The tradition you’ll be surprised to know was started by the Nazis inspired one of the greatest hoaxes in Australia’s history
A MUCH-loved tradition that was started by the Nazis went on to inspire one of the most lauded hoaxes in Australian history. This is the incredible tale of a wild prank, the likes of which will probably never be repeated again.
Melbourne
Don't miss out on the headlines from Melbourne . Followed categories will be added to My News.
IT was 1956 and Melbourne was about to host the first Olympic Games outside Europe and North America.
The Olympic flame had been lit in Greece and had made a 20,000km trip around the globe on its way to the MCG.
The Lord Mayor of Sydney, Pat Hills, was now preparing to receive the torch in front of a huge crowd at Sydney Town Hall.
RELATED NEWS
AUSTRALIAN NAZIS’ EFFORT TO CHANGE POLITICS
NAZIS CAST MURKY SHADOW OVER ROYALS
It was scheduled to be delivered by athlete Harry Dillon.
As Hills was getting ready the crowd began to cheer. It appeared the torch had showed up early.
Flanked by police, a young man ran up to Hills and passed him the flame, burning atop a silver sceptre.
Hills took the torch, turned to the podium and began his speech.
A few moments later he was interrupted.
The torch, he was told, was a fake.
What the Lord Mayor was actually holding was a broken-off table leg spray-painted silver with a fruit tin nailed to the top.
A pair of undies had been doused in accelerant and set alight in the tin.
Paint was coming off in Hills’ palm. The young man in a white shirt who had delivered the flame had bolted. And any moment now the real flame was about to arrive.
In a wild prank, the likes of which will probably never be repeated in Australia, a bunch of university students had tricked Olympic organisers, officials, the Lord Mayor and the public.
The young man who delivered the torch was Barry Larkin, who, with several other students, plotted and carried out the hoax.
Larkin’s opposition to the torch relay was understandable.
Far from being an ancient tradition, the relay was a promotion started for the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
That means the tradition, still watched and adored by millions, and spread to the Commonwealth Games, was started by Nazis.
Many in the Third Reich believed that Ancient Greece was a genetic forerunner to the Aryan race and that the torch relay was a perfect symbol of the passage of those genetics from the old world to the new.
The Nazis were also suckers for fire and big crowds so the relay was a natural fit.
Carl Diem, one of the Germans in charge of the Games, designed and managed the relay as a way of spreading an impression of German cultural and economic might around the world.
The torch would start in Greece and would go all around the world before lighting a big cauldron before the Führer.
It has been a part of every Olympics since 1936, despite its origin.
In 1956, 11 years after the defeat of Hitler and the axis powers, ill feeling against the old foe was still held, not as much by Olympic organisers who were happy to indulge in Nazi publicity operation to drum up some national pride and unity.
But Larkin was supported by at least one of his university lecturers and his student peers who, it was rumoured, gave him a standing ovation during an exam sitting shortly after the prank.
But one of the most lauded hoaxes in the nation’s history almost fell at the starting line when one of Larkins’ mates, who was meant to be running with the torch, dropped it and ran away.
At this point nobody on the fringes of the crowd was taking the hoax torch seriously.
But when Larkin picked up the burning undies and resumed the run, the crowd began to part and the trick gained momentum.
Before long even the police had fallen for it and a guard was formed around the table leg and tin, which everyone was convinced was the real thing.
MORE MITCHELL TOY:
GREAT STORIES YOU’VE PROBABLY NEVER HEARD
GRAND MELBOURNE BUILDINGS THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN
After Larkin offloaded the torch onto the unsuspecting Lord Mayor, there was mass confusion when athlete Dillon came running up with the real torch.
Police soon realised what had happened and a truck had to clear a path through the crowd for the relay to continue.
The fake torch was taken alongside the real one to a reception where it was later taken and kept by an organiser.
Larkin finished his studies and became a veterinary surgeon. He was never punished for his part in the prank.
The real Olympic flame eventually arrived safely in Melbourne on November 22 where the cauldron was lit by Ron Clarke who accidentally burned himself and later rode home on the tram.
Australia ranked third in the Games behind the Soviet Union and the US.
Was bizarre shooting suicide pact or murder?
Two men walked into a Melbourne photography studio one afternoon in 1872 to pose with their pistols in a bizarre series of pictures. Hours later a gunshot rang out in nearby Treasury Gardens and their true intentions became clear.
Why Curtis Stone wants to come home
Curtis Stone is the Keilor East boy turned celebrity chef who now lives in a multimillion-dollar house in one of Los Angeles’ coolest suburbs. So how does he show his young kids how to be everyday Aussies?