One short of his centuary:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/front_page/1321910.stm
Max Schmeling passes away
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Old bones Ian
- Heavyweight
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- Joined: 13 Jul 2004, 07:33
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BubiScholz
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 1879
- Joined: 02 Feb 2004, 13:02
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E
- Heavyweight
I don't think he was definitely Germany's greatest ever sportsperson....BubiScholz wrote:very sad, this brings a tear in my eye. germany´s greatest sportsman of all times and one of europes boxing greats is gone.
Michael Schumacher
Boris Becker
Steffi Graf
Katrina Witt
Birgit Fischer
Jan Ullrich
Franz Beckenbauer
Lars Riedel
...amongst others may be greater.
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Max Molyneux
- Heavyweight
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jamesmcdonnell
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 45229
- Joined: 12 Nov 2003, 06:11
Strange twist of fate that Louis beat the living shit out of him, but ended up dying broke and dissolute, whilst Schmeling went on to become a successful businessman and lived to 99, and that in later years Schmelling helped Louis out.
It's a great story really the Louis/Schmelling one, I think you could make a great film out of it actually, with the two men looking back over their lives and the events that made them.
It's a great story really the Louis/Schmelling one, I think you could make a great film out of it actually, with the two men looking back over their lives and the events that made them.
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E
- Heavyweight
jamesmcdonnell wrote:Strange twist of fate that Louis beat the living shit out of him, but ended up dying broke and dissolute, whilst Schmeling went on to become a successful businessman and lived to 99, and that in later years Schmelling helped Louis out.
It's a great story really the Louis/Schmelling one, I think you could make a great film out of it actually, with the two men looking back over their lives and the events that made them.
Well, Max did beat the shit out of Louis first... it was a twelve round beating and the ending was brutal.
SteveO wrote:Knockout - The oldest living ex heavyweight champion now is 72 year old Ingemar Johansson (born 22nd September 1932)
It is believed that Al Hostak may be the oldest-living former World Champion:
http://www.boxrec.com/boxer_display.php?boxer_id=013957
And here's to a great human being! Well done, Max!
I just looked through who was the oldest and Pete Sarron beats him by quite a few years, almost 10yrs to be precise.
Then next would come Battling Shaw,Eddie `Babe` Risko and Heinz Lazek.
Thats what Boxrec has them as anyway
http://www.boxrec.com/boxer_display.php?boxer_id=009591
Then next would come Battling Shaw,Eddie `Babe` Risko and Heinz Lazek.
Thats what Boxrec has them as anyway
http://www.boxrec.com/boxer_display.php?boxer_id=009591
Max was never really given his due as a fighter because he won the heavyweight title on a foul (a brutal low blow from Jack Sharkey, who knew what low blows could do in that era, given fighters didn't wear groin protectors; Sharkey had been hit low himself by Jack Dempsey, turned to complain and was sparked).
Max was then the recipient of a horrible decision in the rematch ("We wuz robbed!" cried Schmeling's manager Joe Jacobs, one of the most famous boxing lines of all time).
The fight was refereed (and scored) by Sharkey's mate, Gunboat Smith.
But the legendary German proved his worth in wins over Young Stribling, Mickey Walker and, of course, the formidable Joe Louis.
He was the first European to win the world heavyweight title.
I always liked Schmeling. If he was a Nazi (as some have ignorantly stated), how come he had a Jewish manager! He used to compare Hitler's appearance to Charlie Chaplin.
But Max's right hand was no laughing matter. In many ways, Max was too gentlemanly to be a fighter. He carried the Basque iron man, Paulino Uzcudun, for 15 rounds, pleaded with the referee to stop the Mickey Walker fight after the Toy Bulldog had been knocked down for the umpteenth time and, as we know, proved a great friend to Joe Louis when others deserted him. He paid for Joe's lavish funeral in Las Vegas, attended by hundreds of dignitaries who had kept their hands firmly in their pockets.
I was praying he would live to to be a 100 so he would have his name flashed around the world again.
Max was then the recipient of a horrible decision in the rematch ("We wuz robbed!" cried Schmeling's manager Joe Jacobs, one of the most famous boxing lines of all time).
The fight was refereed (and scored) by Sharkey's mate, Gunboat Smith.
But the legendary German proved his worth in wins over Young Stribling, Mickey Walker and, of course, the formidable Joe Louis.
He was the first European to win the world heavyweight title.
I always liked Schmeling. If he was a Nazi (as some have ignorantly stated), how come he had a Jewish manager! He used to compare Hitler's appearance to Charlie Chaplin.
