Lutz Long and Jesse Owen waling arm-in-arm at the 1936 Olympics
On August 4, 1936, Jesse Owens of the United States won the second of his four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics. Jesse won the long jump, beating the German soldier/athlete Lutz Long. The defeated German was the first to congratulate Jesse, giving the black American a hug. This enraged Adolph Hitler.
Today, the anniversary of that embrace, we celebrate the meaning of friendship. True friendship is never defined by race, class, politics, or war; it is a matter of the soul.
Jesse would tell people throughout his life, “It took a lot of courage for Lutz to befriend me in front of Hitler. You can melt down all the medals and cups I have, and they wouldn’t be a plating on the 24-karat friendship I felt for Lutz Long at that moment. Hitler must have gone crazy watching us embrace.”
Lutz and Owens remained friends after the Olympics, exchanging letters even after America entered the European war theater in December 1941. Lutz served with the German Army in North Africa before being killed in action on July 14, 1943, defending Nazi-held Sicily from the Allied invasion.
Lutz wrote his last letter to Jesse Owens in the spring of 1943. He seemed aware of his soon-to-be death on the battlefield. He wrote from North Africa :
_______________________________
– “‘I am here, Jesse, where it seems there is only the dry sand and the wet blood. I do not fear so much for myself, my friend Jesse, I fear for my woman who is home, and my young son Karl, who has never really known his father.’
– ‘My heart tells me, if I am honest with you, that this is the last letter I shall ever write. If it is so, I ask you something. It is something so very important to me. It is you go to Germany when this war is done, someday find my Karl [Kai], and tell him about his father. Tell him, Jesse, what times were like when we were not separated by war. I am saying—tell him how things can be between men on this earth.’
– ‘If you do this something for me, this thing that I need the most to know will be done, I do something for you, now. I tell you something I know you want to hear. And it is true.’
– ‘That hour in Berlin when I first spoke to you, when you had your knee upon the ground, I knew that you were in prayer.’
– ‘Then I not know how I know. Now I do. I know it is never by chance that we come together. I come to you that hour in 1936 for purpose more than der Berliner Olympiade.’
– ‘And you, I believe, will read this letter, while it should not be possible to reach you ever, for purpose more even than our friendship.’
– ‘I believe this shall come about because I think now that God will make it come about. This is what I have to tell you, Jesse.’
– ‘I think I might believe in God.’
– ‘And I pray to him that, even while it should not be possible for this to reach you ever, these words I write will still be read by you.'”
Your brother,
Lutz
_________________________________
Left to right: Luz Long’s granddaughter Julia, Luz’s son Karl (Kai), and Jesse Owen’s granddaughter Marlene (Owens) Dortch. The IAAF World Championships in Athletics at Berlin, August 2009. Photograph globoesporte.globo.com.
Jesse Owens did receive Lutz’s last letter. In 1951, he fulfilled his friend’s last request. Jesse traveled to Germany to meet 10-year-old Kai Long, the now orphan son of Lutz Long (Kai’s mother had also died during the war).
A decade later, Jesse Owens would be the best man at Kai Long’s wedding. Jesse Owens remained a fatherly friend to Kai until Jesse died on March 31, 1980.
But the story doesn’t end with Jesse’s death.
In 2009, the IAAF World Championship in Athletics was held in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, where the 1936 Olympics took place.
Jesse Owens’ granddaughter Marlene (Owens) Dortch, Lutz’s son Karl (Kai), and Lutz’s granddaughter Julia represented the Owens and Long families at the awards presentation, giving the gold medal to the winner of the long jump.
Lutz Long and Jesse Owens teach this world how real friendship can cross political, social, cultural, ethnic, and class lines.
The International Day of Friendship is July 30. On August 4, 2022, we remember one of the most remarkable illustrations of friendship.
A beautiful post, WADE. Thank you for sharing this with us.
