Hein ten Hoff

Hein ten Hoff (19 November 1919, Süddorf, Netherlands – 13 June 2003, Hamburg, Germany) was a German boxer and Präsident des Bundes Deutscher Berufsboxer (BDB).^[1]

He was the son of a Dutch peasant, who left The Netherlands for Germany (Oldenburg Land) in the end of the 1930s, and became a German citizen.^[2]

As an amateur boxer, Hein ten Hoff had 185 wins, 78 by KO, for a total of 194 fights. He was thrice a German champion in the Heavyweight class (1940, 1941 and 1944 – he beat Herbert Runge),^[3] and won the gold medal at the 1942 European Amateur Boxing Championships in Breslau.^[4] Between 1940 and 1944 Hoff was on the German national team 20 times,^[5] losing only once, to the Slovakian Rudolf Kus in January 1940, a loss Hoff reversed later that year with a KO-win in the first round.^[6]

After World War II, he was a professional boxer, from September 1945 until August 1955 (won 32 (KO 28), lost 7 (KO 3), drawn 4, for a total of 43 fights).^[7] The international boxing world referred to him as the "Gentleman of the Ring", "Künstler", or "Ästhet im Ring". He won the German BDB heavyweight title in 1946, then lost a ten round decision to Jersey Joe Walcott, the upcoming World champion, at Mannheim 1950, and finally won the EBU (European) heavyweight title, defeating Jack Gardner at West Berlin 1951.^[8] He retired from professional boxing in 1955 after he was knocked out by Ingemar Johansson, the upcoming World champion, in Gothenburg.

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