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Carl Diem, chief organizer of the Berlin 1936 Olympics, conceived a torch relay with Hellenic Olympic Committee director general Ioannis Ketseas after 1934 International Olympic Committee meetings in Greece.
The inaugural July 20, 1936 torch-lighting ceremony in Ancient Olympia began a procession from Greece to Germany that glorified Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and foreshadowed the Nazis’ ruthless bid to rule all of Europe. A photograph in the official book of the Modern Olympic Games Museum shows torchbearers with their right arms stretched in the Nazi salute.
“Germany, however, was no receptive ground for the message of peace which the Olympic flame was supposed above all to convey and the overall pioneering concept of the torch relay was only used to provide the setting for a stage show directed and put on by the Germans,” wrote University of Athens archeologist Vassiliki Tzachrista.
Before 1936, fire and torches were part of Olympic lore, though not officially. A torch procession happened on the seventh day of the 1896 Games at 9 p.m. in Athens. When Athens hosted the so-called Intercalary Games 10 years later, 1,000 soldiers carried a torch around the Greek capital. Cauldrons were lit at Olympic stadiums in Amsterdam 1928 and Los Angeles 1932.
The flame for Vancouver 2010 was lit Oct. 22 in Ancient Olympia. The relay’s penultimate day in Greece coincided with the national holiday commemorating Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas’s Oct. 28, 1940 refusal to allow Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini’s entry to Greece. Italy eventually invaded, but Greeks proudly celebrate “no” day every year.
Closer to home, the Montreal Canadiens adopted a flaming torch as an inspirational symbol and hung a sign reading “To you from failing hands we throw the torch. Be yours to hold it high” in their Montreal Forum dressing room. The motto is from John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields,” the poignant World War I poem recited every Remembrance Day.
When the Habs played their last game at the Forum on March 11, 1996, a torch was passed among a a succession of living ex-captains to then-captain Pierre Turgeon.