Your story is an affirmation of the ways in which humane people on this Earth can see beyond the ‘labels’ that have served more to ‘divide’ us from our brothers and sisters who also bear the image of God
. . . . humane people are infinitely more important to each other than their differences and the friendship of Jesse and Lutz are a testament to that truth.
it has been said, we can only love Our Lord as much as we can refrain from our contempt of ‘the others’ in whom we have failed to see ‘the image of God’
‘Blessed is He Who comes in human frailty to walk the road we walk.
Open my eyes that I may see Him coming.’
(excerpt from a Palm Sunday prayer)
Wade,
I believe you’re writing by talking into your machine: “Lutz Long and Jesse Owen waling arm-in-arm…” 😊
Google states that over 5,000 athletes from 49 counties competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. I would think at least 49 people competed in the long jump that Jesse won. I doubt that Jesse got 48 hugs. I believe Lutz and Jesse were friends before the contest.
REX RAY,
did you hear the speech given by Viktor Orban (Hungarian Prime Minister)
at CPAC?
I’m sure it was mostly ‘expected’ topics, but there is some real controversy about his invitation to speak at CPAC
AFTER it became widely known that he parroted Adolf Hitler in a comment he made in a speech in Hungarian where he said, this:
“”We are willing to mix with one another, but we do not want to become peoples of mixed race,” he said.”
REX RAY, his own close advisor resigned after hearing this speech, claiming it was comparable to something Goebbels would write for Hitler to say. . . .
Seems Viktor Orban is being looked at now as a ‘fascist’ by some in his own country.
Times are changing in our land. But I will NEVER accept the words of President Trump after the Charlottesville horror that ‘there were fine people on both sides’ . . . . . that went too far for me.
I hope if Orban ever preaches Goebbels’ garbage here in America, he will not receive a standing ovation at CPAC. I can hope. We shall see.
CHRISTIANE,
I Googled CPAC but couldn’t learn much. We had our yearly Ray Reunion this week. Five stayed at our house a few days. It was good to catch up on new and remembering the old stories.
You may remember my brother-in-law, Rollie. He has a ‘twisted gift’ in making things funny. He and my youngest sister went into a rest runt. She is a very outgoing person and started talking to a Black family who were eating. Rollie told them he was sorry she was bothering them, but she’d been released from a mental intuition that morning.
Rollie teaches an older women’s Sunday School class in his church in Parrington, Texas. and has been on several mission trips to Hungary which is in Europe.
He was asked to pray in dismissing our Sunday morning service yesterday. He told me he’d never seen such a bad song service where seven words are repeated eleven times.
Last night, in our business meeting, I suggested the members have their input on what songs they’d like to sing. So, a questioner is going to be given.
Shot two Racoons tonight that was eating up our bird food.
CHRISTIANE,
I don’t want to kill another raccoon. I killed one that ended up close to our sidewalk. Previously, I had shot one that was ten feet from our sidewalk. This morning there were two dead raccoons within 10 inches of each other near the sidewalk.
So, at the end of the day, I’ll put the birdseed in the closed garage.
CHRISTIANE,
Did you hear today about the FBI raiding Trump’s home hoping they’d find something connecting him to January 6th?
He is a possible candidate in the next Presidential election
Good morning, REX RAY,
I used to feed squirrels on our deck up at the lake. We put out piles of sunflower seeds for them. Such a pleasure to see them feeding in those days.
I did how this morning about the raid. My understanding is that it was ordered as a part of an investigation to see whether or not Trump had broken the law about Presidential records by taking some of his records, classified and unclassified, with him when he left the White House, rather than turning them over to the proper archives as is the law since the days of Nixon’s fiasco.
I don’t yet know what was found. I certainly hope he did not take anything with him that was ‘classified’, at least. That would have threatened national security as well as broken the law. (?)
I do know he might be a candidate in ’24.
We shall see. ’24 is right around the corner.
I’ve heard that many Republicans want DeSantis to run also.
