Olympic Affair Read online

  Praise for Terry Frei’s Previous Books

  Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming

  “We had a few friends over who thought we had lost our minds as we whooped and hollered through a football game so exciting it was billed as the Game of the Century. For a few hours, we were innocent again, totally caught up in the contest. The game and its cultural contexts have been beautifully chronicled by Terry Frei in his book Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming.”—Bill Clinton in My Life

  “. . . one of the better—and most readable—books of social history published in recent years.”—Paul Greenberg, Pulitzer Prize–winning editorial writer, Arkansas Democrat Gazette

  “. . . a superb blending of sports, history, and politics.”—Si Dunn, Dallas Morning News

  Third Down and a War to Go

  “Many times you hear athletes called heroes, and their deeds and accomplishments on the field are characterized as courageous. After reading Third Down and a War to Go, I am embarrassed to have ever been thought of as brave or courageous. . . . Enjoy this adventure in history, life, and courage and take it from a so-called tough guy—keep the hanky close by.”—Dan Fouts, Hall of Fame quarterback and CBS sportscaster

  “Brings to life, in shades of black and blue and blood red, the idea that certain things are worth fighting for.”—Rick Morrissey, Chicago Tribune

  “Mythology is nice. Truth is better. What a powerful piece of work . . . a telling detail in the great portrait of America at war, young men and women who saw their duty and did it no matter how much it scared them.”—Dave Kindred, The Sporting News, and author of Sound and Fury

  ’77: Denver, the Broncos, and a Coming of Age

  “. . . a must-read for fans of the NFL, of the 1970s, and of the American West. You didn’t have to live through it in Denver to appreciate this account of the flowering of a franchise and its love affair with a town, but this book takes those of us who did straight back to those thrilling days of yesteryear in unforgettable fashion.”—Michael Knisley, senior deputy editor, ESPN.com

  “Ahh, the memories. And they all happened right here in the forgotten time zone. Those magical moments came back with a rush last week reading ’77: Denver, the Broncos, and a Coming of Age. What a fantastic read. . . . ’77 is more than just a Bronco football memoir. It was a time when our Centennial State exploded on the national scene. . . . [T]hanks to Terry Frei’s wonderful work, we get to live that magical moment all over again.”—Dick Maynard, Grand Junction Sentinel

  “No one knows more about Denver and its sports than Terry Frei does, and here in ’77, he describes nothing less than the transformation of a city with a special focus on Denver’s most magical team. To know why and how the Mile High City exists as it does today, this is essential history.”—Sandy Clough, sports talk host, Denver’s FM Sports Radio 104.3, The Fan

  The Witch’s Season

  “Events carry the story forward swiftly, and that alone would make it a good read. But Frei has a larger point to make. It’s during times of upheaval, when the very foundations of normalcy are being shaken, that personal courage, honor and the willingness to stand fast on principle matter most. All of the central characters in Frei’s story will have to decide whether to make that stand, and if so, how to make it. Frei has written three nonfiction books, most notably Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming. This book proves he can write fiction too.”—Ken Goe, Portland Oregonian

  Playing Piano in a Brothel

  “For every story, there’s a story behind the story, and Frei’s book captures hundreds of them. Frei provides never-before-read tales of legendary athletes, monumental events and games behind the games, as well as his own opinion of newspaper sports journalism as a whole—and its future . . . A must-read for every sports fan.”—Doug Ottewill, Mile High Sports Magazine

  Olympic Affair

  Also by Terry Frei

  Nonfiction

  Playing Piano in a Brothel

  ’77: Denver, the Broncos, and a Coming of Age

  Third Down and a War to Go

  Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming

  Fiction

  The Witch’s Season

  Olympic Affair

  A Novel of Hitler’s Siren and America’s Hero

  Terry Frei

  TAYLOR TRADE PUBLISHING

  Lanham • New York • Boulder • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

  Published by Taylor Trade Publishing

  An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

  4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

  www.rowman.com

  10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom

  Distributed by National Book Network

  Copyright © 2012 by Terry Frei

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Frei, Terry, 1955-

  A novel of Hitler’s siren and America’s hero / Terry Frei.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  ISBN 978-1-58979-698-0 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-58979-699-7 (electronic)

  1. Morris, Glenn, 1911-1974—Fiction. 2. Decathletes—United States—Fiction. 3. Motion picture actors and actresses—United States—Fiction. 4. Riefenstahl, Leni—Fiction. 5. Women motion picture producers and directors—Germany— Fiction. I. Title. II. Title: Hitler’s siren and America’s hero.

  PS3606.R4477O49 2012

  813'.6—dc22

  2012017148

  ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Contents

  Praise for Terry Frei’s Previous Books

  Contents

  Chapter 1: Leni’s Visit

  Chapter 2: Glenn’s Trials

  Chapter 3: Leni’s Truth

  Chapter 4: Dempsey, Runyon, Morris

  Chapter 5: Bon Voyage

  Chapter 6: Onboard Bonding

  Chapter 7: Fire and Fury

  Chapter 8: Most Handsome

  Chapter 9: Queen of the Castle

  Chapter 10: Zehnkampf! Zehnkampf!

