Yiddish-speaking organizers of an anti-Nazi rally in Manhattan in March 1933 knew how to reach their constituency, placing a notice-untranslated-on the front page of the New York Mirror New York Mirror's sports section.

Outraging Nazis and Jews alike, Yussel the Muscle Jacobs-at right, cigar in hand-joins Schmeling and salutes Hitler after Schmeling knocked out Steve Hamas in Hamburg. The New York Daily News, New York Daily News, March 22,1935. March 22,1935.

Twenty-year-old Joe Louis, second from right, in the Chicago Golden Gloves tournament of 1934.

The young Louis was normally deadpan, but on occasion he betrayed the sweetness his fans detected in him anyway.

Louis with his trainer, Jack Blackburn. "I ain't goner waste any of your time," Louis promised him.

Louis with his mother, Lillie Barrows Brooks, in June 1935. Profiles of Louis invariably stressed his love for her, along with his clean living and religious faith.

With promoter Mike Jacobs, July 1936. Ignoring any racial barriers, "Uncle Mike" ushered Louis to the championship, while Louis made Jacobs the kingpin of "Jacobs Beach."

With Jesse Owens, August 1935. Around the exalted Louis, wrote Shirley Povich of The Washington Post, of The Washington Post, Owens acted like "some flunky who knew his place." Owens acted like "some flunky who knew his place."

In May 1935, the New York Post New York Post conveyed the excitement as the city awaited Louis, who would fight Primo Carnera at Yankee Stadium the following month. conveyed the excitement as the city awaited Louis, who would fight Primo Carnera at Yankee Stadium the following month.

The porters and railroad workers at Grand Central Terminal lifted Louis off his train when he arrived in New York for the first time, in May 1935. Other travelers that morning "had to carry their own baggage," the New York Herald Tribune New York Herald Tribune reported. reported.

Joe and his bride, Marva Trotter Louis, stroll triumphantly through an adoring Harlem on September 25, 1935. The previous night, only a couple of hours after marrying Marva, Louis knocked out Max Baer before 95,000 fans at Yankee Stadium.

Visiting Louis as he trained for Paolino Uzcudun in December 1935, Schmeling checked out Louis's fist, along with the flaw he thought he'd detected in Louis's technique.

Louis walking away from Uzcudun, down and out for the first time in his career. Watching Louis box, wrote Richards Vidmer of the Herald Tribune, Herald Tribune, was like hearing Caruso sing or Fritz Kreisler play the violin. was like hearing Caruso sing or Fritz Kreisler play the violin.

On the eve of the first Louis-Schmeling fight, Ring Ring magazine sized up the contestants. magazine sized up the contestants.

Clem McCarthy, the NBC announcer. He missed some key punches, but immortalized an epoch.

Nat Fleischer, editor of Ring. Ring. In an era of intolerance, he championed the underdog, including a foreigner like Schmeling and a black man like Louis. In an era of intolerance, he championed the underdog, including a foreigner like Schmeling and a black man like Louis.

Arno Hellmis, the Nazi announcer. In victory, he was ecstatic and crystal-clear; in defeat, he was inconsolable and almost unintelligible.

Joe and Mike Jacobs flank Schmeling aboard the Bremen Bremen in April 1936, as Schmeling arrived for the first Louis fight. For the Nazis, such fraternizing with Jews was a in April 1936, as Schmeling arrived for the first Louis fight. For the Nazis, such fraternizing with Jews was a Rassenschande Rassenschande -a racial scandal-but business was also business. -a racial scandal-but business was also business.

Louis with black reporters in Lakewood, New Jersey, in the spring of 1936. Coverage of him in the black weeklies was lavish, lively, and loving.

The weigh-in for the first Louis-Schmeling fight, at the Hippodrome, June 18, 1936.

Marva at ringside before the first fight, June 19, 1936.

Louis in his corner just before the knockout, peering into "a world full of pinwheels and skyrockets."

As a Berlin newspaper subsequently documented, Anny Ondra listened to her husband's first fight with Louis at the home of Joseph and Magda Goebbels, as her hosts hovered protectively nearby.

As Arthur Donovan counts out Louis in the twelfth round, Schmeling exults. "The condemned man executed the warden," wrote Joe Williams of the New York World-Telegram. New York World-Telegram.

Schmeling, a drenched Joe Jacobs at his side, walks triumphantly through his dressing room.

The nation's only black daily newspaper neatly summarized reaction to the Schmeling fight.

Louis allowed no pictures after the fight, when his inflated face was likened to a loaf of bread, a coconut, a cantaloupe, and a watermelon. But a couple of days later, he looked like this.

The Chicago Defender Chicago Defender saw diabolical manipulations behind Louis's loss. saw diabolical manipulations behind Louis's loss.

While much of New York mourned Schmeling's stunning win, spirits were high in German Yorkville, on the city's Upper East Side.

"Schmeling: 'The happiest day of my life'": front page, Berliner illustrierte Nachtausgabe, Berliner illustrierte Nachtausgabe, June 20, 1936 June 20, 1936 About to board the Hindenburg, Hindenburg, June 23, 1936. On a cake labeled "K.O.," the marshmal-low victor stood triumphantly over his prostrate, chocolate-covered foe. June 23, 1936. On a cake labeled "K.O.," the marshmal-low victor stood triumphantly over his prostrate, chocolate-covered foe.

"If they think I'm too old already, I at least have to make use of my 'fatherly authority.'" Der Kicker, Der Kicker, June 23, 1936 June 23, 1936

Those attuned to the nuances detected something amiss in Louis's demeanor, a turbulence beneath his customary impassivity. He looked paler, meaner, edgier. Again and again, he rubbed his left glove against his neck. He appeared to be mouthing off to Blackburn. Once again, something about the way Schmeling looked at him seemed to unnerve Louis. His anxiety radiated to some of the blacks sitting in the crowd. "A sort of premonition seemed to hang over Yankee Stadium," one black reporter later recalled. "There was that something that seemed to whisper out of the darkness, 'Louis is not ready.'"

An NBC technician handed a microphone to Hellmis, who had been relegated, in what Box-Sport Box-Sport construed as a slap to German honor, to a makeshift nest of chairs and boxes in the twelfth row. He took some deep breaths to gain some composure. Holding the mike in one hand, he corralled Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey with the other. "I wish good health to all my friends in Germany," Tunney said. "And I also hope that Schmeling will spend the evening in the best of health." German fans might not have liked that last crack had they heard it; but it was hard to make out what anyone was saying amid the roars in the Bronx and all the scratches, crackles, and hisses picked up on the line between Poughkeep-sie (site of the General Electric transmitter) and Berlin. construed as a slap to German honor, to a makeshift nest of chairs and boxes in the twelfth row. He took some deep breaths to gain some composure. Holding the mike in one hand, he corralled Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey with the other. "I wish good health to all my friends in Germany," Tunney said. "And I also hope that Schmeling will spend the evening in the best of health." German fans might not have liked that last crack had they heard it; but it was hard to make out what anyone was saying amid the roars in the Bronx and all the scratches, crackles, and hisses picked up on the line between Poughkeep-sie (site of the General Electric transmitter) and Berlin.

The referee, Arthur Donovan, sprinkled the canvas with powered resin out of a yellow can. As the men put on their gloves, Harry Balogh introduced Dempsey, Tunney, Braddock, and other ring notables. Despite his now-customary plea for tolerance, he failed to introduce the three great black fighters present: Jack Johnson, Sam Langford, and Harry Wills. But that was a slight only blacks noticed. Then he got to the principals: Schmeling, striving to win back the title both for himself and for his Fatherland, and Louis, "one of the greatest heavyweights in the annals of Fistiana." Louis got the bigger hand. "Let us cast aside all prejudism," Balogh declared. "Let us say Ring the bell, let 'er go, and may the best man be the winner.'" The crowd roared back, part approvingly, part derisively.

Donovan gave his instructions. To one reporter, Louis seemed "sneeringly confident and patronizingly bored." "He gave Max a fleeting glance, as much as to say, 'You've got your nerve,'" he wrote. Schmeling studied the left side of Louis's face, still boyishly smooth and perfectly intact, which, if he hit it as often and as hard as he hoped to, would quickly be pulverized. Soon, it was that electric moment before the bell. "Nervous conversation popped on all sides like firecrackers," wrote James T. Farrell, who was covering the fight for The New Republic. The New Republic. Louis was in his corner, eyes darting; Schmeling sat imperturbably in his. Their seconds gave them last bits of advice. For Schmeling, it was to hit early, to win Louis's respect, and to hit late, too, so that Louis would be too groggy to absorb whatever his seconds told him between rounds. For Louis, it was to take his time, to keep jabbing, to keep Schmeling off balance so that he couldn't land his right. The lights went down everywhere but over the ring. At 10:06, the bell sounded. Louis was in his corner, eyes darting; Schmeling sat imperturbably in his. Their seconds gave them last bits of advice. For Schmeling, it was to hit early, to win Louis's respect, and to hit late, too, so that Louis would be too groggy to absorb whatever his seconds told him between rounds. For Louis, it was to take his time, to keep jabbing, to keep Schmeling off balance so that he couldn't land his right. The lights went down everywhere but over the ring. At 10:06, the bell sounded.