I want the old Republican Party back, but it has changed too much, I think.
Those days are gone.
We NEED a strong and honorable two party system for democracy to work and we are way too divided these days. I hope we can avoid chaos.
Jan 6th was a huge red light that trouble runs deep in our land now.
Have you watched any of the hearings? Very depressing to witness.
Good morning, REX RAY,
I used to feed squirrels on our deck up at the lake. We put out piles of sunflower seeds for them. Such a pleasure to see them feeding in those days.
I did how this morning about the raid. My understanding is that it was ordered as a part of an investigation to see whether or not Trump had broken the law about Presidential records by taking some of his records, classified and unclassified, with him when he left the White House, rather than turning them over to the proper archives as is the law since the days of Nixon’s fiasco.
I don’t yet know what was found. I certainly hope he did not take anything with him that was ‘classified’, at least. That would have threatened national security as well as broken the law. (?)
I do know he might be a candidate in ’24.
We shall see. ’24 is right around the corner.
I’ve heard that many Republicans want DeSantis to run also.
I want the old Republican Party back, but it has changed too much, I think.
Those days are gone.
We NEED a strong and honorable two party system for democracy to work and we are way too divided these days. I hope we can avoid chaos.
Jan 6th was a huge red light that trouble runs deep in our land now.
Have you watched any of the hearings? Very depressing to witness.
CHRISTIANE,
Who had the most to gain by JFK’s death? Who has the most to gain by Trump being limited from being a candidate for President?
CHRISTIANE,
Did you know the President can influence the FBI in what to do?
Hey out there, REX RAY
I just learned this morning that on Fox News, Eric Trump outed his father as having influenced the DOJ under his presidency.
OMG, I don’t think Eric knows how things are supposed to be done regarding the influence of the Executive and the operations of the Department of Justice. He didn’t know!
That was a shocking interview, yes.
CHRISTIANE,
We listened to CNN and Fox news about the raid on Trump’s home (who wasn’t there.) It sounded like two different stories. Fox said they had a ‘safecracker’ to open Trump’s safe. It was empty.
Do you believe if it was legal to do what was done to Trump (no search warrant) could be done to anyone? Now don’t be like a young relative of ours when asked why he hit a little girl. He said, “My mouth’s tired of talking.”
Hello out there, REX RAY
I have replied to your comments but my replies didn’t make it through the machine, (?)
I think a judge had to see ‘evidence’ of a real need to investigate prior to authorizing the raid according to law,
Details will be coming out in time.
’24 is coming and I agree with you that DT will be a candidate and it should be interesting to see what happens
As for the summer heat, stay out of it, it’s too much for us older folks.
REX RAY,
today, I heard two interesting things:
first, that the DOJ (Dept. of Justice) cannot discuss the investigation into Trump’s presidential documents steal from the archives
second, that Trump has a COPY of the ‘warrant’ that a judge authorized which explains WHY the FBI was directed to get the Presidential documents from Mar A Lago.
My concern is why did T. take those documents with him, knowing that they were the property of the American people and were to be stored in the archives ???
So Trump knows the REASONS for the FBI ‘raid’. He knows it was legal, at a judge’s order. The warrant is specific.
DOJ will not talk about it,
but DT can disclose the contents of that warrant to the public IF he chooses and if he does not choose, that is his business.
Gosar wants to ‘get rid of the FBI’. Good grief! What next? 🙂
CHRISTIANE,
Do you remember when J. Edward Hoover was head of the FBI? He thought they were more important than our government. He said, it’s our job to convince the American people that Oswald killed JFK. Jack Ruby and Oswald were paid by the FBI as informants.
Our Dad, Dave Ray, was a Chaplain and a Captain. His assistant, Jack was a Private. Once, Jack wanted to skip breakfast and sleep in his foxhole, but Dad made him get up and eat. A few minutes later, a German shell blew Jack’s Bible to pieces. It was under his pillow.
