International Olympic Committee
When Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Movement, retired from the presidency in 1925 and becoming Honorary President, Henri de Baillet-Latour was elected as his successor. After the 1928 Summer Olympics, he tried – but failed – to ban women from all sports in the Olympics.
He was re-elected for a second term as IOC President in June 1933 and held the office for 17 years until his death in 1942. As IOC President, he focused on preserving the traditional ideals and integrity of the Olympics, and supporting amateur sport globally during a time of increasing political and commercial pressures, despite his antipathy towards Jews, and his desire to exclude women from participating in the Olympics. He was determined and diplomatic.
Henri de Baillet-Latour wrote to Avery Brundage in 1933: "I am not personally fond of jews [sic] and of the jewish [sic] influence, but I will not have them molested in no way [sic] whatsoever." Baillet-Latour opposed boycotting the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.
After the 1936 Summer Olympics, he became an honorary member of Freude und Arbeit, the Nazi sports organization led by German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. In 1938, his wife congratulated Hitler when he annexed the Sudetenland.
In June 1939, the IOC voted unanimously in favour of Germany organising the 1940 Winter Games, replacing Japan that had returned the right to organise the 1940 Games. De Baillet-Latour argued that the decision in favour of Nazi Germany, which had occupied the Czech rump state three months before, showed the IOC's independence of political influences.
In 1940, when Germany invaded Belgium, his wife thanked Hitler "for bringing Nazi ideology to Belgium".
