Nazi propaganda clip removed from official Vancouver 2010 video

VANCOUVER 2010 organisers have removed a clip from their torch relay video after numerous complaints over the inclusion of a Nazi propaganda film.

CONTROVERSY: A clip of the 'Hitler Olympics' in 1936 has been removed for a Vanoc torch relay video

The clip, which features at the beginning of the video, named ‘Lights Will Guide You Home', contains a scene from Leni Riefenstahl's "Olympia," a Nazi propaganda film commissioned by Adolf Hitler about the 1936 Berlin Games.

Vanoc were evidently aware of the issue, having blacked out some portions of the video in which spectators can be seen giving a Nazi salute.

But following objections from the Canadian Jewish community, the clip has since been edited.

"In creating our video, we weighed our choices as to whether to leave the Berlin 1936 relay footage out entirely, to alter it in order to depoliticize it, or to leave it in unaltered," said Jim Richards, program director for Torch Relays, in an email statement to Canwest News Service.

"We chose the middle ground, in order to respect the relay's history while not highlighting the political environment of the day."

But the footage has now been removed from the Vanoc website.

"We are retiring the earlier video to focus on the highlight videos that show the tremendous excitement generated by the torch relay as it has made its way across the country," added Richards.

Riefenstahl, a German film actress, was commissioned by Hitler to make Olympia after she had made what historians call the premiere Nazi propaganda film, Triumph of the Will in 1933.