But Max's right hand was no laughing matter. In many ways, Max was too gentlemanly to be a fighter. He carried the Basque iron man, Paulino Uzcudun, for 15 rounds, pleaded with the referee to stop the Mickey Walker fight after the Toy Bulldog had been knocked down for the umpteenth time and, as we know, proved a great friend to Joe Louis when others deserted him. He paid for Joe's lavish funeral in Las Vegas, attended by hundreds of dignitaries who had kept their hands firmly in their pockets.
I was praying he would live to to be a 100 so he would have his name flashed around the world again.
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The Gaffer
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 72
- Joined: 09 Jun 2004, 05:07
Nice article by John Rawling from today's Guardian...
John Rawling
Monday February 7, 2005
The Guardian
The precise truth behind the bravery of the former world heavyweight champion Max Schmeling might never have been known were it not for a reception staged at the Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas 16 years ago. It was there that the owner of the Nevada Hilton group of hotels, Henri Lewin, made a speech that stunned the audience and for me placed Schmeling, who died last week aged 99, among the greatest sporting figures of all time.
Lewin told a story that had never been heard in public before: that Schmeling had risked his own life to save two young Jewish brothers in 1938 from being sent to the Nazi death camps.
Many knew how Schmeling held the title from 1930 to 1932 and fought Joe Louis twice in fights that captured a level of world attention no other contests did until Muhammad Ali became the first darling of the television era. Unwillingly, Schmeling had been championed by the Nazi Germany of Adolf Hitler as the embodiment of Aryan supremacy after he knocked out Louis in 1936 in a huge upset, and older fans remembered the evil atmosphere that surrounded the re-match two years later, a year before the outbreak of the second world war.
Before the fight, the president of the United States Franklin D Roosevelt had summoned Louis to tell him "these muscles are fighting for the free world" and wildly partisan American media had referred to Schmeling as the "Heil Hitler Hitter" and "Nazi Max", even though nothing could have been further from the truth. In fact, Schmeling had refused to denounce his Jewish friends, sack his Jewish manager Joe Jacobs and would not countenance his government's suggestion that he should leave his Czech wife Anny Ondra for a more acceptable representative of the master race. But it did not stop a crowd of more than 70,000 gathering in New York's Yankee Stadium for the fight built up as one between the good black man and the evil Schmeling. Unless, of course, you happened to live in the Third Reich, where Joseph Goebbels controlled a media reporting how a noble German was fighting for his country's glory against a black American savage.
In his autobiography, published many years later, Schmeling recalls the terrifying 100-metre walk from his dressing room to the ring. "No excitement or curiosity awaited me. It was sheer hatred. I could not defend myself against the feeling that I was going to the guillotine."
When the bell rang, Schmeling was annihilated in only 124 seconds. Louis and the US celebrated while the radio link back to Germany was cut before their champion was counted out. "From hero to zero" might have been a phrase invented for Schmeling, who quickly became a forgotten man with the German press.
Later the same year the fighter risked his life to save the two teenaged sons of a close friend. As thousands of Jews were rounded up in the Kristallnacht campaign while Nazi gangs smashed synagogues and Jewish businesses across Germany, the Lewin boys hid in Schmeling's apartment at the Excelsior Hotel in Berlin, after the fighter had sent a message to reception that he was unwell and was not, in any circumstance, to be disturbed.
Eventually, the danger passed and Schmeling was able to pull the strings necessary for the two boys to be spirited away from Germany to a new life in China and later the US. Henri Lewin started work as a waiter, but rose to become one of the most powerful figures in Las Vegas while, in post-war Germany, Schmeling became massively wealthy and one of his country's most respected philanthropists after becoming the first to bottle and distribute Coca-Cola in his homeland.
The fighter rarely gave interviews, modestly said nothing of the thousands of dollars he gave to his old rival Louis when his friend, in huge financial difficulties, was unable to pay his medical bills as his health failed. Nor was it widely known that Schmeling paid for Louis's funeral in 1981. And he never said a word about the boys he had saved. But Lewin invited Schmeling, then almost 84, to his hotel and was determined the world should know his secret.
Witnesses say Schmeling wept quietly as Lewin fought back tears of his own to honour his guest, saying how the fighter had risked his fame, reputation and, quite probably, his life. "If we had been found in his apartment, I would not be here this evening, and neither would Max," the guests were told.
After his fighting career ended, and he became a revered and seemingly indestructible sporting figure who outlived all his contemporaries, Schmeling was asked to review some of the epic moments of his life. He said of his 1938 loss to Louis: "Looking back, I am almost happy I lost that fight." He reasoned that Germany's unforgiving conquerors might have labelled him a war criminal if Hitler had continued to give him the profile of a hero. Instead, as a paratrooper, he was one of very few German sporting figures to see active service.