  Chapter 11: The First Looks

  Chapter 12: Max Schmeling, Center

  Chapter 13: Sauerbraten, Champagne

  Chapter 14: The Blue Light

  Chapter 15: Aren’t You Thomas Wolfe?

  Chapter 16: Helpless American

  Chapter 17: S.O.S. Iceberg

  Chapter 18: Opening Gambits

  Chapter 19: High Jump, High Drama

  Chapter 20: Leni’s Tantrum

  Chapter 21: Leni’s Idea

  Chapter 22: The Führer’s Box

  Chapter 23: Vaulting into the Night

  Chapter 24: Decathlon, Day One

  Chapter 25: Decathlon, Day Two

  Chapter 26: 1,500 Meters

  Chapter 27: Glenn’s Gold

  Chapter 28: Unwanted Company

  Chapter 29: The Spirit of What You’re Saying

  Chapter 30: On Tour

  Chapter 31: Glenn, Meet Eva

  Chapter 32: Leni and Glenn

  Chapter 33: Triumph of the Will

  Chapter 34: Homecoming and Hollywood

  Chapter 35: Olympia, U.S.A.

  Epilogue

  Author’s Afterword

  Appendix

  Resourc
es

  To Dr. Morris Ververs, for his considerable help and his

  quest to keep alive the memory of Glenn Morris.

  To Tony Phifer, for his friendship and for planting the idea.

  During a break in the decathlon competition in Berlin, Leni Riefenstahl reaches out to Glenn Morris. Other decathlon competitors, from left, are German Erwin Huber and Americans Bob Clark (farthest back) and Jack Parker (head turned). Courtesy National Archives, Photo No. 242-HD-245-1.

  1

  Leni’s Visit

  Simla, Colorado: Tuesday, September 3, 1974

  The cook squinted at the ticket on the wheel facing him, pretending to be deciphering the handwritten lunch order.

  “What language is that?” he asked softly.

  “English,” said the perky teenaged waitress, pointing at the ticket with her pen. “Can’t you read?”

  “No, I mean—”

  “I know what you meant,” she said impishly, nodding almost imperceptibly over her shoulder, in the direction of the man and woman conversing in a window booth. “German, I think. Or maybe Spanish.”

  Though her platinum hair unmistakably was dyed, the woman looked to be in her early sixties. Her smart pantsuit and haughtiness made her seem unwilling to concede anything beyond mid-fifties, even to herself. On the other side of the table, the skinny young man with shaggy blond hair was deferential, sipping his coffee as the woman animatedly made a point with both hands and a Teutonic torrent. Werner Vass had just turned thirty and he was accustomed to listening.

  The only customer at the four-seat counter, a middle-aged regular who owned the Simla Grocery next door, devoured the final bite of a hamburger and wiped his mouth with the paper napkin.

  “Kristy,” he called out to the waitress. “Half cup for the road, will ya?”

  As she poured the coffee, he told her bitterly, “It’s German, all right. I hope I made her a goddamn widow.”

  Kristy sneaked a look at the booth, where the woman continued her monologue, oblivious.

  The grocer raised his cup, took several swallows, and then slammed it down on the counter. He dropped four one-dollar bills on the counter and marched out.

  As the cook finished assembling the Germans’ sandwiches and slapped them on the plates—there were no “presentation” issues at the Simla Café—a stocky man in a dark suit, with a chauffeur’s hat tucked under one arm, entered and approached the booth. The Germans made no move to make room for him.

  “All gassed up,” he said.

  The woman responded in clipped and accented English. “How long will it take us to travel to the Denver airport?”

  “About two hours, ma’am.”

  Werner Vass looked at his watch and rattled off something in German to the woman. She nodded emphatically. Turning to the chauffeur, Vass said, “After we finish here, we would like to tour the area a bit more before leaving for Denver.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll be outside.”

  Kristy delivered the food, sliding the plates in front of them. Then she stepped back, put her hands together and smiled. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

  The woman’s return smile wasn’t warm; it was a formality. It was a smile offered in accompaniment with a request. “Perhaps some information,” she said. “How long you have lived in Simla?”

  “All my life,” Kristy said. “Except last year at CU . . . at college.” Self-conscious, she added, “I’m taking this semester off. Going back next . . .”

  The woman cut her off. “Are you or the cook aware of Glenn Morris?”

  “The Olympics guy, right?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Well, Eddie just moved here a couple of years ago. So I don’t think he does. But there’s a display case about him at the school and they always cover him in Modern American History. Won a gold medal in something at the Olympics in the twenties somewhere in . . .”

  Kristy’s pause was momentary, but something was clicking.

  “ . . . in Germany.”

  “Berlin,” the woman said, scolding. “The decathlon. And 1936.”

  “I guess that’s why I only got a ‘C,’” Kristy said lightly.

  The woman didn’t smile.

  Kristy squinted. “Didn’t he just die, too?”

