The Boys in the Boat

As Joe and his team sleep on the Manhattan, Nazi soldiers ensure Berlin is spotless. The city is transformed until it appears movie-ready. Leni Riefenstahl sets up her cameras, and “she and all of Berlin waited for the rest of the cast to arrive” (300).

On board the Manhattan, Joe and his teammates eat, watch movies, and mingle with the other Olympians. The ship docks in Hamburg, and the boys take a train to Berlin, where the locals gawk at their height—they are all over six feet, except for Bobby. The boys are set up in Kop nick, a charming, 18th-century village a few miles from the racetrack at Grunau. Joe marvels at the town, which is so different from anything in Washington.

The boys practice in Grunau and find the German oarsmen to be “courteous” but “a bit arrogant” (310). They baffle the locals by responding to “Heil Hitler!” with “Heil Roosevelt!” (311). Ulbrickson studies the competition and decides that the British boat is “the boat to beat” (313).

At the Olympic opening ceremony, Goebbels and Leni Riefenstahl scream at each other over the placement of her cameras. As representatives from the various nations file into the stadium, some offer the Nazi salute, and some offer the Olympic salute, but the Americans offer no salute at all to Hitler, holding “the Stars and Stripes defiantly aloft” (318).