BoxRec

I think perhaps the second Louis-Schmeling fight seems to been more important in retrospect in historical revisionism.
No one knew in June1938 how really bad Adolf Hitler and the NAZI's really were.
No one in the West knew of the concentration camps.
Louis's victory did not stop WWII.
Hitler did not invade Poland until September 1939.
America only became involved in the war
when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour December.7.1941.

Brutu wrote:I think perhaps the second Louis-Schmeling fight seems to been more important in retrospect in historical revisionism.
No one knew in June1938 how really bad Adolf Hitler and the NAZI's really were.
No one in the West knew of the concentration camps.
Louis's victory did not stop WWII.
Hitler did not invade Poland until September 1939.
America only became involved in the war
when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour December.7.1941.

Americans did not regard Hitler as good ole Uncle Adolph. Hitler had already pulled out of the League of Nations, rejected the Versailles Treaty and began to re-arm, won back the Saar, remilitarized the Rhineland, formed the "axis" with Fascist Italy, began giving massive military aid to Franco in Spain, and annexed Austria. Just two months after Louis beat Schmeling, he annexed the Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia). The following year saw him invade Poland, forcing Britain and France to declare war. Before the fight, Roosevelt told Louis that America needed muscles like his to defeat Germany. Those comments hardly sound like we weren't concerned about German power. Although the magnitude of Hitler's Holocaust did not become known until after the War, the Nazi treatment of the Jews beginning in 1933 revealed Hitler's long-term plan to remove these people from German society.

By beating Schmeling in so convincing a fashion, Louis provided a real morale boost to Americans who were apprehensive of Hitler's aggression in Europe. The win was highly significant.

raylaw.......right on the nose!!!! no revisionism...this is the way it was!!!!

raylawpc wrote:

Brutu wrote:I think perhaps the second Louis-Schmeling fight seems to been more important in retrospect in historical revisionism.
No one knew in June1938 how really bad Adolf Hitler and the NAZI's really were.
No one in the West knew of the concentration camps.
Louis's victory did not stop WWII.
Hitler did not invade Poland until September 1939.
America only became involved in the war
when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour December.7.1941.

Americans did not regard Hitler as good ole Uncle Adolph. Hitler had already pulled out of the League of Nations, rejected the Versailles Treaty and began to re-arm, won back the Saar, remilitarized the Rhineland, formed the "axis" with Fascist Italy, began giving massive military aid to Franco in Spain, and annexed Austria. Just two months after Louis beat Schmeling, he annexed the Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia). The following year saw him invade Poland, forcing Britain and France to declare war. Before the fight, Roosevelt told Louis that America needed muscles like his to defeat Germany. Those comments hardly sound like we weren't concerned about German power. Although the magnitude of Hitler's Holocaust did not become known until after the War, the Nazi treatment of the Jews beginning in 1933 revealed Hitler's long-term plan to remove these people from German society.

By beating Schmeling in so convincing a fashion, Louis provided a real morale boost to Americans who were apprehensive of Hitler's aggression in Europe. The win was highly significant.

Not to mention the 1936 Olympics too.