Louis came out with "an almost insolent confidence." He began jabbing Schmeling at will, until the German's left eye quickly began to puff and discolor. But Louis was leaving himself open for a right cross, just as Schmeling had expected. Schmeling missed with his first one, but the crowd cheered; it was the first daring punch many of them had ever seen thrown at Louis. In the first clinch, Louis was "filling in"-throwing meaningless punches, often a sign of someone on edge. Sitting at ringside, Tunney thought he saw an old truism emerging: a boxer needed a year to adjust to marriage, and here was Louis, married but nine months. To Hellmis, the cheering was strictly racial: shrill screams from blacks and Mischlinge- Mischlinge-people of mixed race-whites holding back, soaking in the drama. At the bell, both men returned to their corners confident. "This baby is easier than either Carnera or Baer," Louis told Blackburn. Louis could hit, Schmeling acknowledged. But "he iss going to fall for it."

Beforehand, Louis had bragged that he hadn't felt a single blow in his last fourteen fights. This changed in the second round. Ignoring Blackburn, he came over with a left hook. That created an opening for Schmeling's right, which landed squarely on Louis's chin. Louis was dazed momentarily and fell into a clinch. The punch "sort of deadened everything-bounced off a nerve or somethin'," he later said. "Now your fight is really on!" rasped McCarthy, who was scurrying to get in as many plugs for the sponsor, Buick, as he could; Louis fights, after all, always ended so quickly. Jabbing continuously, Louis won this round, as he had the first. But Schmeling was impressing people. As for Hellmis, who was clearly enthralled by New York, he filled in between rounds describing the skyline of the "fairy-tale city" before him, which would not have been visible from his seat.

As the third round got under way, Schmeling's left eye was already closing. Though Louis had yet to unload, he was inflicting enormous punishment with left jabs; after one of them, Schmeling turned and spit blood from his split lip. But Hellmis remained optimistic. "Schmeling is delivering a wonderful fight," he said. "Doesn't respect the Negro at all. He is probably the first heavyweight since the rise of Joe Louis who is giving him a manly fight." Some sensed the end was already near. Two black gamblers waved wads of cash, offering twenty to one that Schmeling would soon be knocked out. The German was so bloodied that one boxing commissioner was shouting to stop the fight. Even Hellmis knew that Schmeling had to do something soon. In fact, Schmeling had gotten through with another right. Many had missed it, but not in Schmeling's corner. "You fetched him a pretty good one," Machon told him after the bell. "I think I knock him out," Schmeling replied. "I have him where I want him."

Schmeling waited for his moment. Suddenly, in the fourth, he got through one hard right, and then another, and then the unimaginable happened. "Schmeling is backing away cautiously," McCarthy croaked, "waiting for some opening that he wants ... and ... ahhhhh! Schmeling got over a right hand ... high, on Louis's jaw that made Louis rock his head! Schmeling has sent Louis down! Joe Louis is down!" Louis, who had not been on the canvas in his entire professional career, was there now. Completely unaccustomed to working the count, he remained down for only two seconds. The mood in Yankee Stadium jolted into an entirely unfamiliar gear; with one punch all of boxing had been upended. Hats and papers came cascading down from the upper decks.

"Louis is struggling! Louis is struggling!" Hellmis exclaimed. "Louis is down.... Max knocked him down! Bravo Max! Bravo Max!" Hellmis apologized to his audience: he couldn't hear himself above the din. "The Americans are literally ecstatic!" he declared. "They never saw Joe Louis down." But the same was true in Germany; in a farming hamlet outside Magdeburg, people were jumping for joy as the first tractors pulled out of the village. For Hellmis and everyone else in the stadium it was hard to follow the action, as people stood up, or stood on their chairs, or stood in the aisles. Cries of "Down in front!" sounded plaintively, uselessly. "Joe, honey, get up! Get up!" Get up!" Marva shouted, as people around her yelled, "Kill him, Max! Kill him!" Louis was transformed. He looked like a "young cub who had been roundly cuffed by a grizzly that he thought to be playful." Even Schmeling seemed startled, standing agog rather than rushing in for the kill. Marva shouted, as people around her yelled, "Kill him, Max! Kill him!" Louis was transformed. He looked like a "young cub who had been roundly cuffed by a grizzly that he thought to be playful." Even Schmeling seemed startled, standing agog rather than rushing in for the kill.

"The gasps that went up in the night sky were the loudest and most incredulous ever heard," Trevor Wignall later wrote. Most shocked of all, he thought, were the boxing commissioners and Mike Jacobs. But the face he remembered was Julian Black's: he was shaking his head, as if "some idiot had played a joke on him." Blackburn stuck a sponge in his mouth. Outside, on the streets of Harlem, a great moan was almost audible. In Yorkville, where people had initially been too pessimistic to get involved, there was jubilation.

Now the fickle loyalties of the fight crowd, and even of some of the reporters, began to shift-not so much because they no longer liked Louis or suddenly preferred Schmeling, but because they knew they could be witnessing one of the greatest upsets in athletic history, and they longed to see the deal done. They exhorted Schmeling to finish Louis off, but Schmeling had his plan, and he would not be rushed to please a crowd. Black fans pleaded with Louis to be Louis again. Maybe it had been a lucky punch, or maybe he had slipped, or maybe he'd now be aroused enough to stop the dillydallying. But the Panglosses were mostly in the cheap seats. Up close, one could see the damage from that single punch. "Those far back ... cannot see the stupor in Joe's eyes," Damon Runyon wrote. "They don't notice the dull, dead manner in which he lifts his legs across the ring."

Louis staggered to his feet, blinking. When the two fighters came together again, Louis managed a clinch. Twenty seconds later the round mercifully ended. Donovan turned Louis toward his corner; he'd have fallen en route had Blackburn not rushed to his rescue and steered him to his stool. The trainer shoved ammonia under Louis's nose and doused him with ice water. He shouted at Louis, but Louis didn't seem to hear. "Now I got him," Schmeling said matter-of-factly in his corner. Jacobs was jabbering with excitement, but Schmeling listened only to Machon, and Machon stayed cool. "So. Den ubermensch haben wir jetzt in unserer Tasche. Nun vorsichtig!" "So. Den ubermensch haben wir jetzt in unserer Tasche. Nun vorsichtig!" he told him: "So, now we have the superman in our pocket. But be careful!" he told him: "So, now we have the superman in our pocket. But be careful!"

"Jack Blackburn, for the first time that I've ever seen him, looks worried," McCarthy told the radio audience, before passing the microphone to Hill, who began cramming in various public service announcements in case the fight came to an abrupt end. Hellmis lamented that Louis had been saved by the bell. As the fifth round began, Louis had to be pushed into the ring. "Schmeling has got all the confidence in the world," McCarthy declared, as the German quickly connected again. "Louis is meeting the hardest right-hand punches that he has ever faced.... This is the only punch [Schmeling's] got, but what a punch it is tonight." Louis, by contrast, pawed more than punched, "following Schmeling like a hurt boy," as McCarthy put it. At the end of the round, Schmeling struck Louis with another ferocious blow, worse even than the punch that had decked him before. Donovan said it landed precisely at the bell; Fleischer, three seconds after; Blackburn, ten seconds later. Blackburn was almost furious enough to go after Schmeling himself; now, Louis's head might never clear. But the bell was hard to hear, and Schmeling, surely more than any other fighter, would hardly have risked everything with an illegal punch. Louis's camp never formally complained; even now, they had to be beyond reproach. But they would remember.