None of the men had a mustache except Jack. Dad asked him to shave it off many times, but he wouldn’t. The others resented him refusing Dad’s request.
After weeks of sleeping in foxholes, they came to a barn full of hay and slept like dead men. But some got fresh droppings from a chicken pen, and smeared Jack’s mustache.
Next morning, they started telling Jack how bad the barn smelled. They were disappointed when he didn’t say anything, but laughed their heads off, when he went outside saying “The whole world stinks!” He shaved it off.
CHRISTIANE,
J. Edward Hoover was the most feared man in Washington. Google states: “Hoover’s longevity as FBI director can in part be attributed to his secret files. These enabled him to intimidate even sitting presidents by threatening to leak damaging disclosures about them.”
Once he knew his ‘informant’ had committed murder, but he let two innocence men take the blame. One died in prison, and the other served 30 years.
JFK was going to force him to retire because he was over the age limit, but you know what happened to JFK.
CHRISTIANE,
JFK appointed his brother Robert, Attorney General. He found out that LBJ had pushed getting General Dynamics in Fort Worth, Texas (I worked there 3 years) a seven billion contract to build the F-111 fighter plane.
That was good, but not good was LBJ receiving a $100,000 kickback. JFK decided it wouldn’t look good for his Vice-president to go to prison, so the next year LBJ would be dropped, and then charges would be brought against him.
CHRISTINE,
I may have told you a Catholic General had a meeting with all the Chaplains in World War II. He said they’d stay behind the front 50 miles. Dad got in his jeep to leave, and the General asked where he was going.
“Back to the front, I take my orders from God; not you!”
When the war was over, the General transferred him to France, where he was a ‘prisoner’ for 13 months. Finally General Eisenhour got him released.
When Dad heard that Catholic JFK was killed, he ran into the house yelling to our mother, “Elizabeth, we have a Texan for a President.”
REX RAY,
I can see some wisdom in extracting government sensitive security documents from Mar A Lago because these documents, if sold to ‘friends’ of Trump overseas, might be a security risk for our nation. I say this knowing that Trump’s son told reporters that ‘we get all the money we need from Russia’, so there would be cause to worry about ‘transactions’ that might benefit both the Trump family financially AND Putin, whom Trump idolizes and seems beholden to. Putin would love to see Trump restored to power and Putin would love to see an end to American democracy, like so many among the right wing these days. I want to see our country remain a democratic republic, but anything can happen in ’24 so I’m prepared for changes to come.
My understanding is that the documents removed from Mar A Lago were held illegally by the former president and were removed by court order and returned to the correct facility where these presidential documents are stored (the Annex).
Trump might release the contents of the warrant against him to the public, but if he chooses not to do so, which is his right,
the court may go ahead and release the contents directly to the public.
I do wonder what that warrant says. I can imagine, but it would just be a guess.
CHRISTIANE,
Forbes estimates Trump’s wealth to be $3 billion as of February 17, 2022, Trump’s wealth arises from a variety of sources, including gifts, loans, and inheritance from his father, Fred Trump; trust funds; fundraising; and business deals and investments.
Was America better off under Trump, or now?
REX RAY,
That’s an excellent question.
Depends on whom you ask.
If you ask certain ‘groups’ who felt emboldened to march in Charlottesville, the answer might be very different than
if you were to ask the Capitol police and guards who defended our nation’s Capitol and our Congressmen and the Vice President on Jan. 6th.
It’s a good question, Rex Ray.
But the country made the decision not to re-elect him. And now there are many Americans out there who want to take away the votes of individual American voters so that our democracy ends.
Maybe our democracy was a dream that could not last? But our nation’s soldiers fought and died for OUR right to have a voice at the ballot box.
A lot of people support Trump. People like the pastor Jeffress and like Franklin Graham.
But I would not vote for him, no. For reasons of conscience, REX RAY.
