When Adolf Hitler commissioned Nazi Germany's favourite film director Leni Reifanstahl to document the 1936 Berlin Olympics, he and his propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels couldn't have imagined that there would be another nation, apart from the USA, refusing to salute the Fuhrer. (More Sports News)
The British India contingent comprised a bunch of inexperienced athletes with only shining glory being a two-time champion hockey team led by its resident magician Major Dhyan Chand.
The global media's focus was the United Stated of America refusing the traditional right-arm salute to Hitler during the opening ceremony but who would have thought that a contingent of amateur athletes wearing golden 'Kullahs' and light blue turban would do the unthinkable.
The contingent, with its flag-bearer Dhyan Chand, refused to salute and it was more of an emotional decision than political, taken by the team when the entire Third Reichsang the two national hymns 'Deutschland' and 'Horst Wessel Lied'.
In the book 'Olympic History: The India Story', co-authored by Boria Majumdar and Nalin Mehta, they have quoted Mirza Naseeruddin Masood, a member of the gold winning team, narrating that opening ceremony.