German boxing legend Max Schmeling, one of the greatest heavyweight fighters of all time, has died at age 99. Max was also one of the more 'well-known' Fallschirmjager when he joined in 1940.
Max Schmeling you were a great person! Did Max serve the whole war? [ 04. February 2005, 01:58 PM: Message edited by: Stauffenberg ]
Here is a brief bio on Max Schmeling: http://www.auschwitz.dk/schmeling.htm Now a little out of date...
I'll never be able to figure out where I read this, but I know I read that Max Schmeling was so scared before the invasion of Crete that he came down with acute diarhea and was hospitalized. Sorry to burst a bubble. Can't authenticate, Just couldn't resist. Later
Schmeling - who was known as "Black Uhlan of the Rhine" - had been world heavyweight champion from 1930 to 1932. And although he was unable to reconcile himself to Adolf Hitler's racial and religious persecutions, Schmeling had become an unwilling propaganda tool of Nazi Germany long before that second bout with Louis. In the run-up to the re-match, he was entertained by Hitler. Schmeling later recalled that, while they watched a film of his first fight with Louis, the Führer slapped him on the leg each time the American was hit. Explaining this meeting in his autobiography, Schmeling wrote: "Hitler invited me for lunch. I went - I had to go." At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was called into the Wehrmacht, joined a parachute regiment, and in 1941 was reported to have been wounded during the battle for Crete. The next year, however, Schmeling revealed: "I was on a stretcher, but I was not wounded. The rumour that I had been hit in the knee was false; Goebbels had it sent out as propaganda. It was even said that I was dead. The truth was much simpler: I was suffering with cramps in my stomach." According to this account, by the controversial Italian writer Curzio Malaparte, Schmeling added: "I had not even the chance to fight. A hundred and fifty feet in the air I jumped from the plane, and I remained lying among the bushes with those awful pains in my belly. When I read about my wound, I denied the rumour at once in an interview... Goebbels has never forgiven me for that denial. He has even threatened to summon me before a military court as a defeatist. If Germany were to lose the war, Goebbels would have me shot." The longest-lived world heavyweight champion, Schmeling subsequently became a highly-successful representative for Coca-Cola and a popular and highly respected member of Hamburg society. He rarely, if ever, gave interviews, believing that the media had an unhealthy obsession with his distant past. In 1981 he paid for Joe Louis's funeral. http://www.arts.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/02/05/db0502.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/02/05/ixportal.html
According to Von Der Heydte, Schemling jumped into Crete with Ameobic Dysentary... He spent all the operation in an aid station. I was talking to a guy on another forum and his great uncle was a wounded British gunner who ended up in the bed next to Schemling...
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ William Diehl Skewers him very unfairly in the Book "27".
