Feldgrau.net

I watched a documentary about him a couple of weeks ago, in which it was also said that he recieved hardly any training. It seems to have been a semi-death penalty! Obviously someone was trying to get rid of him,
knowing that it was impossible to put a hero as Max into a KZ without a public outrage, so he was sent to THE combat assignement most like to result in KIA.

Btw the documentary also mentioned that Max led a lifetime friendship wiht Joe Louis, even paying his funeral. He is a true hero to me.

Regards

Danny

Jason Pipes wrote:He was a member of 4.Komp/I.Abteilung/Fallschrimjager-Regiment 3. At the time of his service in this unit he was the world boxing champion ...

Are you sure, Jason? I thought that during the WWII years, though he was in service, Joe Louis was world heavyweight boxing champion. Or do you mean European champion, in Schmelling's case?

Yours,
Paul

Max "The Black Ulan" Schmeling became the world heavyweight champ in 1930 when he was declared DQ winner against a low punching Jack Sharkey. He defended the title once before losing it to Sharkey in one of the biggest robberies in boxing history. He is the only fighter ever to have beaten a prime Joe Louis.

During WWII Joe Louis held the title. He was champ from 1937 to 1949 with a record 25 world title defenses. Up to today there was no heavyweight champ who reigned as long as "The Brown Bomber" and had as many succesful consecutive world title defenses.

Louis and Schmeling became great friends over the years and it's true that Schmeling payed for Louis' funeral.

In a documentation from the 60's Schmeling said that in the end it was good for him to lose the rematch against Louis because if he had won the Nazi's would have awarded him an endless number of awards which had made things difficult for him after the war.

To end the rumours that he got killed he gave an interview to american journalists on crete still suffering from his injuries. They asked him about "british massacres" the german propaganda was writing of. He said that he doesnt know of all that which lead to a furious Goebbels ordering to remove " this stupid boxer" from the Wehrmacht and the public in general.

The Dragon Model Ltd. launched a fallschrimjager 12" action figure called "Max" last June. I find that its face is very similar to Max Schmeling. The title on the box of the action figure is "Crete" , showing the senerio. So I think it is exactly Max Schmeling. The toy is loaded with full weapons, mg-34, k98..etc ,seems that Max supposed to be someone like Rambo. Before I had read this account, I didnt even know that he was untrained. That's a pity.

There is one interesting report about Max Schmeling in Crete. A Brit Sergeant K. D. 'Tex' Banwell said that he was captured on a raid on Crete. And he escaped and sliped away from the personal supervision of Max ! Maybe Max was really not good at military combat.

zainsolo wrote:There is one interesting report about Max Schmeling in Crete. A Brit Sergeant K. D. 'Tex' Banwell said that he was captured on a raid on Crete. And he escaped and sliped away from the personal supervision of Max ! Maybe Max was really not good at military combat.

As I read about schmeling in this topic, I knew I had seen a time before something in my papers... I had searched the last hours... Take a look at this... Sorry, but at moment I dont have the time to translate the text... Cause I had search to long and my work not done by itself...

Greets

Ralf Anton Schäfer

Great stuff!!!

Thank you very much for sharing this article with us!

Regards

Danny

Jason Pipes wrote:He was a member of 4.Komp/I.Abteilung/Fallschrimjager-Regiment 3. At the time of his service in this unit he was the world boxing champion. He survived WWII and went on the fight five more times after the war.

hi,
Since he was in I.Abteilung/FJR3, he was supposed to be dropped near the prison in Suda/Chanea area. Is this correct ?
regards

just read a little of some guys's responses to this question,..........and i must say,..............NO ONE WHO JUMPED INTO KRETE WAS ON THE "RESERVE" OR "LET'S PROTECT HIM" SERVICE............
Krete was a pretty raw deal for the poor bastards who jumped in there. they knew it was going to be fairly high casualties, and it turned out to be enough so that they decided not to use paratroopers again except for extremely limited cases for the entire rest of the war. i dont know if he was wounded or not,........but i would certainly imagine that he was. there is a propaganda book out on "KRETE", and i do not think it has any photos of max in there, so maybe they were not so concerned with his propaganda use. i have only seen a few photos of him during his war service, very rare subject matter. i dont think the germans did quite the same thing as we did for this purpose.....like clark gable, etc.........but remember,.........on one of clark's missions,.......the landing gear did not come down,.....and the guy riding the ball was killed on landing, and they couldnt save him. i am sure it was tramatic for him, as well as the propaganda boys in that case..........

I just purchased a book called "Fallschirmjäger - Die Geschichte der deutschen Luftlandetruppen im 2. Weltkrieg by Chris McNab (Kaiser ISBN 3704360511), nothing special but I´m always after good pictures. Nothing about Max until there a pictures of FJ training and at least five successive pictures of Max - without the author mentioning the fact. It seems as if the author did not ID him. Somehow amusing.

Regards

Danny

http://auschwitz.dk/schmeling.htm
he survived the war, and did not join the nazi party, according to this guys' web page. hitler punished him for this insolence,........and signed him up in the paratroopers for it!
???
is he still alive today??

Yes, he is still alive today.

I don´t want to be impolite, but did you read the whole thread?

Regards

Danny

people dont live for ever.
i did see that it said he was still alive.
well, that definitely answers the question why you dont see propaganda photo spreads on him,...........hitler was pissed at him for not playing ball.........
and he probably knew he was aiding the jews as well.
i thought that was pretty amazing. he has a lot of balls, and from the little i read, i'd say that he has to be about the most "public consious" of any famous person i have ever read. some of them are such ass holes, they get angry when people see them out and about. sounded like ol max would bend over backwards for you. that's great. i hope he lives for another 30 years or more. he's coming up on a hundred years old, that's getting up there for sure!!

I was recently looking through an issue of Stars and Stripes, and there was an article about MS. Dated April 12th, 1945:

"With US 9th Army - Max Schmeling, former world heavyweight champion, is confined in a German Army Deserter's Prison. He was arrested on the orders of the Nazi party & was sent to a camp in the Papenburg area of Bremen according to reports, & as a result of bad food & harsh treatment, is but a shell of his former self."

There's a second part to the article, but it's just the usual background of his fights etc.

Just thought I'd post this for kicks.

Doc

Great, thx Doc!

Regards

Danny