Jesse Owens

James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens (September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete and four-time Olympic gold medalist.

Owens specialized in the sprints and the long jump and was recognized in his lifetime as "perhaps the greatest and most famous athlete in track and field history". His achievement of setting three world records and tying another in less than an hour at the 1935 Big Ten track meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has been called "the greatest 45 minutes ever in sport" and has never been equaled. At the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, Owens won international fame with four gold medals: 100 meters, 200 meters, long jump, and 4 × 100 meter relay. He was the most successful athlete at the games and, being an African-American, gave an embarrassing blow to Adolf Hitler's wish to use the Games as a showcase of Aryan supremacy.

Although legend says that Hitler departed the stadium early, as a snub to Owens, some reports indicate that Hitler made his decision because of inclement weather before Owens was announced. Owens himself and a few witnesses later testified that he had met and shaken the hand of Hitler, and the meeting between the two was cordial. Because this contradicted the popular post-World War II image of the event, Owens kept silent about this except to a few people.

Jesse Owens in After the Downfall
Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. Führer Adolf Hitler refused even to shake the winner's hand, because Nazi doctrine stated that Negroes were less than human. Hasso Pemsel realised, from his time in Bucovin, how fallacious this theory was.

Literary comment
It is understandable that Pemsel would be mistaken about the handshake affair.