MAX SCHMELING - AUTOGRAPHED SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH - HFSID 47355

MAX SCHMELING
Color photograph of a poster for the June 22, 1938, World's Heavyweight Championship fight between champion Joe Louis and the challenger, former champion Max Schmeling.
Photograph signed: "Max Schmeling". Color, 8x10. Photograph of a poster for the June 22, 1938, World's Heavyweight Championship fight between champion Joe Louis and the challenger, former champion Max Schmeling (1905-2005). The fight was held exactly one year after Louis knocked out James J. Braddock in Chicago to become champion. On June 19, 1936, Joe Louis knocked out Schmeling in New York in the 12th round. On June 22, 1938, Louis, now the Champion, knocked out Schmeling in the first round. Max Schmeling became World Heavyweight Champion in 1930, when he defeated Jack Sharkey for the title vacated by Gene Tunney in 1928. In 1932, Sharkey won the title in a 15-round decision over Schmeling. Schmeling scored a twelfth round knockout of the previously undefeated Joe Louis in 1936. In a closely followed rematch at Yankee Stadium in 1938, Louis knocked out Schmeling in the first round. Despite Nazi efforts to promote him as a symbol of Aryan supremacy, Schmeling refused Hitler's personal request to join the Nazi party and secretly protected German Jews at great risk to himself. A Coca Cola executive since World War II, Schmeling became a close friend of Joe Louis and served as a pallbearer at Louis' funeral (1981). Fine condition.