The New York Times reported on November 6, 1935 that German Chancellor Adolf Hitler promised International Olympic Committee (IOC) chairman Count Henry Baillet-Latour that he would take down anti-Jewish signs during the two week period of the Berlin Olympics of 1936. (The article is behind the NYT pay-firewall, soat I’ll only quote a bit of it.)

The NYT added that IOC chair Baillet-Latour was “well satisfied” with Hitler’s assurances to temporarily pause his campaign of hate against Germany’s Jewish minority.

Oh, but it gets even better.

You know who IOC chair Baillet-Latour was not “well satisfied” with? Human rights advocates who opposed American participation in the Nazi Olympics:

[IOC chair Baillet-Latour] attacked energetically groups in the United States that have opposed American participation in the Berlin games. He asserted that the agitation against participation was exclusively a political campaign, citing as evidence the fact that none of the national Olympic committees now opposed having the games in Berlin. He declared that the non-participation movement was being well financed and was “based on lies,” representing nothing more than a trump card in the hand of certain interested groups that have nothing to do with sport.

And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse:

The Olympic boycott movement in the United States was referred to as a policy limiting the athletes’ freedom, while the International Olympic Committee’s policy was cited as a policy of freedom giving the individual the right to decide of his own free will.

You defend Hitler, you defend freedom.

Any questions?