"I don't want anybody to say I was a good athlete but worth nothing as a human being," he added.
Not for one moment could that be said. Schmeling was a fighter who beat a young Louis, which makes him very good indeed. And on Friday, as he was buried alongside his beloved Anny, Germany remembered an inspirational human being
John Rawling
Monday February 7, 2005
The Guardian
The precise truth behind the bravery of the former world heavyweight champion Max Schmeling might never have been known were it not for a reception staged at the Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas 16 years ago. It was there that the owner of the Nevada Hilton group of hotels, Henri Lewin, made a speech that stunned the audience and for me placed Schmeling, who died last week aged 99, among the greatest sporting figures of all time.
Lewin told a story that had never been heard in public before: that Schmeling had risked his own life to save two young Jewish brothers in 1938 from being sent to the Nazi death camps.
Many knew how Schmeling held the title from 1930 to 1932 and fought Joe Louis twice in fights that captured a level of world attention no other contests did until Muhammad Ali became the first darling of the television era. Unwillingly, Schmeling had been championed by the Nazi Germany of Adolf Hitler as the embodiment of Aryan supremacy after he knocked out Louis in 1936 in a huge upset, and older fans remembered the evil atmosphere that surrounded the re-match two years later, a year before the outbreak of the second world war.
Before the fight, the president of the United States Franklin D Roosevelt had summoned Louis to tell him "these muscles are fighting for the free world" and wildly partisan American media had referred to Schmeling as the "Heil Hitler Hitter" and "Nazi Max", even though nothing could have been further from the truth. In fact, Schmeling had refused to denounce his Jewish friends, sack his Jewish manager Joe Jacobs and would not countenance his government's suggestion that he should leave his Czech wife Anny Ondra for a more acceptable representative of the master race. But it did not stop a crowd of more than 70,000 gathering in New York's Yankee Stadium for the fight built up as one between the good black man and the evil Schmeling. Unless, of course, you happened to live in the Third Reich, where Joseph Goebbels controlled a media reporting how a noble German was fighting for his country's glory against a black American savage.
In his autobiography, published many years later, Schmeling recalls the terrifying 100-metre walk from his dressing room to the ring. "No excitement or curiosity awaited me. It was sheer hatred. I could not defend myself against the feeling that I was going to the guillotine."
When the bell rang, Schmeling was annihilated in only 124 seconds. Louis and the US celebrated while the radio link back to Germany was cut before their champion was counted out. "From hero to zero" might have been a phrase invented for Schmeling, who quickly became a forgotten man with the German press.
Later the same year the fighter risked his life to save the two teenaged sons of a close friend. As thousands of Jews were rounded up in the Kristallnacht campaign while Nazi gangs smashed synagogues and Jewish businesses across Germany, the Lewin boys hid in Schmeling's apartment at the Excelsior Hotel in Berlin, after the fighter had sent a message to reception that he was unwell and was not, in any circumstance, to be disturbed.
Eventually, the danger passed and Schmeling was able to pull the strings necessary for the two boys to be spirited away from Germany to a new life in China and later the US. Henri Lewin started work as a waiter, but rose to become one of the most powerful figures in Las Vegas while, in post-war Germany, Schmeling became massively wealthy and one of his country's most respected philanthropists after becoming the first to bottle and distribute Coca-Cola in his homeland.
The fighter rarely gave interviews, modestly said nothing of the thousands of dollars he gave to his old rival Louis when his friend, in huge financial difficulties, was unable to pay his medical bills as his health failed. Nor was it widely known that Schmeling paid for Louis's funeral in 1981. And he never said a word about the boys he had saved. But Lewin invited Schmeling, then almost 84, to his hotel and was determined the world should know his secret.
Witnesses say Schmeling wept quietly as Lewin fought back tears of his own to honour his guest, saying how the fighter had risked his fame, reputation and, quite probably, his life. "If we had been found in his apartment, I would not be here this evening, and neither would Max," the guests were told.
After his fighting career ended, and he became a revered and seemingly indestructible sporting figure who outlived all his contemporaries, Schmeling was asked to review some of the epic moments of his life. He said of his 1938 loss to Louis: "Looking back, I am almost happy I lost that fight." He reasoned that Germany's unforgiving conquerors might have labelled him a war criminal if Hitler had continued to give him the profile of a hero. Instead, as a paratrooper, he was one of very few German sporting figures to see active service.
"I don't want anybody to say I was a good athlete but worth nothing as a human being," he added.
Not for one moment could that be said. Schmeling was a fighter who beat a young Louis, which makes him very good indeed. And on Friday, as he was buried alongside his beloved Anny, Germany remembered an inspirational human being
