Max Schmeling, Germany's former world heavyweight boxing champion who died on Wednesday aged 99, will forever be remembered for his re-match in 1938 with the American Joe Louis; it was fought out in New York against the backdrop of impending war, and became as much a political event as a boxing match.
It's a long article. Read it all.
Update: Mitch Berg heard the news before I did. He links this USA Today article that says:
Schmeling, who fought Louis in two of the most politically charged sporting events ever on the eve of World War II, once hid two Jewish boys in his apartment from marauding Nazis and later reportedly helped some Jewish friends escape death camps.
He said he feared only one thing in a long life that ended Wednesday at the age of 99.
"I don't want anyone to say I was a good athlete, but worth nothing as a human being — I couldn't bear that," Schmeling said in 1993.
The world has lost a great human being. Would that such men would live forever.
