ORIGIN OF THE
OYLMPIC FLAME AND THE OLYMPIC RELAY
The
Olympic Flame,
Olympic Fire, Olympic Torch, Olympic Light,
Olympic Eye, and Olympic Sun are all names for
an important marketing promotion and
symbol of the
Olympic Games. Commemorating the
theft of fire from the Greek god
Zeus by
Prometheus, its origins lie in
ancient Greece, when a fire was
kept burning throughout the celebration of the
ancient Olympics. The fire was
reintroduced at the
1928 Summer Olympics in
Amsterdam, and it has been part of
the modern Olympic Games ever since.
(Another source, separate from the Wikipedia information
used in this article says �There was an eternal flame at
Olympia, but that had nothing to do with the Olympics,� said
David Young, a classical scholar at the University of
Florida.)
The relay of the
flame from Greece to the site of the modern games had no
ancient precedent and was introduced by
Carl Diem,
with the support of
Joseph Goebbels,
at the controversial
Berlin Olympics
as a means to promote Nazi ideology.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Flame
Dr. Carl Diem
(born
June 24,
1882,
W�rzburg �
December 17,
1962,
Cologne) was the originator of the
modern tradition of the
Olympic torch relay and a
Nazi commander.
The Olympic torch relay 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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Diem
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