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Boxer Schmeling Hid
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FRIDAY, JANUARY 5, 1990
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L
F
ormer heavyweight
champion Max
Schmeling sheltered
two young Jewish brothers
in his apartment while a
Nazi mob raged outside, one
of the brothers recently told
guests at a party honoring
the German boxer.
Henri
Lewin, now president of the
Sands Hotel in Las Vegas,
was a 14-year-old boy in
Berlin on Nov. 9, 1938, when
organized bands of Nazis
smashed Jewish stores,
burned synagogues and at-
tacked Jews during the in-
famous Kristallnacht, the
Night of Broken Glass. At a
special tribute party two
weeks ago at the Sands for
the now 84-year old Schmel-
ing, Lewin, with tears in his
eyes, recounted what had
happened. Pointing to
Schmeling, who was seated
at a table next to Mike
Tyson, the present
heavyweight champ, Lewin
said:
"I'm going to tell you what
kind of a champion Max
Schmeling is. Beginning on
Nov. 9, for four days, Max
hid my older brother Werner
and me in his Berlin apart-
ment. He risked everything
for us. If we had been found
in his apartment, I would
not be here this evening and
neither would Max.
"The first day (of the riots),
Max didn't leave the apart-
ment. He told the front desk
that he was sick and not to
let anyone come up . . . After_
four days, Max felt it was
safe to take us to an apart-
ment my father owned in
another part of Berlin."
Lewin later said that he
had not publicly revealed
the story before, at Schmel-
ing's request. Even after
Schmeling agreed to attend
the tribute in Las Vegas, he
asked Lewin not to "glorify"
him, Lewin said, adding "he
told me what he had done for
me and my brother was
`doing the duty of a man.' "
and, according to Lewin,
continued to assist German
Jews even during World
War II.
Levin recounted one par-
ticular incident when
Schmeling's American
Jewish manager, Joe Jacobs,
came to Berlin in 1935.
Jacobs had booked a room at
the Adlon, one of Berlin's
finest hotels, but was told
that the management could
not accommodate him.
When Schmeling, then
Nazi Germany's most idoliz-
ed athlete, heard about it, he
went to the authorities and
warned them that he would
stop boxing if Jacobs didn't
get his room. The Adlon
manager rapidly changed
his mind.
During the same visit,
Lewin said, Jacobs decided
to attend services at the
Fasanenstrasse Synagogue
to hear its charismatic rabbi,
Joachim Prinz, and Schmel-
ing accompanied his manag-
er to the lobby of the
synagogue.
The relationship between
the Lewin family and
Schmeling began in the mid-
1920s, when the boxer fre-
quently stayed at a hotel
owned by Lewin's father in
the Berlin suburb of
Potsdam. The senior Lewin
also was proprietor of a fash-
ionable clothing store, called
The Prince of Wales, where
Schmeling bought his suits.
On June 12, 1930, Schmel-
ing won the world
heavyweight crown in New
York on a foul from Jack
Sharkey, and lost it to the
same fighter on a decision
two years later.
However, Schmeling is
best known for his two dra-
matic fights with Joe Louis.
In 1936, before Louis became
champion, he suffered his
first career defeat when
Schmeling scored a
knockout.
The victory was headlined
in the Nazi press as "a vic-
tory for the white race."
Hitler had been trumpeting
Schmeling throughout the
1930s as the great Aryan
warrior.
An angry Joe Louis had
his revenge two years later
when, as world champion, he
knocked out the 33-year-old
Schmeling in the first round
at New York's Yankee
Stadium on June 22, 1938.
Schmeling served with a
German paratroop unit dur-
ing World War II and Louis
served in the American
Army, but after 1945, the
two champs got in touch
with each other and de-
veloped a lasting friendship.
In the post-war years,
Schmeling became wealthy
as the Coca- Cola distributor
for West Germany while
Louis lost his ring earnings
and found himself deep in
debt to the Internal Revenue
Service.
"Schmeling helped sup-
port Louis for 20 years,"
Lewin said, and when Louis