Olympic torch relay: Nazi creation

Olympic torch relay: Nazi creation
Originally uploaded by summoning_ifrit

The modern convention of moving the Olympic Flame via a relay system from Olympia to the Olympic venue began with the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. The relay, captured in Leni Riefenstahl's film Olympia, was part of the Nazi propaganda machine’s attempt to add myth and mystique to Adolf Hitler’s regime. Hitler saw the link with the ancient Games as the perfect way to illustrate his belief that classical Greece was an Aryan forerunner of the modern German Reich.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_Summer_Olympics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leni_Riefenstahl
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympia_(1938_film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_race
source:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/summoning_ifrit/