Max Schmeling: an Autobiography

Max Schmeling is the only living man who has had lengthy conversations with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Pope Pius XII, Adolf Hitler, and Marlene Dietrich. World Heavyweight Champion from 1930 to 1932, Schmeling's riveting autobiography is finally made available in English translation after years as a best seller in Germany.

The first surprise is probably that ex-pugilist Max Schmeling is still alive. At age 93 he has provided an epilogue for this English translation of an autobiography originally published in Germany in 1977. Von der Lippe, a professor of German and humanities at St. Anselm College, N.H., translated this autobiography principally because he is a boxing fan, but clearly von der Lippe hopes to cash in on the 60th anniversary (June 22) of the second fight between Schmeling and Joe Louis, one of the most politicized sporting events of the century. The way Schmeling, who is generally agreed to have been an ardent adherent of Nazi racism, tells it, it was the Nazi propagandists who portrayed the fight as one between an archetypal Teutonic Aryan and an American representative of an inferior race. Schmeling's loss ended the fighter's easy access to Hitler, whose favorite he had been. But more interesting than its portrayal of Western boxing from 1924 to 1948 is Schmeling's take on German life under the Weimar Republic, when athletes, creative artists and film stars all met socially in cabaret society. Schmeling was often entertained, along with his movie-star wife, by the Fuhrer. He claims, (shades of Leni Riefenstahl) never to have realized how all-consuming Hitler's hatred of the Jews was, saying that Hitler would walk out of the room any time Jews were mentioned. Celebrities populate every page, from Marlene Dietrich to Brecht to Jack Dempsey to Pope Pius XII to Al Capone. This fascinating if somewhat dubious history is complemented by 96 pages of b&w photos. 30,000 first printing.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Schmeling's heavyweight championship bouts with Joe Louis in the late 1930s were great fights, but they were also political events--Louis, an American black, versus the German Schmeling, a representative of Hitler's master race. At 92, Schmeling may be the last living person to have conversed with Franklin Roosevelt, Hitler, Pope Pious XII, and Marlene Dietrich. It's all here, in this detailed account of the boxer's life through the end of World War II. Perhaps the most interesting part of the story is the way time has altered the boxer's point of view. When he lost the second Louis fight, he thought it was the most devastating event of his life. But now he realizes that, had he won that fight, he would have become the paramount symbol of Hitler's Third Reich. Though he was a patriot, Schmeling could not reconcile himself to Hitler's racial and religious persecution. This is a fascinating, humble autobiography, of interest as much for the times in which the subject lived--and the people he knew--as for the subject himself. Wes Lukowsky

Born in Ukermarck, Germany, in 1906, Schmeling gained fame in the 1920s knocking people down to the delight of sports-crazed Berlin society. As part of the city's cafe set, he was sculpted by Rudolph Belling and painted by George Grosz; world heavyweight champion from 1930 to 1932, he traveled by Zeppelin to many New York bouts, married a movie star, and knocked out the great Joe Louis. When, in 1938, the two had their hysterically politicized rematch at Yankee Stadium, he was unfairly billed by the press (for life) as the Nazis' boy vs. "America's hope." (Schmeling lasted 1:24 minutes.) This plain-spoken autobiography is also a portrait of Germany through its often terrible century. Schmeling is most interesting on the subject of Hitler and on the pressures to drop his Jewish manager. Once his athletic value dipped, the Nazi regime drafted the 35-year-old Schmeling and dumped him out of a plane over wartime Crete. Afterward, he had to start from scratch as a businessman. The storytelling in this first English translation of his autobiography is good-natured if uncharismatic. It also contains 96 photos, many of pre-war Berlin. Recommended for sports and large German history collections.?Nathan Ward, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.