Max Schmeling

Max Schmeling - (1905-2005) German heavyweight boxing champion. This a fantastic young b/w full length portrait which has been professionally double matted with his signature. ready to be framed.

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Maximillian Adolph Otto Siegfried Schmeling (September 28, 1905 – February 2, 2005) was a German boxer who was heavyweight champion of the world between 1930 and 1932. His two fights with Joe Louis in the late 1930s transcended boxing and became worldwide social events because of their national associations. He was ranked 55 on Ring Magazine's list of 100 greatest punchers of all time. While Schmeling was never a supporter of the Nazi regime in Germany, he cooperated with the government's efforts to play down the increasingly negative international world view of its domestic policies during the 1930s. However, it became known long after the Second World War that Schmeling had risked his own life to save the lives of two Jewish children in 1938. Schmeling served with the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) as an elite paratrooper (Fallschirmjäger).