Talk:Max Schmeling

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Amazingly, this article is better than the one on German Wikipedia. Just a few corrections: Schmeling's first fight against Louis in 1936 was no championship fight, simply because none of them was the champion then. You might add that Schmeling was married to Czech actress and producer Anny Ondra, and that he made some -- rather mediocre -- movies and also tried his luck as a singer, recording just one -- awful -- title: "Das Herz eines Boxers [A Boxer's Heart]". Holger, Oct. 04, 2004

Seems that somebody filled up this article with a lot of nonsense: Schmeling wasn't born at Stettin, and his wife Anny Ondra was Austrian born.

According to the articles from PBS [1] and NPR [2] they were friends at least since a 1954 meeting. --Blainster 17:55, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Is the "boxing report" external link suppose to link to that website's homepage or a specific page related to Max Schmeling? -- Davidrand

Are there any examples of "suicide missions" that hitler sent him on the become a "very dead hero?"

Of course not, it's all nonsense.

A few days after Schmelling's death I was listening to Paul Harvey, and there was a "rest of the story" segment which said that when Schmeling was in his 80's he was walking down the street with his grandson when a mugger confronted Schmeling and his Grandson and demanded Schmeling's wallet. Schmeling acted like he was reaching for his wallet, but instead made a fist, punched the mugger and knocked him out cold. Unfortunately, I don't feel as if I remember enough of the details accurately to add this to the Wikipedia entry. The Paul Harvey broadcast was either in late 2004 or early 2005. Stilgar 20:25, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

This did happen, not to Schmeling, but to a friend of his, Gerhard Brinkmann[3]. Patabongo 16:53, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Black vs African American vs Negro

"Schmeling was considered a "shot" fighter."(what is a "shot" fighter? this word seems to be some sort of undefined slang) "In 1936, the situation in Germany had changed. Schmeling came over to New York to face the up-and-coming Negro American Joe Louis, "('Negro' was the term used at the time of these events, we should prefer the term 'negro' to the term 'black' if we arent going to use the term African-American, the 'Negro' article amplifies the social import and impact of this fight more than does either of the terms African-American or Black ) "who was undefeated and considered unbeatable."

We have two Articles that bear on this: Negro and African-American and negro seems to me to fit the cultural perspective of the time and to serve better to amplify the importance placed on the fights at the time. User:Pedant 68.183.79.92 18:16, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
In 1936 and right through to the 1960s, Negro was considered to be a term of respect. It is probably just "antique" now. Many great black leaders including Martin Luther King refered to themselve as Negros, as this was the normal word to use when refering to black people. Wallie 21:27, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] =============================================

[edit] Radio Broadcast of the 1938 Fight

Wikipedia's article on Max Schmeling contains the statement:

"Joseph Goebbels ordered that the broadcast of the fight to Germany be cut off."

However, German sports writer with the Associated Press, Roy Kammerer , based in Berlin, wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times, Feb. 5, 2005, that "The fight was a huge event worldwide and left a lasting impression on his era of Germans, who followed blow-by-blow on radio."

And there is this letter to the New York Times:

July 3, 1988 No Knockout Of Broadcast LEAD: To the Sports Editor:

To the Sports Editor:

The Title Fight That Was Bigger Than Boxing (The Times, June 19) was of great interest to me. You write, Part of the postfight lore . . . is that the German broadcast of the bout was cut off before the fight ended. It was not.

As 13-year-old students at the Jewish boarding school Internat Hirsch at Coburg, Germany, and interested in heavyweight boxing, we asked to be awakened at 1 A.M. that day to hear the fight. Some of the kids missed it because it was over before they got to the radio.

I have never forgotten the German announcer's plea: Get up, get up Maxie, please get up - oh no, oh no - stay down - it's over! Weeks before, the German newspapers showed pictures of Louis's right thumb as being overly long as well as other statistics to imply unfair advantage over Schmeling.

We applauded Louis's victory as a ray of hope for us. We had grown up among Nazi pomp and muscle flexing, witnessing repeated accommodations of the West to Hitler and almost believing that they were unbeatable and that all others - including ourselves -were as inferior and weak as they wanted us to believe.

LUDWIG (LARRY) STEIN Chappaqua, N.Y.


There's a mistake...Schmelings Manager Joe Jakobs wasn't dead in 1938 ....he was not allowed at the ring during the rematch between Louis and Schmeling. Jacobs died 1940 or 1941. Greatings Friedie

[edit] Loaded Glove?

There was an unsupported claim in the article that Louis may have used illegal means (an object in his glove apart from his fist) to win his second fight with Schmeling. Not only is the assertion unsupported and full of weasel words but it is contradicted by the available evidence. At the time there was no suggestion that Louis cheated, he was favoured to win because of his youth, superior speed, greater punching power and the perception that he was more skilled. For a heavyweight boxer to hit someone hard enough to break ribs is not remarkable and does not in and of itself constitute evidence of foul play. I have removed this claim since it has been made with no evidence apart from the contention that Louis was not known for powerful body punches which is contradicted by a number of sources including his wikipedia article. Doc Meroe 04:03, 5 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Saved two Jewish kids

I think the "dubious - discuss" tag to Schmeling saving two Jewish kids should be removed. Here is evidence:

"He hid two Jewish boys in his Berlin apartment during Kristallnacht (search) in 1938, when the Nazis burned books in a central square and rampaged through the city, setting synagogues on fire."

From: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,146369,00.html

What do you think?

Here's some more evidence that he helped Jews

"and later reportedly helped some Jewish friends escape death camps."

From: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20050205/ai_n9723789