‘Welt-Hegler Turnier’: Bowling tournament was a memorable spectacle in the dark realm

Kegeln was played with a small solid ball without finger holes. The ball was rolled on a short and narrow lane to strike the nine pins. Hitler himself was very fond of the game — being the only known sport that he played as an adult. He even had an alley installed in the basement of the Berghof, his mountain home that doubled as a personal retreat and second unofficial Fuhrer’s headquarters. 

Before the start of the 1936 Olympics, he had envisioned a grand opportunity to showcase the “Utopia” of living in a National Socialist state to the outside world, and the superiority of the “Aryan” German athletes. At that time, though highly popular in Germany and other western countries, nine- and 10-pin bowling was not part of the Olympic games. Since avid bowlers wanted worldwide exposure of their sport with a chance to get into the world games venue, and Nazi propogandists looked for every way to promote the new regime, the fifth annual international bowling tournament was held in Berlin from July 21 to July 26, 1936, one week prior to the start of the official summer Olympics. 

The tournament brought bowlers and fans from 14 countries to compete in a spacious, modern arena, decorated with an imposing Nazi sports banner, and supervised under the watchful eyes of the “Nationalsozialistischer Reichsbund fur Leibesubungen” (National Socialist Reich’s League for Physical Exercise – NSRL). Several types of games were played, including the European 9-pin version, along with the 10-pin style preferred in the U.S. and a few other countries.  

A parade of the athletes started the event, marching to a grand musical entrance with many giving the Nazi salute in honor of their country and their hosts. The American “Milwaukee Heils” team, headed by Hank Marino (named the best bowler in the first half of the 20th century) later dominated the 10-pin games of the tournament, winning the all-events title and the team title. Despite the USA’s overwhelming success, a German, Karl Goldhammer, took first place in the 10-pin singles, a style which was typically not even played in Germany. 

During the contests the accommodating tournament staff treated non-Germans with the upmost courtesy, making sure that the foreign players and guests were left with the impression that the new Third Reich was modern, clean, well-organized and extremely cordial to all. Not long after the tournament had come to a close, these same athletes and fans, along with millions of others would learn the truth about the Nazi dictatorship and experience the devastation that was to follow. By 1945, with the end of Hitler’s regime, the NSRL was disbanded, as was its support for all German sporting activities, including bowling.

With the success of the 1936 tournament, the enthusiastic players, sponsors and fans had hoped to have bowling included in the 1940 Olympic Games. The Games were interrupted by World War II, of course, and were not held again until 1948, in London. Again, they did not include bowling. The sport did resurface briefly on the world stage in 1988, with a small Olympic demonstration event of 24 players from 21 countries. Again, bowling did not generate enough support to be added as a regular Olympic competition.

There have been plenty of efforts to grow the sport of bowling since that 1936 tournament, but none could equal the pomp and fanfare that characterized the Nazi’s efforts, and the party’s ability to take mundane events and make them into “larger than life” displays, aimed at bolstering the facade of Nazi decorum while hiding the underlying dark ambitions of the Third Reich.  

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