In Louis's clouded brain, all of Schmeling's punches were blending into one. "I just remember one pop, a sort of sudden blaze of lights that turned loose in my head, and after that I felt as if I were trying to run through a field and kept running into things and falling over things," he later said. He walked back to his corner, The Washington Post The Washington Post reported, "like a man on stilts with his kneecaps bending the wrong way with every other step he took." A new wave of betting swept the stadium, with the smart money suddenly on Schmeling to win. reported, "like a man on stilts with his kneecaps bending the wrong way with every other step he took." A new wave of betting swept the stadium, with the smart money suddenly on Schmeling to win. "Der ubermensch hat ja Gummibeine," "Der ubermensch hat ja Gummibeine," Machon told Schmeling: "The superman has rubber legs." As the sixth round began, Louis was, as McCarthy saw him, "a dazed, tired, bewildered fighter." Schmeling was hitting him almost at will. Louis's famous deadpan had been replaced by a look of pain and surprise. He kept blinking, as if emerging from a bad dream. His jaw swelled, and his eyes kept tearing. "Finally, a blue, the color of lapis lazuli, rimmed his eyes brightly," wrote Bill Cunningham of the Machon told Schmeling: "The superman has rubber legs." As the sixth round began, Louis was, as McCarthy saw him, "a dazed, tired, bewildered fighter." Schmeling was hitting him almost at will. Louis's famous deadpan had been replaced by a look of pain and surprise. He kept blinking, as if emerging from a bad dream. His jaw swelled, and his eyes kept tearing. "Finally, a blue, the color of lapis lazuli, rimmed his eyes brightly," wrote Bill Cunningham of the Boston Post. Boston Post. "He was by this time a strange symphony of unusual colors." "He was by this time a strange symphony of unusual colors."

Hellmis, meanwhile, was having a private conversation with a friend, to which twenty or thirty million Germans happened to be listening. "That's right, Max!" he said during the sixth. "Stay away. Keep a good distance and don't get trapped! We have plenty of time. The bout's over fifteen rounds, and we'll catch Herr Louis again soon enough." Then he remembered his audience. "Max Schmeling is now absolutely superior," he said. "There's no one in this stadium who would bet a cent on Louis's victory any longer." Louis soldiered on "with all the boxing instinct of his race," he continued. "The Negro now has a nervous, childish smile on his young face. Doesn't quite know what to do. That's not how he had imagined it. That's no helpless, beaten boxing geezer he's facing there. It's a fighter with heart and energy and in splendid condition. The Black Uhlan from the Rhine is here, and he's showing the Americans that we know how to fight." As the round ended, a black reporter looked over toward Louis's mother. She was on her knees, praying.

Roxborough and the others worked frantically over Louis, cheering him up, sponging his face. At first, it was Louis who had been Clem McCarthy's sleek and powerful Buick, cruising to glory; now Schmeling was in the driver's seat. Louis rallied in the seventh, in part because, at Machon's insistence, Schmeling had resolved to rest a round. Once again, the crowd seemed poised to shift its loyalties. Hellmis suspected that during the break Louis had been given drugs; how else could this completely beaten man storm out now as if nothing had happened? Louis threw the first of several low blows. "Der wird frech. Nehm's ihm wieder ab," "Der wird frech. Nehm's ihm wieder ab," Machon told Schmeling afterward: "He's getting fresh. Take the play away from him." Machon told Schmeling afterward: "He's getting fresh. Take the play away from him."

In the eighth, Schmeling was back on his usual, methodical course. A black man sitting in the bleachers couldn't make out much, but this much he could see: Schmeling kept getting through with those rights. With one of them, the crowd rose and cheered so loudly that, once again, Hellmis could not hear what he was saying. He turned to his technician, an American, whose job it was to regulate the crowd noises, only to see that he was standing on his box of instruments, roaring at the top of his voice, "Go on, Maxieboy, kill that nigger, kill him!" Louis threw two more low blows, drawing a warning from Donovan and boos from the crowd. He then placed his hands briefly on Schmeling's shoulders and shook his head, as if to apologize for things beyond his control.

By the start of the ninth round, it was clear that Louis couldn't possibly last the distance. "A ship in a storm without a rudder or a mast-a punching bag hung up beneath the white arc lights for Schmeling to nail," Grantland Rice wrote. Dempsey wondered what Schmeling was waiting for. The blacks in the crowd seemed dazed. The tenth round began a bit late; Louis was fumbling with his mouthpiece. He fouled again, then threw a right so lame that it made the normally sporting Schmeling-by now with nose red, left eye completely shut, lips swollen and rimmed with blood-laugh a grotesque laugh. Louis had become "a little heap of misery," Hellmis told Germany. Donovan considered calling the fight; Schmeling couldn't seem to put Louis away, even though he was winding up like a pitcher. Then Louis hit low again. Schmeling now concluded the fouls were no accident; Louis himself was honest and clean, he thought, but Louis also did what he was told. In fact, while in a clinch near Louis's corner, he thought he heard Blackburn tell Louis to foul him. With boxers no longer disqualified for low blows-thanks to Schmeling's "victory" over Sharkey, violators could only lose the round-such tactics were Louis's only hope. Once, the German would have been happy to win on points; now he knew he had to knock Louis out.

So the fusillade began. Blackburn watched his creation, his livelihood, the closest thing he had to a son, disintegrate before his eyes. Whenever Louis was hit, Blackburn winced. Schmeling hit Louis with three consecutive rights. Louis fell on top of him, and Donovan had to pull him off. Schmeling then forced Louis onto the ropes and crushed him with another right to the chin. Donovan was about to stop the fight. But Louis's arms had dropped and Schmeling had the clean shot he wanted. Already, Rice wrote, Louis had taken more punches in twelve rounds than Corbett, Fitzsimmons, Jeffries, Johnson, and Tunney had absorbed in their entire careers. And now there was one more. It sent Louis sprawling into the ropes, then down to his knees, "like a tired child at bed-time prayer," as Hype Igoe of the New York Evening Journal New York Evening Journal put it. A reporter dictating his story to the telegraph operator shouted, "And Louis is down again and this time it looks as if he will not get up." Louis stayed there until the count of four, his hand on the middle rope. Then he lost his grip and toppled over, his face buried in the canvas. Donovan rushed Schmeling off to a neutral corner and picked up the count, raising his arm up and down with each successive digit. Louis looked to Blackburn. "Up, Chappie! Up, boy! Steady!" the old trainer shouted at him. Louis lifted his head a bit and shook it. It was, he later said, as if a train had run over Blackburn's voice, thinning it out so he'd sounded like a ghost. And the numbers Donovan shouted reached him as if through water. At nine, Louis's body convulsed. In another second it was over. More than forty thousand people had to make sure they weren't dreaming. put it. A reporter dictating his story to the telegraph operator shouted, "And Louis is down again and this time it looks as if he will not get up." Louis stayed there until the count of four, his hand on the middle rope. Then he lost his grip and toppled over, his face buried in the canvas. Donovan rushed Schmeling off to a neutral corner and picked up the count, raising his arm up and down with each successive digit. Louis looked to Blackburn. "Up, Chappie! Up, boy! Steady!" the old trainer shouted at him. Louis lifted his head a bit and shook it. It was, he later said, as if a train had run over Blackburn's voice, thinning it out so he'd sounded like a ghost. And the numbers Donovan shouted reached him as if through water. At nine, Louis's body convulsed. In another second it was over. More than forty thousand people had to make sure they weren't dreaming.

Even with his rapid-fire horse-racing cadences, McCarthy could not keep up, and his oddly evenhanded commentary left the impression that Louis remained much more in contention than he really was. So when the end came, millions of listeners were more shocked than they should have been. "Louis is down! Louis is down!" McCarthy shouted. "Hanging to the ropes, hanging badly! He's a very tired fighter! He is blinking his eyes, shaking his head! The count is... the fight is over! The fight is over and Schmeling is the winner! Louis is completely out!" As Harlemites listened to their radios, "there was a miserable, frightened look on their faces, an incredulous stare into space." In Columbus, Georgia, cheers had gone up every time Schmeling hit Louis, and "a terrific burst of acclaim" erupted when Louis was counted out. In his Chicago cafe, Dempsey's old manager, Jack Kearns, who'd won himself $30,000 by taking Schmeling at six to one, bought champagne for the house. And play could now resume at that minor league game in Newark, where distracted fielders had let so many fly balls drop in for hits that the umpire had finally called time so that the players could give the fight their undivided attention.

As McCarthy's raspy message raced across America, Hellmis's words, ebbing and flowing, thickening and thinning, descended upon Germany and much of the rest of Europe. "Schmeling is now fighting like he never fought before!" he said as the twelfth round heated up. "He's literally thrashing the soul out of the Negro. The Negro steps back ... shaking ... can't go on. There, he's down! Schmeling has knocked him down! He doesn't come back up. He can't come back up. He's shaking his head. He knows he's finished. Aus Aus [Out]! [Out]! Aus! Aus! Aus! Aus! Aus! Aus! ... Aus! Aus! Aus! Aus! Aus! Aus! ... Max Schmeling has won the greatest triumph of his entire glorious boxing career! He has badly knocked out Joe Louis, Loamface Joe Louis!" Max Schmeling has won the greatest triumph of his entire glorious boxing career! He has badly knocked out Joe Louis, Loamface Joe Louis!"

