Controversy Erupts as IOC Sells Nazi-Era Olympic T-Shirts

Fri Feb 13 2026 05:08:33 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)

The International Olympic Committee faces backlash for selling T-shirts featuring designs from the controversial 1936 Berlin Olympics, a period heavily associated with Nazi propaganda.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has drawn criticism for including T-shirts inspired by the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games in its Heritage Collection. Critics argue that these shirts, which showcase Nazi propaganda, are inappropriate and disrespectful. Despite calls for a halt to the sale, the IOC defends the move as part of its efforts to celebrate Olympic history, while acknowledging the complex historical context of the games, including prominent athletic achievements that challenged Nazi ideology.

The official online fan shop of the Olympic Games has been selling T-shirts with designs from the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936, which were used by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis for propaganda.

There are calls in Germany for the sale of the shirts to be stopped, but the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has defended it as being part of its Heritage Collection, celebrating styles from all editions of the Games.

The T-shirts, which are emblazoned with the original poster design for the Berlin Olympics by Franz Würbel, are currently out of stock.

The 1936 Games were used by Hitler as a chance to promote his ideals of racial supremacy and to glorify Nazi Germany on an international stage.

Klara Schedlich, spokesperson for sports policy for the Green Party faction in the Berlin House of Representatives, criticized the IOC for clearly not reflecting sufficiently on its own history and deemed the choice of image problematic and unsuitable for a T-shirt, without context.

The IOC acknowledged the historical issues of Nazi propaganda but emphasized the games' athletic legacy, with 4,483 athletes competing in 149 medal events.

We made an Olympic Heritage Collection available to the public that celebrates 130 years of Olympic art and design. For this series, emblems, pictograms, posters and mascots from all editions of the Olympic Games are featured, a spokesperson said. They noted that many athletes, like Jesse Owens, made significant achievements in defiance of Nazi ideologies.

The IOC mentioned that the historical context of the Berlin Games was explained at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, and only a limited number of the 1936 T-shirts had been produced and sold.