After winning gold 80 years ago at the Berlin Summer Games, a diver had a heated exchange with Adolf Hitler.
Marshall Wayne was born in St. Louis and raised in south Florida by his parents who were vaudeville performers.
His niece and 102-year-old sister still live in Independence and remember the early years.
"There were a lot of tumbling acts in the vaudeville,” JoAnn Wyman, Wayne’s niece, said. “And he would watch them, and they would teach him moves. He was a wonderful tumbler.”
Wayne won AAU titles in 1934 and 1936, and with no coach and no international experience, he paid his own way to the Olympic trials and made the team.
In Berlin, Wayne ended up winning gold in the 10-meter platform, beating the heavily favored German Hermann Stork.
That angered Hitler who not only had to put the gold around Wayne’s neck, but he also had to hand out 10 total medals to the American Men’s and Women’s Diving Teams who almost swept the competition. Hitler was not happy and confronted Wayne.
Wayne never revealed exactly what was said during the heated exchange, but in 1943 while he was flying against the Luftwaffe, he told his fellow pilots, “With what I’ve seen of the Germans, I am not in doubt as to the outcome of the war.”
Wayne died in June 1999.
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