All over the stadium, fans were on their feet. "For a fraction of a moment, the crowd seemed unable to cheer," one reporter wrote. "Then a hysterical bellow broke out." It was for the winner, but it was also, in a way, for themselves. "Sixty thousand people stood in glorious tribute to the man who had come back," wrote Vidmer. "They stood shouting at the spectacle they never had hoped or expected to witness, thanking their good fortune for having come." But the cheering was, like so much of the world around them, segregated, racially and even religiously. It was, wrote Roi Ottley of the Amsterdam News, Amsterdam News, "the white gentile section" that was cheering hysterically: the Jews were taking Louis's loss as badly as the blacks were. And blacks took it in much the way Wendell Smith of the "the white gentile section" that was cheering hysterically: the Jews were taking Louis's loss as badly as the blacks were. And blacks took it in much the way Wendell Smith of the Pittsburgh Courier Pittsburgh Courier described: described: You, yourself are still trembling and shaken from the excitement. The stunning knockdowns, the staggering, helpless man with the brown body trying for 11 long rounds. You have seen a man down limp and useless, his eyes glassy and swollen. You have seen the rich blood of your idol flowing from his nose, mouth and cuts about the face. The inevitable, it happens to all fighters, is now before you, but you refuse to believe it. It is a dream, a terrorizing nightmare, that you keep fighting off but find that it is impossible. The dream is too real. The roar of 70,000 people [sic], [sic], the photographers, the "ticky-tick" of the typewriter and that beaten brown body before you ... is the proof! On this night, June 19, 1936, in Yankee Stadium, you have seen the greatest fistic upset the world has ever known. You have seen the perfect fighting machine, Joe Louis, beaten by a grim, determined German.... You will never forget the things you have seen. Never, as long as you live ... will you forget. the photographers, the "ticky-tick" of the typewriter and that beaten brown body before you ... is the proof! On this night, June 19, 1936, in Yankee Stadium, you have seen the greatest fistic upset the world has ever known. You have seen the perfect fighting machine, Joe Louis, beaten by a grim, determined German.... You will never forget the things you have seen. Never, as long as you live ... will you forget.

"There lay Joe Louis in an abject heap ...," wrote Davis Walsh of the Hearst wire service, "his cold agate of an eye grown surprisingly softened and docile and a little piteous, like that of a brown setter which has been beaten beyond all natural dignity.... He did not glance up and, I think, would have done so unwillingly. Up there, as a matter of fact, was the white master, Max Schmeling, who would beat him down again if he mustered the will to rise."

At ringside, Louis's mother wore a look of disbelief. Marva hid her face in her hands and said, "He's hurt. He's hurt bad." One report had her fainting when Louis went down, another fleeing. "Her face streaming with tears, her hair straggling, her little red shoes dirty and torn," a reporter sitting with her wrote, Louis's bride "dashed up the aisle like a wild animal. Gone was her make-up and pride: all she wanted to do was to comfort Joe in his hour of defeat." Schmeling helped Black, Blackburn, and the others lift Louis up and carry him back to his corner. In the meantime, Joe Jacobs and Doc Casey had jumped ecstatically into the ring to embrace Schmeling, who was leaping up and down himself. Jacobs's suspenders had popped and his pants began to fall; he was jumping, stuffing his shirt back into his trousers, kissing Schmeling, and throwing his hands up in the air all at once. Schmeling darted toward the ropes, reached into the crowd for "a blocky young man in a chocolate-brown suit," and dragged him into the ring. It was James J. Braddock. Braddock, too, was a loser that night-surely there'd be no lucrative title defense against Louis now-but he was a good sport and celebrated with Schmeling.

Schmeling had "beaten his way back over the rough trail from Has-beenville," Runyon wrote, and now, tens of thousands cheered him on. For him, and for Adolf Hitler, too, it was a total triumph-technical, physical, psychological. It was just as the Nazis had said-discipline, dedication, intelligence, courage, and will had prevailed over brute strength-and it was almost frightening. "We never saw a gamer fighter," Joe Williams later wrote of Schmeling. "He was so game that he scared us. He was so game we looked at him ... as a deadly, sinister, unhealthy thing." Balogh lifted Schmeling's arm and, his voice reverberating throughout the stadium, declared him the winner. Schmeling turned to the newspapermen in the press rows. "I guess I fooled you guys," he shouted. He also waved to Hellmis, which to Hellmis meant he was greeting all Germany. Schmeling, Hellmis told his audience, had disproved one of boxing's most venerable adages: "They never come back." He apologized again to his audience: His voice had faded from having had to yell over the crowd. "Please don't hold that against me," he pleaded. "It was just too exciting to deliver a quiet, perfect radio report." Schmeling was standing in the ring, giving what Hellmis, if no one else, saw as the Hitler salute. "And you can hear what's going on," he said. "They're cheering. He's the man of the day.... Here stands the greatest heavyweight of all times."

McCarthy corralled Schmeling to his microphone. "Congratulations, Max. Congratulations, my boy," McCarthy shouted. "This is the happiest day of my life!" Schmeling breathlessly replied, his head clear enough to switch to English, and to graciousness. "And I think I fought the toughest fellow I ever met. And I still think Joe Louis is a very, very great prospect." McCarthy asked Schmeling how early he thought he'd won. "Well, I had a hunch in the fourth round," Schmeling said. McCarthy then asked the same thing of Joe Jacobs. "From the beginning!" Jacobs snapped. "Never thought he was going to lose!"

Louis, his robe over his shoulder, sat despondently in his corner for several minutes, peering into "a world full of pinwheels and skyrockets," while Schmeling made his way to the dressing room. Louis had entered the ring young and virile and invincible, and now, barely an hour later, he had become "a grotesque Stepin' Fetchit type of a tired Negro." "Wrapped in his garish red and blue ring robe, his head completely [covered] in a huge bath towel, he was led stumblingly down the steps and to at least temporary oblivion," wrote Bill Cunningham in the Boston Post. Boston Post. He collapsed while walking across the field, and had to be carried on a cop's back the rest of the way. "There goes one of them supermen," Braddock muttered. "Put this in your hat, pal: All fighters are born free and equal. And if one of them He collapsed while walking across the field, and had to be carried on a cop's back the rest of the way. "There goes one of them supermen," Braddock muttered. "Put this in your hat, pal: All fighters are born free and equal. And if one of them looks looks better, remember that a couple of good right-hand chops to the whiskers will soon bring him back to the rest of the field." Yet Louis could claim one small victory. They had always said he couldn't "take it." Now, he had-"in vast and amazing plenitude." better, remember that a couple of good right-hand chops to the whiskers will soon bring him back to the rest of the field." Yet Louis could claim one small victory. They had always said he couldn't "take it." Now, he had-"in vast and amazing plenitude."

The crowds filed out of the stadium. One departing spectator told a young black boy outside that Louis had lost. "Don't fool me, Mister," the boy replied. "Our Joe can't lose." "They wouldn't believe their eyes," Marvel Cooke of the Amsterdam News Amsterdam News wrote of the black fans at Yankee Stadium. "There was something terrible-something fascinating, too, in watching a great idol fall to the ground and break up in little pieces." A defeat was just what Louis needed, she overheard one man say; now he'd know his weaknesses when he went for the championship. "We agreed with all he said," she remarked, "but somehow we were thinking of Hitler celebrating Maxie's victory in Germany, and that burned us up." For many black children, that night marked the first time they had ever seen their parents cry. wrote of the black fans at Yankee Stadium. "There was something terrible-something fascinating, too, in watching a great idol fall to the ground and break up in little pieces." A defeat was just what Louis needed, she overheard one man say; now he'd know his weaknesses when he went for the championship. "We agreed with all he said," she remarked, "but somehow we were thinking of Hitler celebrating Maxie's victory in Germany, and that burned us up." For many black children, that night marked the first time they had ever seen their parents cry.

Their emotions high and their deadlines tight, reporters at ringside struggled to capture how the universe had just been realigned. "Some day the sphinx will talk, the pyramids will crumble, the oceans will stand still," Joe Williams wrote. "Something loosely akin to that was recorded ... under a frowning sky at the Yankee Stadium last night. And so today you will read that the greatest upset in ring history took place, that the impossible happened, that the condemned man electrocuted the warden." To Grantland Rice, the atom had just been taken apart. Then there was Robert Perrier of L'Auto, L'Auto, who'd counseled Schmeling to practice all those different dives. "Had I found God himself shaving in my bathroom, or if I were to walk down Fifth Avenue and find the Eiffel Tower in place of the Empire State Building, I think I would be less surprised than at witnessing what I did last night at the Yankee Stadium," he wrote. who'd counseled Schmeling to practice all those different dives. "Had I found God himself shaving in my bathroom, or if I were to walk down Fifth Avenue and find the Eiffel Tower in place of the Empire State Building, I think I would be less surprised than at witnessing what I did last night at the Yankee Stadium," he wrote.

