In Owens' own words: "I wasn't invited up to shake hands with Hitler- but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either."

Owens got a tickertape parade when he returned to America, but he didn't stay in the limelight long. To make money, he staged exhibition races against cats and dogs. He dealt with the pain of racism and segregation just like any other black American at the time. Late in life, his achievement was honored - he got the Medal of Freedom in 1976 - but he was rightfully never shy about expressing his injured feelings.

None of that excuses revisionism based on the uncorroborated word of one elderly witness.

On the first day of the 1936 Olympics, Hitler met with two German medalists and a Finnish medalist in his suite. In the afternoon, two black American athletes won medals - but Hitler had left. It looked very much like an intentional snub, and the world press noticed it. The next morning, the Olympic officials informed Hitler that he had to congratulate all athletes - or none. Hitler decided not to meet any other athletes, and thus did not meet Owens or any other medalist on the second day of competition, when Owens won his first medal.

The third day, Owens won again and was embraced by a German competitor in full sight of Hitler's stand. By the time he'd finished his races for the day (and won again), however, Hitler had again left.

Owens (and the vast majority of other competitors) never met Hitler personally. Owens later claimed Hitler smiled and waved at him, but there are no recordings or photographs of this.

Baldur von Shirach, the head of the Hitler Youth, wrote that Hitler said this the next day, in the midst of a very long rant:

"The Americans should be ashamed of themselves, letting Negroes win their medals for them. I shall not shake hands with this Negro... Do you really think that I will allow myself to be photographed shaking hands with a Negro?"

I don't generally like to agree with von Shirach, but I'll take his story over this random photographer's story.

EDIT: My references to "the photographer" are referring to a source posted in a deleted comment from the Daily Mail.

EDIT EDIT: The assertions from that article were swiftly debunked in the German press

Hitler didn't snub Owens specifically, but rather avoided congratulating (publicly) any athletes. During the opening day of the games, he met the German winner of an event (and a Finn too) to congratulate them and shake hands. He did in fact leave the stadium before the completion of a track and field event, which possibly is the origin of the "deliberate snub", but his departure was possibly timed with the elimination of the last German competitor in the high-jump that he had been there for. Owens was not racing at that time. However, it should be noted that Cornelius Johnson and David Albritton won gold and silver in the high jump, and were both African-American. So it is possible that Hitler left to snub black competitors, but it wasn't Owens. By the time Owens was racing Hitler had been chided by the IOC, who told him that it went against the spirit of the games to only congratulate some of the winners. If he was going to congratulate every German winner, it was only right that he would do so for every winner, regardless of their country of origin. So instead of doing the latter, he chose to congratulate no one^1 . By the time Owens won his first medal, this was Hitler's policy, so can't be taken as a specific snub.

Hitler seems to have known well enough to keep his feelings private, and according to Speer, was quite upset by Owens winning. He acknowledged that 'primitive man' might excel in certain physical attributes such as strength, but believed that this was an unfair advantage in competition, and all non-whites should be banned from future games. Further more, according to Baldur von Schirach, he stated the Americans should be "ashamed" that black men were winning their medals, and stated that he never would have shaken hands with any of them. When Schirach made the mistake of suggesting Hitler take a photo with Owens, Hitler "exploded in rage". Apparently later in life Owens told a reporter that Hitler did, in fact, pose for that picture, but it has never surfaced. (and also that report is from the Daily Mail, so...)

So the sum of it is that Hitler didn't go out of his way to snub Jessie Owens. But had it not been his policy by the time Owens won, his private behavior points to the fact that he would have, but in the end, everything is relying on recollections that might be faulty. What we can say with absolute certainty is that the racial policy of Nazi Germany, concerned with the racial hygiene of the "Aryans", was absolutely disposed against those of African ancestry

Third Reich in Power - Richard J. Evans

Hitler, 1936-1945: Nemesis - Ian Kershaw

By the Sword - Richard Cohen

^1 ^Or ^rather, ^instead ^of ^doing ^it ^publicly ^for ^the ^media, ^he ^continued ^to ^congratulate ^them ^but ^only ^in ^private. ^As ^an ^interesting ^aside, ^while ^I ^know ^that ^he ^did ^shake ^hands ^with ^her ^prior ^to ^the ^games, ^at ^a ^reception ^for ^the ^German ^team, ^I ^can't ^find ^whether ^he ^congratulated ^Helene ^Mayer ^after ^she ^took ^silver ^in ^Women's ^Foil. ^She ^was ^one ^of ^the ^few ^token ^Jews ^included ^on ^the ^German ^team, ^only ^after ^strong ^international ^pressure, ^and ^not ^without ^irony ^as ^her ^family ^had ^left ^Germany ^in ^1933. ^Reinhold ^Heydrich ^did, ^however, ^call ^her ^a ^*"Jewish ^cunt"* ^to ^her ^face ^for ^losing ^the ^gold ^medal ^match ^(Against ^an ^Hungarian ^Jew). ^Whether ^or ^not ^Hitler ^contacted ^her, ^she ^did ^invite ^controversy ^by ^giving ^the ^Nazi ^salute ^on ^the ^podium ^(as ^required ^by ^the ^party ^for ^all ^German ^medalists)

Since no one has addressed the bottom portion of OP's question yet: It's extremely unlikely that there were any black SS officers, and there certainly would have been none that were serving openly. Officer candidates in that organization needed to procure an official certification called a "Grosser Ariernachweis" (i.e. greater Aryan certificate), which traced the candidate's genealogy back through the year 1750 and demonstrated that it contained nothing but pure Aryan blood. There were similar but lesser requirements for membership in the Nazi party, or participation in any sort of government job.

(I am answering this via my phone, which does not have access to non-standard characters, so my apologies for the lack of umlauts and an eszett and such.)

I'd be interested in seeing a source on Black SS officers. In the US, excerpts from Mein Kampf on his view of Africans were printed in Black newspapers. Blacks were uneasy fighting for a country where they were second class citizens and against the Japanese (also people of color). This helped push the volunteer effort.

Nell Painter's Creating Black Americans is the source I can think of off the top of my head. I have another at home.~~

Sorry, I've combined some things. Black Americans did hear about Mein Kampf's passage on Africans, but I can't find any specifics on how. And Black Americans largely dropped their reservations about fighting Japanese after Pearl Harbor. I was thinking of the Double V campaign. Victory abroad and victory over racism domestically.

The actual source is Long Memory by Mary Frances Berry and John W. Blassingame

According to Owen himself (as reported in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette 8/24/1936, but there are other similar statements, from journalists and from Owen's daughter) Hitler waved at him and he waved back. Could this be defined a "friendly" attitude? Perhaps it was; nevertheless, at least according to "Inside the Third Reich" by Albert Speer (who, on Nazi trivial matters, is usually reliable), Hitler was quite disappointed by black athletes' successes at the Berlin Olympics, but he disguised his feeling in public. For sure the story of Hitler snubbing Owens was a propaganda fake. Hitler still remains a criminal and FDR one of the greatest US Presidents, but I don't think the German dictator would have been so stupid to spoil his Reich's "great event" with a so foolish move. He had something more criminally serious in his mind than a childish offence to the US athletes.

So we have been told that Hitler probably didn't have anything to do with Owens because he was racist. So what about FDR? Why won't anybody acknowledge that he was just as racist, as were the mores of the time?

This is maddening! It's like listening to someone talking on the phone and hearing half of an interesting conversation!