A Brief History
On August 26, 1972, the XX Olympiad, Summer Games portion, opened in Munich, West Germany. Historic for many reasons, this edition of the Olympics featured the first ever named mascot of an Olympic Games, a Dachshund named “Waldi.”
Digging Deeper
In 1932, a Scottish Terrier born in the Olympic Village in Los Angeles became an unofficial mascot, and in 1968, Mexico City gave us a Red Jaguar, although again, unofficially. Many mascots have been depictions of fauna endemic to the country or area the Olympics were being held at, and of course the Dachshund is a dog closely associated with Germany.
The name, Dachshund, means “Badger Dog” in German, and the fierce little guys were bred to dive right into the burrows of those ferocious weasels. Although loving and gentle with people in general, even with children, the Dachshund is often named as the most ferocious dog of them all!
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Daniels, George. XX Olympiad: Munich 1972, Innsbruck 1976. Warwick Press Inc., 2015.
Large, David Clay. Munich 1972: Tragedy, Terror, and Triumph at the Olympic Games. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by Friedrich Magnussen (1914-1987), is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
