The most beloved emblems of the modern Olympics have a decidedly dark past.
The torch relay, which culminated in yesterday's ceremonial lighting of the flame at the Olympic stadium, was a creation of Adolf Hitler, who tried to turn the 1936 Berlin games into a celebration of the Third Reich.
And it was Hitler's Nazi propaganda machine that popularized the five interlocking rings as the symbol of the games.
Today, both are universally recognized icons of the Olym-pics. But historians say neither had much, if anything, to do with the games born centuries ago in ancient Olympia.
A sacred flame did burn 24 hours a day at Olympia, and at some other ancient festivals, relay racers passed a torch to light a sacrificial cauldron. But the ancient Greeks opened their Olympics by word of mouth, sending heralds, not torchbearers, running through the streets.
The modern tradition of spiriting an Olympic torch to the main stadium didn't become a fixture of the games until 1936, when a 12-day run opened the games in Berlin.
Hitler, who admired the powerful imagery of Greek gods such as Zeus, wanted his games to promote his belief in Aryan supremacy.
The torch relay, memorialized in Leni Riefenstahl's film Olympia, was part of the Nazi leader's elaborate attempt to add myth, mystique and glamor to an Olympics intended to intimidate pre-World War II Europe. In Hitler's eyes, the torch symbolized the perfection and victory of the German nation.
In The Modern Olympics: A Struggle for Revival, American historian David Young says the torch relay was invented by Carl Diem, a German who organized the 1936 games.
The Olympic rings, another universally recognized symbol of the games since they made their debut in 1920 at Antwerp, Belgium, have their own Nazi connection.
Originally, they were designed in 1913 by French Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the International Olympic Committee. They were supposed to symbolize the first five Olympics, but the congress disbanded when Archduke Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo, triggering World War I.
Riefenstahl, the filmmaker who chronicled Hitler's rise to power, had the rings carved into a stone altar at the ancient Greek city of Delphi, spawning the myth that they were a symbol dating back more than two millennia.
With Hitler's influence, the rings became part of the Nazi pageantry at Berlin, and they've come to symbolize the Olympics ever since.
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