Listening to the fight was such torture for Anny Ondra that she often left the room, gauging her husband's fortunes from periodic peeks at the Goebbelses' faces. Once the direction of the contest became clear, though, a photographer captured her-smiling, with fists clenched-as she sat by the radio and listened, with her friends Joseph and Magda hovering protectively at her side. "For your wonderful victory, which we have experienced tonight on the radio, my most heartfelt congratulations," Goebbels quickly cabled Schmeling. "I know that you have fought for Germany. Your victory is a German victory. We are proud of you. With best wishes and Heil Hitler." "In the twelfth round, Schmeling knocks out the Negro," he wrote afterward in his diary. "Wonderful. A dramatic, exciting fight.... The White man over the Black man, and the White man was a German. His wife is magnificent. The whole family delights in joy. Don't get to bed until 5 a.m. I'm very happy." A crowd gathered outside Goebbels's home, where Ondra spent what little remained of the night. Her husband telephoned her there after the fight. Hitler contacted her, too. "For the wonderful victory of your husband, our greatest German boxer, I must congratulate you with all my heart," wrote the Fuhrer, who also sent her flowers. Goebbels ordered that for those who hadn't managed to stay up to hear it live-or who, like him, wanted to hear it all over again-the fight would be rebroadcast throughout Germany at seven the next night.

In the meantime, all of Germany celebrated. The straitlaced German newspapers offered only meager descriptions, but a Frenchman in Berlin who'd listened to the fight in a bar on the Kurfurstendamm described the scene as it unfolded. "What joy, what deliriousness," he wrote. "Everyone is talking about this victory that many had not even dared to hope for. The working class, the late-night workers, the police, the housekeepers are all happy about Max's success. And here come the street vendors running at full speed shouting 'Special edition! Colossal! Colossal!'" The excitement spilled over into the next day. "All of Berlin is joyful," he wrote then. "On the bus, in the street, at the butcher, the bistro on the street corner, the conversations go on and on." Near the Berlin zoo, he watched someone deck a man who was now claiming to have predicted a Schmeling victory when in fact he'd picked Louis. "The aggressor moved back, as proud as if he were Max himself, and said to his opponent 'that's how Louis stayed on the ground,'" he wrote. "The press has exploded with joy-there is no room left for information or day to day politics.... The special editions all sold out quickly this morning; I know a certain street vendor who did a golden business on this magnificent day.... Nobody is talking about the Olympic Games and politics anymore. That is all secondary and not very important."

A reporter for one of the Chicago papers was crushed in the mad rush to the dressing rooms and had to be carried away on a stretcher. In Schmeling's quarters, pandemonium bordering on hysteria prevailed. La Guardia, too, nearly got trampled. Joe Jacobs strutted in, his shirt drenched and his cigar cocked "at a million-dollar angle." It was his moment, too: a time to celebrate, and, at least as important, to settle some old scores. "Where's all dem guys? Where's all dem guys?" he shrieked. "Dem name-da-round guys? Dem name-de-punch guys? Dem name-de-minute guys? Youse newspaper guys, youse experts, whad'ya got to say now about my Maxie? He knocked out the superman! You hear? What's that make him? You wouldn't listen to me, would ya? Little Joey, back in the dough! You hear that? Nothing's too good for us now!" In between sentences, he kissed Schmeling wildly. "I'm even with the world! I'm even with the world!" he shouted.

Schmeling, his lips puffed and bleeding, his teeth discolored from blood, his left eye completely closed and his right eye swollen and red, sat on the rubbing table. "I'm so happy. I'm so happy," he said. "I leave here three years ago beaten by Hamas and now I come back and win. It is very good. And he is very good. Good, man. My, how he can take a punch." He explained watching Louis fight Uzcudun, and knowing afterward that he could beat him. "I am a proud man," he said. "I would not have taken this fight if I did not think I, a white man, could beat a colored man." He said he didn't blame the Americans for the odds against him; they'd missed his German fights, and still thought him a loser. Not that the odds were a bad thing for Schmeling; a Chicago paper claimed he made more money betting on himself than he had fighting the fight. Never, Schmeling said, had he been scared. Fighting was a profession, he explained, and any man who was afraid had no business in any profession. Had Dempsey or Corbett or Sullivan been afraid? "When Louis hit me low, he hurt me," he said. "But I made up my mind I would never again win a fight on the floor." Julian Black came in to congratulate Schmeling, and Schmeling thanked him.

"Please tell my countrymen at home that this is the greatest and happiest day of my life," Schmeling told the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger. Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger. "At this moment I have to tell Germany, I have to report to the Fuhrer in particular, that the thoughts of all my countrymen were with me in this fight; that the Fuhrer and his faithful people were thinking of me. This thought gave me the strength to succeed in this fight. It gave me the courage and the endurance to win this victory for Germany's colors." He said he looked forward to returning to Germany shortly, and that as happy as he was now, he'd be even happier when he could see Hitler. When Hellmis caught up with Schmeling, he wrote, the winner's first question to him was whether Hitler had been listening. Schmeling greeted his mother and his wife by radio, and then-in a lower voice, as if self-conscious in the crowded dressing room-he appended a "At this moment I have to tell Germany, I have to report to the Fuhrer in particular, that the thoughts of all my countrymen were with me in this fight; that the Fuhrer and his faithful people were thinking of me. This thought gave me the strength to succeed in this fight. It gave me the courage and the endurance to win this victory for Germany's colors." He said he looked forward to returning to Germany shortly, and that as happy as he was now, he'd be even happier when he could see Hitler. When Hellmis caught up with Schmeling, he wrote, the winner's first question to him was whether Hitler had been listening. Schmeling greeted his mother and his wife by radio, and then-in a lower voice, as if self-conscious in the crowded dressing room-he appended a "Heil Hitler" "Heil Hitler" at the end. When the Deutscher Rundfunk resumed its normal musical programming, around four-thirty in the morning, it played a song called "I'm Dreaming with Open Eyes." Throughout Germany, groggy but euphoric fight fans prepared to go to work. In Magdeburg a "wall of people" waited for extras of the local paper as the first rays of sunlight gleamed off the cathedral. at the end. When the Deutscher Rundfunk resumed its normal musical programming, around four-thirty in the morning, it played a song called "I'm Dreaming with Open Eyes." Throughout Germany, groggy but euphoric fight fans prepared to go to work. In Magdeburg a "wall of people" waited for extras of the local paper as the first rays of sunlight gleamed off the cathedral.

Schmeling returned to a hotel room filled with noise and drowning in flowers. "We knocked that Brown Bomber right back to where he came from," Joe Jacobs exclaimed. Bellhops kept bringing in and dumping telegrams-at least eight hundred of them. A friend sat on the sofa and ticked off the senders: "Primo Carnera." "Ernst Lubitsch." "Marlene Dietrich." "George Grosz." "Douglas Fairbanks." "Adolf Hitler." "I was the only one in Hollywood who bet on you," wrote Sonja Henie. Another telegram-surely a forgery, but reported as fact-came from the graduating class of Lakewood High School. "We could not stand him, either," it said, referring, presumably, to Lakewood's recent guest. Many of the telegrams came from the South, often with barbed, racist sentiments. Schmeling insisted he wasn't interested in such things. The message said to have pleased him most came from St. Mary's Industrial School in Baltimore, where the young Babe Ruth had lived. But the one telegram he kept atop the pile, the one he read aloud and translated for his audience, was Hitler's.

Part of the time, Schmeling relaxed in the bathtub, his eyes closed. Then he mixed. He turned his back on Joe Williams, who had been among those describing the postponement as a stay of execution. But for the most part, he rejoiced. "Germany-it vas going crazy ven I talked mit my wife on the telephone after der fight," he said, turning his head and peering through his half-closed right eye to see anyone or anything. "She told me everyone vas avake there." Jews and Germans, now forcibly separated by law throughout the Reich, commingled freely that night in Schmeling's suite. "You could understand better what was going on if you spoke both German and Yiddish," the New York Post New York Post stated. "Nazism seemed pretty remote and academic, for the moment, at least." "Youse guys don't know nothin'," Jacobs exclaimed at one point. "You see this mezuzah?" He reached into his pocket and pulled out the amulet Jews affix to their doorposts to symbolize the sanctity of the home and wear around their necks for good luck. "Why, I had this in my mouth every time I stepped into the ring between rounds." But after the fourth, he explained, he no longer needed it. Only around sunrise did Jacobs drive off the last of the well-wishers, and Schmeling got some sleep. He rose around ten, when the reporters began coming back. stated. "Nazism seemed pretty remote and academic, for the moment, at least." "Youse guys don't know nothin'," Jacobs exclaimed at one point. "You see this mezuzah?" He reached into his pocket and pulled out the amulet Jews affix to their doorposts to symbolize the sanctity of the home and wear around their necks for good luck. "Why, I had this in my mouth every time I stepped into the ring between rounds." But after the fourth, he explained, he no longer needed it. Only around sunrise did Jacobs drive off the last of the well-wishers, and Schmeling got some sleep. He rose around ten, when the reporters began coming back.

