Forgotten German hero deserves recognition

Max Schmeling never wanted much out of life.

In a 1985 interview, the former heavyweight… Max Schmeling never wanted much out of life.

In a 1985 interview, the former heavyweight champion said, “I had a happy marriage and a nice wife. I accomplished everything you can. What more can you want?”

One of the things he never wanted to be, though, was a poster boy for the Nazi cause. But when the German-born Schmeling, who died last week at his home in Germany at the age of 99, knocked out the previously undefeated Joe Louis in the 12th round of their 1936 title bout, the Nazi regime hyped the win as indicative of Aryan supremacy. Schmeling became a national hero.

However, Schmeling didn’t agree with the Nazi party or any of its politics. He’s said to have spent long hours in discussion with Hitler and Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, both of whom sought to make him an international symbol of Aryan greatness. Schmeling resisted.

Despite what must have been some intense pressure from the German government, Schmeling refused to officially join the Nazi party. He defied Hitler again and again, first refusing to fire his Jewish-American manager, then by not divorcing his Czech-born wife, actress Anny Ondra.

Standing up to and publicly defying Hitler himself was, by anyone’s standards, a damn gutsy move on Schmeling’s part. And what’s more, he didn’t stop there.

Before the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Schmeling got Hitler to promise that all of the U.S. athletes would receive proper protection to ensure against politically, religiously and racially motivated attacks — attacks that would have undoubtedly occurred, given that the U.S. Olympic team had Jewish and black members.

Two years later, when mobs took to the streets and began burning books and destroying Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues during Kristallnacht — the “night of broken glass” — Schmeling hid two Jewish brothers in his Berlin apartment, later using his influence to help the boys flee the country.

Schmeling and Louis met again in the ring in June 1938. This time, the fight was so highly anticipated and politically charged that President Franklin D. Roosevelt invited Louis to the White House beforehand and gave him a pep talk.

This time, it was Louis who left the ring standing. He knocked Schmeling out just after two minutes into the first round. The German landed only one punch before hitting the canvas four times.

In 1975, Schmeling said he was almost glad he had lost the rematch. “Just imagine if I would have come back to Germany with a victory. I had nothing to do with the Nazis, but they would have given me a medal. After the war, I might have been considered a war criminal.”

After the loss, the Nazis distanced themselves from Schmeling. His continued defiance of the Nazi brass persuaded Hitler to draft him into the service as a parachutist and send him on suicide missions.

After the war, Schmeling and Louis became close friends. Both struggled in their post-boxing lives, but Schmeling ultimately became a successful businessman and accumulated a good deal of wealth. He frequently and quietly sent the destitute Louis money to help get by. When Louis died in 1981, it was Schmeling who paid for the funeral.

Max Schmeling died leaving one of the most extraordinary, yet virtually unknown, legacies of the 20th century.

Before Schmeling and Louis fought for the second time, U.S. propaganda branded the fight as being good vs. evil, American vs. Nazi. And Schmeling, despite his resistance to the Nazis, was painted evil with the same brush.

It’s because of the lasting effects of said propaganda, and because he was forced for so many years to try to walk an apolitical line during a politically charged era, that people today are largely ignorant of just how great a man Schmeling really was.

We’re all guilty of compromising our values at one time or another, and Schmeling, who walked a very fine line between neutral and Nazi for several years, was no exception. But this was a guy who had everything to lose — a wife, a career, the love of a whole country — and he still risked it all to do what he knew was right. This is a man who deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Oskar Schindler, but is still often thought of in the United States as a poster boy of Nazism.

It’s very unfortunate that only now, after his death, is his story receiving the attention it deserves. We can only hope that Max Schmeling’s real legacy will outlive and overshadow that of the false propaganda that tarnished it.

E-mail Matt Wein at mattwein@hotmail.com.