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.
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From Publishers Weekly
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.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
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.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A boxer who others could learn from.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Max Schmeling: An Autobiography (Hardcover)
A true sportsman and "semi-statesman", Max Schmeling was one of the greatest and classiest of all boxers who this world has known. Upon reading this translation, by Professor George B. von der Lippe of Saint Anselm College, one acquires some sense of what it must have been like to have lived under the fascist regime that was the Third Reich. Labeled by most as "Hitler's showhorse", we can see that this unfortunate term fails to describe most of Schmeling's life. He had conversations and meetings with various prominent and contemporary statesmen, eccumenical, and showbusiness people, to name a few. In light of the attention which some boxers have recieved concerning their mental decline (e.g. Parkinson's pugilistica), Max Schmeling is fortunate enough to have maintained his faculties and provided us with this look into his life.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
a pretty good champion, but a really great man,
By
This review is from: Max Schmeling: An Autobiography (Hardcover)
Anyone who thinks this is just another slick, hollow, ghost-written account of a famous sports figure's life -- athletic anectdotes and a sanitized account of a personal life -- is in for a big shock. In his autobiography, Schmeling is not telling the story of his own life so much as a cultural history of three Germanies -- the Empire he was born into, the Nazi Reich he lived through, and the Federal Republic where recently died at the age of 99.
Schmeling's account is rich with anecdotes about the "lost" Berlin of the Weimar age -- about jazz musicians, actors, poets, erotic dancers, painters, sculptors, artists, jockeys, and of course, fellow boxers. In the 1930s he also had extensive dealings with top Nazis such as Goebbels and Hitler, dealings which often got him into hot water. As he often fought in America he given interesting and amusing accounts of the pre-WWII USA, including a garden party where he missed Al Capone by about five minutes. Though he was trotted out as the "Aryan show horse" of the Third Reich, Schmeling was indifferent to the Nazis and refused to dis-associate himself with Jews. This attitude got him drafted and, true to the extremely colorful nature of his story, he ended up a paratrooper in WWII and was decorated with the Iron Cross (second class). Schmeling's accounts of his boxing matches vary in quality. Some he clearly doesn't remember and others, like his seminal first fight with Joe Louis, are gone into in exacting detail. It is not generally discussed today, but Schmeling destroyed the seemingly invincible Louis the first time they met, and Louis wisely waited until Max's legs were gone before he agreed to a rematch, the outcome of which we all know. Today's generation of sportscasters act as if the first fight never happened, and Max's long and extremely well-planned preparation for the fight are the most fascinating moments of the book (Schmeling is too modest to mention that he financially "carried" Louis when the IRS took everything he had in the later 1950s -- sportscasters don't talk about that either). Without meaning to, Max can be fabulously politically incorrect -- he comments with a certain amount of irony that while the '36 Olympics are remembered mainly for Jesse Owens' destruction of the myth of Aryan supremacy, Nazi Germany actually won the medal count by a wide margin (and no, you won't find that fact in any American textbook today). Schmeling lived a long and extremely rich life that spanned a tumultuous century, and he crams as much of it as possible into this very entertaining book. Despite many personal harships and setbacks, he never lost his essentially positive outlook on life or his sense of sportsmanship and class. Many of today's athletes would do well to read this book and follow its example.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Schmeling: A Real Hero,
By
This review is from: Max Schmeling: An Autobiography (Hardcover)
If you like a story with a happy ending, get a hold of Max Schmeling's autobiography. Even if you don't like boxing, I guarantee you will enjoy this book. Max is probably the last man alive who has met Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adolph Hitler, Joe Louis and Jack Dempsey. This is his inspiring story. Misunderstood as a Nazi, a sympathizer and Hitler's sock puppet, Schmeling was none of the above and a true philantrophist. And if you aren't convinced, there are some awesome photos in this book.
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