About Carl Diem
Carl Diem was a German sports administrator, and as a Secretary General of the Organizing Committee of the Berlin Olympic Games, he was also the chief organizer of the 1936 Olympic Summer Games. In 1906, Diem began his Olympic career, leading the German contingent of athletes to the Athens games (for reasons that are not entirely clear, the German delegation entered the stadium first in the parade of athletes). In 1909, the games for the summer of 1912 were awarded to Stockholm, but the IOC made it clear that Diem and his fellow organizers could expect to hold the 1916 games in Berlin. With support from the state, Diem also founded the Deutsche Hochschule für Leibesübungen, a school dedicated to the study of the science of sport. He created the tradition of the Olympic torch relay when he organised the 1936 build-up event, and was an influential historian of sport, particularly the Olympic games.
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