Carl Diem
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Dr. Carl Diem (born June 24, 1882, Würzburg – December 17, 1962, Cologne) was the originator of the modern tradition of the Olympic torch relay and a Nazi commander.
The Olympic torch is not a tradition dating to ancient Greece. The relay was invented by Carl Diem, a German who had been planning the 1916 Summer Olympics in Berlin, when they were canceled because of World War I.
Twenty years later, Diem returned, as the General Secretary of the Organizing Committee of the 1936 Summer Olympics under Adolf Hitler.[1] Seeking to glamorize the games with an ancient aura, Diem staged the first lighting of the Olympic flame. When the torches were lit at Berlin, ostensibly to signify unity among nations, they carried the logo of the manufacturer, Krupp, the huge steel and munitions conglomerate that armed Germany for two world wars.
The torch relay from Greece to the host country of the Olympic games has been continued at every Olympiad since then.
There has been controversy about his Nazi sympathies. For example, in 1954 the French ministry of Education was forced to postpone a display of gymnastics before a delegation headed by Diem (then head of the Sportschule at Cologne), since the students claimed that he had been a "Nazi general". Two days later, the students recanted admitting that there was no "formal proof" of the allegation.[2]
The actual nature of his relationship to the Nazi party is unclear. He was classified in 1934 by the Nazis as "politically unreliable" (probably because of the Jewish relatives of his wife) and was never a member of the Nazi party. But on the other hand he held important and prominent positions during the Nazi period and took part in propaganda [3].
