12 Facts About Theodor Lewald

Theodor Lewald was a civil servant in the German Reich and an executive of the International Olympic Committee.

Theodor Lewald was the President of the Olympic organising committee for the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.

In that role, Theodor Lewald attended the 1904 World's Fair, where he disagreed with Kaiser Wilhelm II over whether the Deutscher Olympischer Sportbund, of which he was the President, should be politically independent.

At the time of the Kapp Putsch, Theodor Lewald was the acting Head of Government as all ministers had left Berlin.

Theodor Lewald refused being forced at gun-point to provide government funds for elements in the military in revolt.

In 1935, Theodor Lewald recommended that Pierre de Coubertin be awarded a Nobel Prize.

Theodor Lewald became a member of the International Olympic Committee in 1926, and was one of three Germans on the Committee that awarded Berlin the 1936 Summer Olympics.

Theodor Lewald had previously argued for Germany to be allowed to attend the 1928 Summer Olympics, after being banned in 1920 and 1924.

In November 1932, Theodor Lewald gained permission to create an independent Organising Committee for the Games, which was created in January 1933.

Theodor Lewald gave a formal speech at the opening of the 1936 Summer Olympics, although he protested the treatment of German Jews during the Games.

Theodor Lewald had previously assured the IOC that German Jews would not be excluded from the Games.

The Olympiastadion in Berlin that was built for the Games contained an Olympic bell, which Theodor Lewald had suggested, and Theodor Lewald suggested one of the designs for the Olympic torch, as well as getting the IOC to approve the torch route from Olympia to Berlin.