As for Louis, his first postfight memory was being carried to his dressing room and hearing Blackburn say, "Cover up yo' face, Chappie." And that was how he arrived, supported by Blackburn and Black, his head buried in a towel. Marva had rushed there, too. "Is he hurt much?" she cried. "Did it spoil his nose?" Louis was deposited on a rubbing table, massaged, and given smelling salts. A doctor pried open his eyes and took a look. For a time, Louis hid his face in his hands and cried. To one observer, the left side of Louis's face looked as if it had stopped a tractor. But outside a small circle, no one would really know-no photographs were allowed.

Louis was even more monosyllabic than usual, his jaw too swollen to open. He lay motionless as Blackburn cut off his gloves, and the trainer had to lift him off the table to remove his trunks. He asked Blackburn what had happened. "You just got tagged, Chappie, that's all," Blackburn replied. Fifteen or twenty reporters had slipped in before the police barricaded the room, but Louis largely ignored their questions. After a few minutes he was half-carried into a shower. When he emerged, his mind still clouded, he was helped back to his table. "You can't get to him nohow," he muttered. "You can't do it, the way he fights. He fights turned around." He said he remembered nothing after the second round. "Everything was in a fog," he lamented. He asked someone to apologize to Schmeling for the low blows, which were really uppercuts gone awry. "I sure didn't mean to hit him low," he said. "Guess I musta been arm weary. Couldn't make my left hooks behave. Couldn't make nothing behave."

"Say, don't forget that one Max hit after the bell one round," Blackburn said, as he rubbed ice on Louis. "That was a honey, wasn't it, Joe?" "No, I ain't going to retire," Louis said through puffed lips. "I'm gonna come back." "That knockout was the best thing that could have happened to the boy," Roxborough said. "He was beginning to get a little cocky and wouldn't listen to anybody. Maybe he'll listen after this." "Yes, maybe we can tell him sumthin' from now on," Blackburn interjected. "He learned a good lesson."

So the finger-pointing had started, and Roxborough finally acknowledged what others had suspected. "I don't want to resort to alibis, but we had a lot of trouble with Joe during the training for this fight," he said. "It got so bad that he was beginning to tell Blackburn what to do, instead of listening to his trainer. Understand, this is not an excuse for Joe's defeat, but I saw what was coming." Louis, it was now revealed, wouldn't even take minute breaks between rounds in Lakewood, so eager was he to finish up and loaf. He refused to skip rope and punch the bag, claiming that his roadwork and his sparring were enough. Schmeling "did Joe a world of good," Roxborough concluded. "Joe won't be so cocky any more." But if Louis was responsible for his fate, Roxborough gave Joe Jacobs an assist. It was Jacobs, he conceded, who had convinced Mike Jacobs to keep Louis idle until he'd grown rusty. Then, by limiting the bandages Louis could use, he'd stripped Louis's hands of the necessary protection. Louis had ended up with two sprained thumbs, which had kept him from putting Schmeling away. "Joe Jacobs outsmarted us," Roxborough conceded.

Mike Jacobs tried to make the best of the turn of events. "This fight will make him a great fighter," he said. "Best thing in the world for him." Besides, the heavyweight division had now been cracked wide open, with innumerable new commercial possibilities. Uncle Mike scribbled pairs of names on the back of an envelope. "Louis vs. Schmeling would draw a million and a half in a return bout," he said. "There's Braddock vs. Schmeling ... Schmeling vs. Baer... Baer vs. Braddock ... Baer vs. Louis... Braddock vs. Louis... plenty of angles now." Soon, he left Louis's dressing room for Schmeling's. Louis's adoring mob now amounted to four concerned people: Roxborough, Black, Blackburn, and Marva. Outside his dressing room, a small black boy in a jockey's hat stood and wept.

They dressed Louis in a gray suit and white sports shirt and put a red-banded straw hat, suitable for shielding him from the curious and the gloating, on his aching, outsize head. He asked someone to tie his shoes. "You mark my words," Blackburn said as he helped Louis on with his coat. "Chappie will come back from this defeat to be greater than ever." He was asked if he'd ever expected to see Louis nailed. "Fighting's a nailing business and I always carried an ammonia bottle with four whiffs in it," he replied. Marva grabbed her husband and, with a cordon of police protecting them, they walked arm in arm to a car.

Louis went back to his hotel. "Joe, your head looks like a watermelon," one of his sisters told him. Marva appeared briefly at what was to have been a victory party. "Poor thing, he is sleeping," she said stoically. "He is suffering." Then, shortly before midnight a big car pulled up in front of 805 St. Nicholas Avenue, where Marva was staying, and where a crowd of five hundred people-some sympathetic, others blaming her for the debacle-awaited her. Cheers and jeers followed her as she went inside. "She covered her face with her handkerchief as if to defend herself from the hostile crowd, who an hour before were raising hosannas to her husband," wrote Roi Ottley in the Amsterdam News. Amsterdam News. "She tried in vain to hide the tears that streamed down her face." Marvin Smith, the photographer who, with his twin brother, Morgan, chronicled Harlem, took no pictures of Marva that night, or of anything else documenting Harlem's desolation; only whites, he later said, photographed Harlem when it was sad. "She tried in vain to hide the tears that streamed down her face." Marvin Smith, the photographer who, with his twin brother, Morgan, chronicled Harlem, took no pictures of Marva that night, or of anything else documenting Harlem's desolation; only whites, he later said, photographed Harlem when it was sad.

Around New York, reactions varied. One theatergoer came out of a Broadway show and heard someone singing "Schmeling made the chocolate drop," and it was chilling to her, the kind of gloating she'd heard in Germany a few years earlier. At Jack Dempsey's and Mickey Walker's, "every man you met had a five or six-to-one wager on the German," someone wrote, "but not many of them were treating the house." Gene Tunney strolled into "21" and was instantly besieged for explanations. "Nothing can take the place of experience," he pronounced. "Max smashed that nigger!" a bartender yelled at the New York hotel where Willie "the Lion" Smith was playing piano. Smith got up, jumped over the bar, and brandished his cane like a baseball bat until the man apologized. New York's clubs were crowded, but something was off. Louis's loss had cost the high rollers dearly, one waiter whispered, and the tabs had shrunk proportionately.

Up and down East Eighty-sixth Street in Yorkville, people marched arm in arm, singing and shouting. Business boomed in Cafe Hindenburg, the Vaterland, and Jaegers, with buxom frauleins and waiters in Bavarian outfits carrying overflowing steins through the crowds. A mob fell upon a news dealer selling extras of a local paper: max schlagt joe l louis in der 12 r 12 runde k.o., k.o., the headline screamed. Street fights erupted as people who'd bet on Schmeling demanded payment. Two charwomen who'd collected their two-dollar winnings in pennies scattered them like confetti into the air and onto the street. the headline screamed. Street fights erupted as people who'd bet on Schmeling demanded payment. Two charwomen who'd collected their two-dollar winnings in pennies scattered them like confetti into the air and onto the street.

Returning from Yankee Stadium, Schmeling's party passed through Harlem as quickly as it could. It was no place to be when Louis lost, especially for the man who had beaten him. Those who hadn't crawled miserably into their beds or drunk themselves into a stupor poured out into the streets, for company or consolation or simply by force of habit. "Big black, brown and yellow feet tread in funeral time on the swarming pavements of Harlem," wrote one observer. Residents "just strolled along ... trying to walk it off.... Everybody walking here, there, and anywhere ... getting nowhere." Around anyone attempting to explain what had just happened, crowds gathered. At the corner of Seventh Avenue and 140th Street, a seven-year-old girl holding an old family cake pan suitable for banging out a victory tattoo stood and cried. A block south, three women who'd bet a month's salary on Louis were, one black reporter noted, "weeping desperately and wearing the most pitifully forlorn expressions I have ever seen." Langston Hughes walked down Seventh Avenue and saw grown men weeping like children and women sitting on the curb, their heads in their hands.

