What Would Have Pelosi Told U.S. Athletes Competing in The 1936 Olympics?

Shortly before the commencement of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi while condemning Chinese human rights abuses warned U.S. athletes not to criticize the Chinese government.

"If we do not speak out against human rights violations in China, because of commercial interests, we lose all moral authority to speak out against human rights violations anywhere," said Pelosi. 

But then Pelosi added, "Do not risk incurring the anger of the Chinese government because they are ruthless."

So Pelosi's admonition to American athletes basically undermined her previous declaration regarding the moral authority to speak out against China.

But who better to speak out against Chinese human rights abuses than American athletes on Chinese soil?

With that I wonder what Pelosi would have said to American athletes competing in the 1936 Winter and Summer Olympics held in Nazi Germany. 

Most people are familiar with Jesse Owens' triumph against Aryan supremacy at the '36 Summer Olympics in Berlin. But fewer are familiar with the Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Bavaria. 

During the Winter Games, an American hockey goalie named Francis Baker told an angry Adolf Hitler, irate the American team wouldn't give him a Nazi salute during the Opening Ceremonies, 'We will not only beat Germany in hockey tomorrow. In addition, Die Vereinigten Staaten werden Deutschland immer besiegen: The United States will always defeat Germany."

The following day the American hockey beat the German hockey team 1-0 and went on to win the bronze medal. Nearly a decade later, the Americans would beat the Germans on the battlefield with some help from Baker who stormed Normandy beach during the D-Day Invasion. 

If I had an audience with Speaker Pelosi I would ask her if Francis Baker was wrong to risk incurring the anger of Hitler. 

If Speaker Pelosi acknowledged that Baker was right to stand up to Hitler on German soil I would then ask her why it would be wrong for an American athlete to criticize the Chinese government on Chinese soil.