greek archaeologist and scholar Alexander Philadelpheus was present and he seized the opportunity to talk about the Flame.
“In a very short speech, I praised the idea, launched by the Organisers, the truly splendid idea of taking the Olympic fire to Berlin. I added, however, that lighting this flame with ordinary means (matches) would be very prosaic. It would be infinitely more poetic to light the first Torch using a magnifying glass, directly from the rays of the Hellenic sun. For then, it would be Apollo himself who would lend his light to the great Germanic nation. The idea was warmly acclaimed.”
Meanwhile, preparations were under way in Greece. This was to be conducted under the authority of the Hellenic Olympic Committee (HOC).
“Greece is summoned after two and a half thousand years to give the light of its superior civilisation to the whole world.”
Koula Pratsika, a leading dancer and teacher from Athens lit the Flame. She recruited a group of her dance students, including Maria Horss, then a 14year-old dance pupil. Many years later in 1964, Horss became choreographer of the Lighting Ceremony.
In Ancient Olympia, buildings were cleaned, roads modernised and a Post Office was opened. This was besieged by stamp collectors keen to purchase the special issue on the day of the Ceremony.
Coubertin was not present but sent a message to Olympia.
“To you the athletes whose diligent hands will carry the symbolic fire from Olympia to Berlin, I as the revivor and honorary president of the modern Olympic Games should like to express the spirit in which my thoughts accompany you and the significance I attach to your achievement.”
Television was still in its infancy and in any case unable to undertake an “outside broadcast” of this nature, but cameras filmed the ritual and extracts were shown in cinema newsreels.
A crew from German radio travelled with the runners and recorded the event on wax discs.
Also present was Leni Riefenstahl director of Olympia, the official film of the Games. The crowds were so great that she was forced to re-shoot many of the scenes at other archaeological sites.
In any case, they bore little relation to what had actually happened.
The first official runner was Kostantinos Kondylis, who carried a Torch away from the archaeological site, but he did not even appear in many of the staged photographs. Instead, a young German, Jürgen Ascherfeld, can be seen. His image was also reproduced on a souvenir matchbox produced for the occasion.
In the film Olympia, the lighting was performed by a dark- haired youth named Anatol Dobriansky. Riefenstahl found him at the roadside, apparently after participating in the Relay. She asked him to accompany her around Greece to film further sequences for her film.
The real journey of the Flame through Greece did catch the public imagination. Although officials were concerned about threats of sabotage by Greek Communists, crowds lined much of the route.
Athenian newspapers declared that “only the sick stayed at home!” as it continued day and night.
In Athens it was greeted at the Parthenon by soldiers dressed in the costume of ancient times, poetry and a ceremony of flags at the Panathenaic Stadium.
It travelled through Bulgaria and through Yugoslavia, Austria, Czechoslovakia. When it reached the German border at Hellendorf the Flame was passed to the appropriately named Paul Goldammer,
On the day of the Opening Ceremony a simple cauldron in the stadium was lit by Fritz Schilgen, a blond athlete. An unforgettable tradition was born.
In the next edition of the Journal of Olympic History Christian Wacker examines the story of tourism in Ancient Olympia.
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