Paris (AFP)
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Friday deleted a tweet posted the day before showing a film of the 1936 Nazi Germany Games in Berlin, accompanied by the hashtag "Stronger together", which sparked widespread outrage.
In the latest in a series of tweets, the IOC apologized "to those who felt offended".
The controversial tweet, posted Thursday, was part of a series of 30 minifilms showing the lighting of the Olympic flame during different Games, one year from the next Tokyo Olympics, postponed to July 2021.
“Berlin 1936 marked the 1st Olympic Torch Relay to the Cauldron. We can't wait to see the next one in Japan,” the tweet read, followed by the hashtag #StrongerTogether.
The light tone contrasted with the images showing the black American sprinter and long jumper Jesse Owens, quadruple Olympic champion in Berlin, as well as the lighting of the Olympic cauldron, staged by filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, in the service of propaganda nazi.
The wave of indignation included a tweet from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum, recalling that the "Nazi dictatorship" had used the Olympics to mask "its racist and militaristic character" and "to deceive foreign spectators with the image of a peaceful and tolerant Germany ".
On Friday afternoon, the IOC deleted the film in question and then released a series of tweets explaining that it had wished to highlight the images showing Owens, finally apologizing to "those who felt offended."
"The images selected for all the films were chosen with the aim of delivering a message of unity and solidarity", also made a point of specifying the IOC in one of its tweets. "Those relating to the Berlin 1936 Olympic Games were specifically chosen for this purpose, NOT to celebrate this edition of the Games."
© 2020 AFP