  “In January,” the woman said flatly. “In California.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “Ye-e-e-e-s.” The woman drew out the word, as if she was deciding whether it would be the final one or she’d keep going. She didn’t keep going. Kristy interpreted the awkward pause as an excuse to leave and let them eat.

  When Kristy dropped off the check, Vass perused it and said, without looking up, “You say there is a display honoring Glenn Morris at the town school?”

  “Outside the gym.”

  “Where is this school?”

  The waitress pointed north. “A block up Caribou, right on Pueblo, up the hill and you can’t miss it. Gym’s the first thing you come to. School just started today.”

  A few minutes later, Vass stood back as the German woman, transfixed, looked over the glassed-in display. A bell rang and students scurried past. A sign in school colors, blue lettering on yellow background, stretched above the cases.

  glenn morris

  1936 Olympic Decathlon Champion

  Berlin, Germany

  Pictures from his youth established that Glenn had been a student leader and star athlete, both at Simla High and Colorado Agricultural College in Fort Collins, and handsome even then. Front pages from Colorado newspapers told of Morris’s Olympic triumph (“glenn morris captures decathlon crown”) and his tumultuous welcome home to Colorado. The woman lingered at each.

  A front cover of a German tabloid showed Morris, dark-haired and lean, yet chiseled, wearing a USA sweatshirt, smiling slyly at the camera, resting on one elbow as he lounged on grass. He was featured so prominently, his head even covered up part of the newspaper name. The editors apparently believed their readership didn’t need to be reminded of the title, but wanted to see the American star.

  Finally, she came to a newspaper picture of Morris in a dark USA pullover sweater, and a white collared shirt underneath, sitting on the edge of a bed and writing a note on the adjacent tiny desk. A framed picture of a prim young woman, her hair tied back, was next to his writing pad. The picture’s headline and caption proclaimed:

  remembers the girl he left behind

  Glenn Morris, the Colorado boy who is America’s hope in the decathlon, takes time out to write his girl back home.

  The German woman lingered.

  Vass solicitously placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “Er sollte bei mir übernachtet,” she snapped.

  She pulled away from his hand and moved toward the school doors.

  They hadn’t noticed that three boys had stopped behind them. It was as if a pedestrian looked up at the sky. These kids wanted to take a closer look at what was drawing the strangers’ interest.

  Starting in pursuit of the woman, Vass bumped one boy. “I’m sorry,” the German said. “Excuse me.”

  The kid pointed to the woman storming off. “What did she say?”

  Vass slowed and turned. Backing up, he told them, “She said . . . ‘He should have stayed with me.’”

  With no orders pending and only three customers in the cafe, the cook poured himself coffee, gathered up a couple of sections from the Denver Post piled by the cash register, sat at the counter, lit a cigarette, and started reading.

  In the front section, he skimmed pieces summing up the early days of the Gerald Ford administration and Richard Nixon’s hermit-like existence since his resignation. In sports, he checked on the status of Denver Broncos quarterback Charley Johnson’s wobbly knees. On the cover of the Rocky Mountain West section, he read of the freshman cadets reporting to the Air Force Academy fifty miles away in Colorado Springs and laughed at the pictures of hair shorn as barbers showed no mercy. He opened the section, flipped a couple of page
s and came to the beginning of the “Arts and Entertainment” pages.

  The lead story startled him. Above the headline were three face shots of the woman who a few minutes earlier had been sitting in the booth behind him. All three were from the same interview session. In the first, she smiled. In the middle, she was pensive. In the third, she decisively was making a point with her hand.

  The cook read the story twice.

  “Nazi” Controversy Mars Telluride Film Festival

  By Steven Garrison

  Western Slope Bureau

  TELLURIDE—By most standards, the inaugural Telluride Film Festival at the historic Sheridan Opera House in this southwestern Colorado mountain town was a spectacular success over the weekend, drawing marquee names, producing overflow crowds, and establishing itself as a can’t-miss stop on the festival circuit.

  Talks from acclaimed “Godfather” director Francis Ford Coppola and iconic actress Gloria Swanson were popular, but the appearance of German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, noted and criticized for her connection to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Third Reich, drew the most attention.

  Showings of two of the famed director’s works—“Blue Light,” a 1932 drama Riefenstahl also starred in, and Part 2 of “Olympia,” a documentary about the 1936 Olympics in Berlin—were respectfully, even reverentially, received in the showcase evening’s session. Many “Olympia” viewers were surprised to note that Riefenstahl placed a spotlight on a photogenic Coloradoan, American decathlon gold medalist Glenn Morris.

  Riefenstahl was given thunderous standing ovations after both films, and also when she was awarded a silver medallion as one of the festival’s main honorees. Her reaction was akin to those of prima ballerinas or opera sopranos, with her blowing kisses, repeatedly mouthing “thank you,” and accepting flowers.

  A showing of her most famous film, “Triumph of the Will,” the documentary about the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, was slotted for 1 a.m., drew a smaller crowd and surprisingly little reaction—positive or negative.