Max Schmeling was born in Prussia in 1905 and took up boxing after his father showed him film of Jack Dempsey, yet he became a patient counterpuncher rather than a brawler. After winning German and European titles he went to New York in 1928 with manager Joe Jacobs. In 1930 he won the vacant heavyweight championship at Yankee Stadium when Jack Sharkey was disqualified for a low blow, making him the only man to win the heavyweight title on a foul, and the press called him the low blow champion. He lost the 1932 rematch on a disputed split decision. After the Nazis took power in 1933 he was cast as a symbol of the regime and was stopped in the tenth round by Max Baer, who wore a Star of David on his trunks.
In 1936, after studying film of Joe Louis, he spotted that Louis dropped his left hand after jabbing and knocked him out in the 12th round, but promoters gave the title shot to Louis instead. In the 1938 rematch Louis stopped him in two minutes and four seconds. Schmeling later said he was almost happy he lost, since a win would have made him a Nazi trophy. He refused orders to fire the Jewish Jacobs and, during the 1938 attacks on Berlin’s Jews, hid two Jewish boys in his hotel room. Wounded as a paratrooper on Crete in 1941, he later farmed mink, then became a major Coca-Cola bottler in West Germany. He died in 2005 at 99.
- He sparred with Jack Dempsey during Dempsey’s European tour.
- He married the Czech film actress Anny Ondra and stayed married to her for 54 years.
- At the Excelsior Hotel he claimed to be gravely ill so staff would not enter while the boys hid.
- He sent money to the struggling Joe Louis and paid for his funeral in 1981.
- He told the young Steffi Graf to keep her feet on the ground and remember that a smile costs nothing.
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