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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