But I tell you this most honestly that I would DEFEND your right to vote for him to the end of my strength.
Maybe that matters to some people still . . . . that we American support one another’s VOICES to be heard, to be listened to, to be allowed to be heard.
I ask this: what is the prime loyalty of any American citizen to his/her country? Is it loyalty to a PERSON, or to the US Constitution ?
Are we a nation of laws?
Is any of what we have worth saving? Or do the politics of destruction win in the end and we are no more the country we were when our fathers and grandfathers fought for her???
Keep asking good questions, REX RAY. I’m listening. I hear you. I support your right to your opinion and voice at the ballot box. You bet!
REX RAY,
the news today is DIFFERENT on ‘Fox News’
from what is on CNN or MSNBC
there is something FOX is not reporting
take a look – there must be a reason FOX is not reporting something
?
CHRISTIANE,
A good thing about Fox News is Obama hated it; Trump called CNN “fake news”.
One thing I like is not the price of gasoline or inflation, but that our Texas governor, Greg Abbott is putting illegal people on busses and ‘giving’ them to New York.
The mayor told Abbott he was going to send them back to Texas. Abbott replied, “Go ahead; make my day.”
Hey REX RAY,
In 2019, it was Pompeo who suggested that the Chinese woman who breached security at Mar A Lago was possibly a Chinese spy.
So it was already out in the international community that something was being kept at Mar A Lago that was ‘sensitive’ government materials even then.
Will we know what is IN those boxes of classified materials? The boxes especially taken (how did they do this) from a SKIFF facility which no one can take from, as the documents are kept only in the lock-up and qualified people come into these facilities to read them)
I don’t think we will know the full story UNLESS this becomes a legal matter and someone is charged. To be honest, the possible charges are horrendous.
FOX NEWS supports Trump and sees accusations against him as political attacks. The problem here is that I’m not sure FOX NEWS or Republican congressmen yet have ENOUGH information to proceed in their defense of what Trump did (taking classified materials that belong in secure locations only).
I’m waiting to find out what happens next. I agree with one thing: if the DOJ takes Trump to court for possible espionage activity, they BETTER have their ducks in row
OR
it will appear that they have politically targeted Trump.
So far it doesn’t look good for Trump. He has some ‘splainin to do to the American people about WHY he is holding such sensitive materials in his private home. (?)
We live in interesting times. What will tomorrow bring ?
REX RAY,
Trump has a ‘history’, unfortunately, unless this ALSO is ‘fake news’:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%27s_disclosures_of_classified_information#:~:text=Notably%2C%20on%20May%2010%2C%202017,and%20its%20allies%2C%20especially%20Israel.
They updated this to include reference to the haul of secret documents from Mar-A-Lago this week.
Do you think this is also ‘fake news’?
REX RAY,
I found something that I would like your opinion on, this:
“4. God and Public Religion. No nation can long endure without humility and gratitude before God and fear of his judgment that are found in authentic religious tradition. For millennia, the Bible has been our surest guide, nourishing a fitting orientation toward God, to the political traditions of the nation, to public morals, to the defense of the weak, and to the recognition of things rightly regarded as sacred. The Bible should be read as the first among the sources of a shared Western civilization in schools and universities, and as the rightful inheritance of believers and non-believers alike. Where a Christian majority exists, public life should be rooted in Christianity and its moral vision, which should be honored by the state and other institutions both public and private. At the same time, Jews and other religious minorities are to be protected in the observance of their own traditions, in the free governance of their communal institutions, and in all matters pertaining to the rearing and education of their children. Adult individuals should be protected from religious or ideological coercion in their private lives and in their homes.”
REX RAY,
the source is from a larger document called “National Conservatism: A Statement of Principles”
and here is the link:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/national-conservatism-a-statement-of-principles/
Hope you had a good weekend now that the worst of the summer heat is going to end and it will soon be cooler, thank God! No problem if you don’t want to comment, but let me know how you are doing.