Henri de Baillet-Latour

Henri de Baillet-Latour, Count of Baillet-Latour (1 March 1876 – 6 January 1942) was a Belgian aristocrat and the third president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Early life Henri de Baillet-Latour was born in Brussels, Belgium, on 1 March 1876. He was the oldest of three children. His father was Count Ferdinand de Baillet-Latour, former governor of the Province of Antwerp, and his mother was Countess Caroline d'Oultremont de Duras. The 1920 Games turned out to be a huge success despite the short notice,

International Olympic Committee When Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Movement, retired from the presidency in 1925 and becoming Honorary President, Henri de Baillet-Latour was elected as his successor.

He was re-elected for a second term as IOC President in June 1933 and held the office for 17 years until his death in 1942. Baillet-Latour opposed boycotting the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.

After the 1936 Summer Olympics, he became an honorary member of Freude und Arbeit, the Nazi sports organization led by German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. In 1938, his wife congratulated Hitler when he annexed the Sudetenland.

In June 1939, the IOC voted unanimously in favour of Germany organising the 1940 Winter Games, replacing Japan that had returned the right to organise the 1940 Games. De Baillet-Latour argued that the decision in favour of Nazi Germany, which had occupied the Czech rump state three months before, showed the IOC's independence of political influences.

In 1940, when Germany invaded Belgium, his wife thanked Hitler "for bringing Nazi ideology to Belgium".

Death He died of a heart attack on 6 January 1942 in Brussels. His funeral was attended by leading Nazis, and German soldiers stood guard over his coffin, on which lay a wreath with a swastika which had been sent by Adolf Hitler.

Four months before his death, his only son had died, aged 36, in a plane crash on the Isle of Arran, Scotland, while on active service with the Free Belgian forces.

Henri de Baillet-Latour was succeeded as IOC president by his vice-president J. Sigfrid Edström.