Home >
Max Schmeling vs. Joe Louis...
Max Schmeling vs. Joe Louis...
Item # 584010
Currently Unavailable. Contact us if you would like to be placed on a want list or to be notified if a similar item is available.
June 20, 1936
TAUNTON DAILY GAZETTE, Taunton, Massachusetts, June 20, 1936.
* Max Schmeling (German boxer)
* Joe Louis (Brown Bomber)
* Heavyweight boxing match UPSET (1st report)
Page 2 has a photo with heading: "GERMAN ARTILLERY UNLOOSED"
Page 5 has one column headings: "Schmeling's Victory Very Convincing" "Knockout of Louis Gives Max Another Shot at the Title"
Yest another photo on page 9 with heading: "LOUIS DROPS UNDER FIRE" (see)
Other news, sports and advertisements of the day. Some margin wear and chipping, otherwise good condition.
wikipedia notes: In 1936, the situation in Germany had changed. Schmeling traveled to New York to face up-and-coming dark-skinned boxer Joe Louis, who was undefeated and considered unbeatable. Upon his arrival, Schmeling claimed that he had found a flaw in Louis' style, observing the way in which he dropped his guard after throwing a punch. He surprised the boxing world by handing Louis his first defeat, dropping him in round four and knocking him out in the 12th. Schmeling returned to Germany on the Hindenburg as a hero.
Louis and his mainly black supporters[citation needed] were devastated by the defeat. Schmeling himself was also affected; when Louis finally won the world Heavyweight crown in 1937, he said he would not consider himself a champion until he beat Schmeling in a rematch.
The rematch came, at Yankee Stadium, on June 22, 1938, with Louis defending his crown. By then, a second world war was clearly looming on the horizon, and the fight was viewed worldwide as symbolic battle for superiority between two likely adversaries. In American pre-fight publicity, Schmeling was cast as the Nazi warrior, while Louis was portrayed as a defender of American ideals.
The fight was broadcast by radio all over the United States (on NBC with Clem McCarthy) and Europe. In 2005 it was selected for permanent preservation in the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress. German sports writer with the Associated Press, Roy Kammerer , based in Berlin wrote in 2005: "The fight was a huge event worldwide and left a lasting impression on his era of Germans, who followed blow-by-blow on radio."[citation needed] Kammerers account is supported by a 1988 letter to the Sport Editor of the New York Times[1].
Louis retained the title by a technical knockout later in the first, and Hitler took this defeat as an embarrassment to his country.
Schmeling was branded as a "Nazi" by many boxing fans, but this is untrue. In reality, Schmeling became quite unpopular among Germans after the embarrassing loss to the black man, and was not used anymore in Nazi propaganda, which was a relief to him. In 1928, he hired Joe Jacobs, a Jew, to be his manager. He would point to this fact for the rest of his life in defending himself against charges of Nazi sympathy.
In 1938, during the Kristallnacht, Schmeling hid two teenage sons of a Jewish friend in his Berlin hotel room, protecting them from the SS and Gestapo at great risk to himself. The two boys, Henry and Werner Lewin, were eventually smuggled out of Germany with Schmeling's help.
One year after that defeat against Louis, Max Schmeling came back winning the European Heavyweight Title.
When World War II broke out in 1939, Schmeling was drafted into the German Luftwaffe and served as an elite Fallschirmjäger. Following its end he was interned briefly, still recovering from injuries sustained in the war. Afterwards, he frequently visited American troops, giving away signed photos and taking pictures with the American soldiers.
Category: The 20th Century
No Longer Available
