By Mark Pace

Embedded somewhere in the cobwebs of the darkening lost memories of time is my forgotten episode of how John W. Dale of Rossville and I delved into some significant historical events in Germany. These included such subjects as the victory there of Jesse Owens, a black American who won four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and later when Dale saw both of the two notorious European warlords together, German dictator Adolf Hitler and Italy’s Benito Mussolini.

True, what I learned was not modern nor breaking news. However, during my 80 years of involvement in the newspaper industry, my first interview with him in 1996 was from a witness of worldwide history in the making.

Dale, accompanied by his wife, Alyadean, 60 years after the above events, attended the 60th annual membership meeting of North Georgia Electric Membership Corp. (NGEMC) in the Northwest Georgia Trade and Convention Center in Dalton.

I was walking through the crowd, greeting friends and making photographs when I noticed a couple I did not remember ever seeing there before. I first was attracted by the shirt of bright colors and designs the man was wearing.

He was a volunteer on the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. The colored rings and designs on his shirt identified him as an Olympic volunteer. He was with the 4th Brigade Tennessee Defense Force in the Ocoee River area, serving as a volunteer with military security, as well as with language skills with foreign ambassadors, athletes and their coaches.

He qualified for the position due to his ability to speak languages in four tongues: English, Russian, Greek and Czechoslovakian.

Dale pointed out that this was not his first World Olympics experience because, as a young boy, he served on worker assignments at the 1936 World Olympics in Germany. As he pointed out a number of incidents that occurred there, my interest in our conversation skyrocketed at the velocity of a missile fired from a cannon.

It continued into additional conversations later after he mentioned other incidents of great and expanding interest.

A native of Germany, Dale was born in Bresslau of Catholic heritage. The family lived most of their lives in Hanover, and it was the wish of his grandmother that he enter the priesthood.

At age 9 as a Pathfinder, a Roman Catholic group, his assignment was picking up trash from just outside the Berlin stadium while getting views of the 1936 Olympics as America’s Jesse Owens outran track competitors.

“I heard the crowds cheering,” he recalled, “and suddenly it got quiet. I knew something was wrong. That’s when Owens won the Olympics foot race and Hitler got up and walked out of the stadium.”

That was not the only major event for him. The second one could well go on record for him having seen both Hitler and Mussolini together.

In 1936, at age 11, when he was automatically enlisted into the Hitler Youth Group, he was standing on assignment at a railroad crossing in Hanover. To his surprise, in a stationary train, he saw both Hitler and Mussolini seated together in a car and chatting.