On every block were four or five patrolmen, with a mounted policeman on each corner. Originally, they'd been sent to control the expected merrymaking; now they were guarding against violence and vandalism, and they couldn't get to it all. Much of the mayhem was directed against whites who, whether out of bad luck or foolish voyeurism, found themselves in Harlem. Thirty blacks knocked down and kicked a fifty-year-old white WPA worker who'd come uptown for a union meeting. At Amsterdam Avenue and 116th Street, black youths threw stones at whites driving back from the stadium. At 155th Street and Bradhurst Avenue, the windows of buses returning from the fight were smashed. Blacks set upon blacks, too-for denigrating Louis or for betting on Schmeling, or for boasting about those bets, or for trying to collect on them too quickly, before tempers had cooled. "Joe didn't land a single good punch," a man declared, and was shot. Wilmer Cooper walked into a bar and charged that Schmeling had reneged on a deal, designed to prolong the fight films, to start battling in earnest only after the fourth round. First Cooper was stabbed, then a blow to his head with an auto jack fractured his skull. All night long, doctors in Harlem hospitals were busy sewing people back together.* One white man who'd unwisely decided to walk home from the fight closed his eyes, pretended he was blind, and, walking stick in hand, "tap-tap-tapped his way" out of Harlem and into safety. Jack Johnson could say "I told you so," and did; in forty years his jaw hadn't taken as much punishment as Louis's had in a single night, he declared upon showing up at the Renaissance Grill with his white wife. He was literally run out of the joint. One white man who'd unwisely decided to walk home from the fight closed his eyes, pretended he was blind, and, walking stick in hand, "tap-tap-tapped his way" out of Harlem and into safety. Jack Johnson could say "I told you so," and did; in forty years his jaw hadn't taken as much punishment as Louis's had in a single night, he declared upon showing up at the Renaissance Grill with his white wife. He was literally run out of the joint.

When Walter White and his wife returned from Yankee Stadium, their young son was sobbing "as though his heart would break." And barely three hours after the fight, Harlem resembled a cemetery. Lenox Avenue was deserted. "Not even the worst days of the Depression could achieve such blanket sadness," wrote Walter Wendall of the Boston Chronicle. Boston Chronicle. "The musician who usually thumps the piano with such abandon that the diners sway back and forth as they eat, goes thru his numbers mechanically. The diners sit and look at each other. Few speak. Words are futile. Finally a young couple venture on to the dance floor with forced gaiety, but their feet are leaden, and they give up the attempt. They return to their table in a dark corner in silence. All is depressing in this gay spot. Even the waiters speak in hushed tones. Harlem is sad, very sad tonight." "The musician who usually thumps the piano with such abandon that the diners sway back and forth as they eat, goes thru his numbers mechanically. The diners sit and look at each other. Few speak. Words are futile. Finally a young couple venture on to the dance floor with forced gaiety, but their feet are leaden, and they give up the attempt. They return to their table in a dark corner in silence. All is depressing in this gay spot. Even the waiters speak in hushed tones. Harlem is sad, very sad tonight."

The next morning, long lines formed outside Manning's Pawn Shop even before it opened. People who'd bet on Louis stayed home for weeks for fear of being dunned. A man fined five dollars for scalping got a break by pleading how much he'd lost on Louis. Two days after the fight, cars with southern license plates were still cruising Harlem's streets; all had been wagered on the fight, and had been lost. The former owner of a Lincoln Zephyr explained that he'd taken twelve hours to drive north, and expected to take twelve months to scratch up the funds to get back to Alabama.

Harlem's anguish played out on a smaller scale in black neighborhoods everywhere. In Buffalo, "there was a deathly silence," a local reporter wrote. "Not even a blizzard this hot June night, not even another earthquake, nothing could have produced such a shock." In St. Louis, a thirty-four-year-old black man criticized Louis and got his skull fractured for it. A New Orleans man said to no one in particular, "That Louis let me down. I bet money on him and he let me down." "I'll let you down, white man!" replied an eavesdropper, who stabbed the man, then fled. In Detroit, women wept in front of Lillie Barrow's house. Louis's stepfather, who'd suffered what turned out to be a fatal stroke just before the fight, was not told the outcome. In Coldwater, Michigan, a seventeen-year-old boy murdered his foster father after an argument over the fight.

On Chicago's South Side, bars and restaurants expecting to cash in on another Louis victory closed up before midnight. In Cincinnati, Lena Horne, performing with Noble Sissle's band, was nearly hysterical by the final rounds, and some of the musicians were crying. To her, Louis had suddenly become "just another Negro getting beaten by a white man." The owners of a black nightclub in Kansas City angrily tore down the bunting decorating the place. GLOOM ENGULFING THE CITY'S HARLEM GLOOM ENGULFING THE CITY'S HARLEM, ran a headline in Louisville, Kentucky. A young boxer named Walker Smith, soon to be Sugar Ray Robinson, despaired briefly of the sport and pawned his equipment. Black communities in other countries shared in the sadness. "The blow came all the harder to the Coloured people who had visions of another Negro champion of the world," a newspaper for South African blacks stated.

Conversely, it was a joyous night for many whites. Cheers halted business in the House of Representatives for several minutes: members who had slipped out to listen to the fight "surged back onto the floor in a rousing demonstration," and the presiding officer rapped vainly for order. There was similar chaos in the Senate. "The people know now that they have legislators whose souls are so shriveled and corroded by Negrophobia that they prefer seeing a white foreigner take honor, title and money away from America than see one of their own citizens regain them if he is a Negro," a North Carolina man wrote. As Democrats gathered to renominate Franklin D. Roosevelt in Philadelphia, concerns arose that his ostensibly hapless Republican rival, Governor Alf Landon of Kansas, could turn out to be a "political Max Schmeling."

Father Charles Coughlin, the right-wing radio priest from Royal Oak, Michigan, whose program had been preempted by the fight, called the spectacle "a one hour's wonder, appealing to all lovers of honest, virile sport." In white Detroit, horns blasted, paper floated out from windows, and people "paraded in bedlamic pilgrimages up and down the main streets." Macon, Georgia, "resembled midnight of New Year's Eve." As the fight ended in New York, a white woman named Loula Wiley gave birth on a houseboat in rural Louisiana, and her husband proclaimed that the boy would be named "Max the Great." (When his wife objected, he settled for Max Berlin Wiley.) Playing before a white crowd in Texas, Cab Calloway gave the bad news to his musicians. While his men moaned, their audience cheered. South African whites celebrated, too-at least once they'd figured out what McCarthy and Hill had actually said.* Their excitement, Their excitement, Box-Sport Box-Sport explained, stemmed from "the limitless aversion of the colonial English, and especially the Boers, to all black skins." explained, stemmed from "the limitless aversion of the colonial English, and especially the Boers, to all black skins."

"What the race lost in money was as dust to diamonds compared with the loss suffered in hope," wrote Enoc P. Waters, Jr., in the Defender. Defender. A race that had been "brow-beaten, kicked about, ignored and segregated" had recently fixed its eyes on a "glorious hallowed trinity": Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, and Haile Selassie. But the Italians had banished Selassie, and now Louis, too, was gone. "It is a mighty difficult job," Waters concluded, "for 12,000,000 persons to balance themselves on a stool which now has but one leg." "An idol," wrote a columnist in the A race that had been "brow-beaten, kicked about, ignored and segregated" had recently fixed its eyes on a "glorious hallowed trinity": Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, and Haile Selassie. But the Italians had banished Selassie, and now Louis, too, was gone. "It is a mighty difficult job," Waters concluded, "for 12,000,000 persons to balance themselves on a stool which now has but one leg." "An idol," wrote a columnist in the New York Post, " New York Post, "representing everything that was good and kind and wholesome and sportsmanlike; an idol that meant pride and self-respect and an incentive to honor and religion-an idol fell last night, and the crashing was so complete, so dreadful and so totally unexpected that it broke the hearts of the Negroes of the world." From that point, as Mabe Kountze of the Boston Guardian Boston Guardian later put it, "the Negro race went around for months singing songs in a minor key." The shadow of Louis's loss lay "draped like a vulture's wings" over all of black America. later put it, "the Negro race went around for months singing songs in a minor key." The shadow of Louis's loss lay "draped like a vulture's wings" over all of black America.

Black weeklies that had predicted whites would pounce on Louis were he to lose were quickly vindicated. "From a conquering fistic idol Joe Louis was transferred today into a beaten, pitifully dejected colored boy who craved nothing but seclusion from the world which had heaped glory on his kinky head and piled gold at his feet," wrote Lester Avery of the United Press. Louis's "jungle cunning" was no match for Schmeling's much superior intelligence, Grantland Rice wrote. To William McG. Keefe of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, New Orleans Times-Picayune, boxing's "reign of terror" was over: "The big bad wolf has been chased from the door." "Joe Louis is just a legend today," observed John Carmichael of the boxing's "reign of terror" was over: "The big bad wolf has been chased from the door." "Joe Louis is just a legend today," observed John Carmichael of the Chicago Daily News. Chicago Daily News. "You couldn't scare the kids away from the jam pantry with his name." "You couldn't scare the kids away from the jam pantry with his name."

