The Nazis’ aggressive takeover of Diem’s torch relay did not go unnoticed at the International Olympic Committee. There had been a fierce power struggle between an ailing Baron de Coubertin - the Honorary Life President of the IOC - and the German government as to who should take credit for the relay. It was only on the day of departure that de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, reluctantly agreed for a compromise message to be read aloud: “The German Committee has devised and organised the relay run in a manner which has gained the highest recognition in every country,” said de Coubertin with the ambiguity and prescience of a man who had first thought of the Olympics as a way of training the manhood of France to combat Germany military power after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870.