Never had so many "experts" been so wrong, and the boxing press ate prodigious helpings of crow. An annoyed Dan Parker dubbed June 20, 1936, "I-Told-You-So Day." In the southern press, Louis's loss unleashed a torrent of pent-up resentment. O. B. Keeler of the Atlanta Journal of the Atlanta Journal sent out gloating telegrams-collect-to twenty-two writers who'd praised the "Pet Pickaninny" most effusively. "Who the hell ever had the right to nominate this fairly good, flat-footed Senegambian boxer as a superman?" he asked irately. "Louis did what all the negro prize fighters before him have done. He quit," the sent out gloating telegrams-collect-to twenty-two writers who'd praised the "Pet Pickaninny" most effusively. "Who the hell ever had the right to nominate this fairly good, flat-footed Senegambian boxer as a superman?" he asked irately. "Louis did what all the negro prize fighters before him have done. He quit," the Memphis Commercial Appeal Memphis Commercial Appeal said. The black press, meanwhile, described the ugly vein of American racism that the fight had exposed. The said. The black press, meanwhile, described the ugly vein of American racism that the fight had exposed. The Defender Defender detailed the ensuing hate mail, filled with terms like "nigger," "darkie," "coon," and "Sambo." The detailed the ensuing hate mail, filled with terms like "nigger," "darkie," "coon," and "Sambo." The Richmond Planet Richmond Planet complained about Schmeling's fan mail, most of which came from the South, "that hinterland of barbarism which wallows in the filth of ignorance, bestiality, prejudice and wanton depravity," dominated "by hillbillies, ignoramises complained about Schmeling's fan mail, most of which came from the South, "that hinterland of barbarism which wallows in the filth of ignorance, bestiality, prejudice and wanton depravity," dominated "by hillbillies, ignoramises [sic], [sic], slant eyes tobacco and snuff spitting morons, self-styled aristocrats and egotists who are too cowardly to attack except in packs like wolves." slant eyes tobacco and snuff spitting morons, self-styled aristocrats and egotists who are too cowardly to attack except in packs like wolves."

The day after the fight, while Louis remained in seclusion, Schmeling basked. He stayed in bed until noon and then, hiding his shiners behind a pair of brown sunglasses, gave interviews at the hotel. Louis would be a good fighter once he learned a bit more, he said, but had shown him a fresh flaw that would make him even easier the next time. He weighed various commercial offers-endorsing a soft drink, taking an interest in a fruit farm-and said he had turned down $152,000 for ten weeks of vaudeville appearances. "Americans are interested in money. Not me," he said. In fact, Schmeling's agent had booked him-in the event he won-for a week in Atlantic City for $7,500, followed by appearances in Montreal, Toronto, and Baltimore. But Schmeling received a call from someone- never specified-in Germany, and the road show was scotched. He was to have gone home by ship, but to Hitler and his associates-who had perfected the art of dramatic arrivals by air-so pedestrian a passage would now never do. Schmeling was directed instead to return on the dirigible Hindenburg, Hindenburg, which was leaving the United States in three days. The flight was fully booked, but one of the officers was either relinquishing his berth for the which was leaving the United States in three days. The flight was fully booked, but one of the officers was either relinquishing his berth for the Heimat Heimat or had been bumped. Machon would return by boat, accompanied by the cars, which, in what some saw as an effort by the promoter to sever Schmeling's already rocky relationship with Joe Jacobs and cement his own ties to the German, Mike Jacobs had given them: a Cord for Schmeling, a Chevrolet for his trainer. or had been bumped. Machon would return by boat, accompanied by the cars, which, in what some saw as an effort by the promoter to sever Schmeling's already rocky relationship with Joe Jacobs and cement his own ties to the German, Mike Jacobs had given them: a Cord for Schmeling, a Chevrolet for his trainer.

Schmeling saw a fringe benefit to his victory. "Maybe the people in Germany look on me as Max Schmeling and not Mr. Anny Ondra," he joked. In fact, he had little to worry about. The day after the fight, the Angriff Angriff effectively made Schmeling a metaphor for the new, resurgent Germany. When "the victorious German boxer raised his arm for the Hitler salute, 80,000 went head over heels in enthusiasm," it said. "Loud cries for Germany were heard, and all prejudices collapsed." Goebbels and his colleagues now had other favors to bestow on him. First, the propaganda minister banned all statements by Schmeling's former manager, Arthur Bulow, from the German press; it seemed Bulow had offended German dignity by doubting Schmeling's chances. "I will liberate Schmeling from his mean adversary. He'll be happy about that," Goebbels told his diary. Two days later, Hitler pardoned Schmeling on a tax violation. As Westbrook Pegler later put it, Hitler had suddenly discovered "that the swarthy brunet with the narrow black eyes and high cheek bones was a true, blond Aryan." effectively made Schmeling a metaphor for the new, resurgent Germany. When "the victorious German boxer raised his arm for the Hitler salute, 80,000 went head over heels in enthusiasm," it said. "Loud cries for Germany were heard, and all prejudices collapsed." Goebbels and his colleagues now had other favors to bestow on him. First, the propaganda minister banned all statements by Schmeling's former manager, Arthur Bulow, from the German press; it seemed Bulow had offended German dignity by doubting Schmeling's chances. "I will liberate Schmeling from his mean adversary. He'll be happy about that," Goebbels told his diary. Two days later, Hitler pardoned Schmeling on a tax violation. As Westbrook Pegler later put it, Hitler had suddenly discovered "that the swarthy brunet with the narrow black eyes and high cheek bones was a true, blond Aryan."

"Germany, the land of the fastest race cars, the land of the safest airships-this Germany now also has the 'Greatest Heavyweight Boxer of All Time,'" a newspaper in Dresden boasted. A paper in Regensburg linked Schmeling's win to other signs of German revival, like the autobahn. (But a merchant in Karlsruhe discovered the comparisons could only go so far. "An achievement like that of Max Schmeling has by no means anything to do with the quality of a mattress," the local newspaper remonstrated.) Cartoonists gloated, often with primitive renditions of Louis as a generic, primitive-looking black man. One showed him with a meat cleaver in his hand, strutting along with Schmeling on a leash. "My sacrificial lamb," he states. In the next panel, Schmeling is stuffing Louis into his mouth. "What the Negro thought... and our 'Maxe' did," the caption declared. Several papers pushed to bring Schmeling's forthcoming title bout against Braddock to Berlin. Schmeling himself threw cold water on the idea, candidly confirming everything Nazi diehards had always said about professional athletes (and belying his own insistence that filthy lucre really didn't matter to him). "You know, the money is in this country," he told the New York Post New York Post before leaving for Germany. "Here is where I made my money. Here is where I will make more if I win the championship." before leaving for Germany. "Here is where I made my money. Here is where I will make more if I win the championship."

Even before Schmeling arrived back home, there were official celebrations of his victory. One was a mammoth pageant marking the summer solstice, held on a mountain overlooking Nuremberg. There, Julius Streicher, editor of the violently racist Der Sturmer, Der Sturmer, analyzed the fight for 200,000 people, including 20,000 uniformed Hitler Youth and Unity Mit-ford, the notorious British Nazi, and declared that Schmeling was part of "a New Germany ... a Germany that has faith in itself again." The magazine of the SS, analyzed the fight for 200,000 people, including 20,000 uniformed Hitler Youth and Unity Mit-ford, the notorious British Nazi, and declared that Schmeling was part of "a New Germany ... a Germany that has faith in itself again." The magazine of the SS, Das Schwarze Korps, Das Schwarze Korps, said that Schmeling's fists had defeated the enemies of Nazism and "saved the reputation of the white race." Hitler's friends in Fascist Italy agreed. Schmeling, one Roman paper opined, had "confirmed the supremacy of a race that could not be undone by brute force." England, France, and North America could not thank Schmeling enough, stated another German magazine, said that Schmeling's fists had defeated the enemies of Nazism and "saved the reputation of the white race." Hitler's friends in Fascist Italy agreed. Schmeling, one Roman paper opined, had "confirmed the supremacy of a race that could not be undone by brute force." England, France, and North America could not thank Schmeling enough, stated another German magazine, Der Weltkampf, Der Weltkampf, for he had checked black arrogance. "The Negro is of a slave nature, but woe unto us if this slave nature is unbridled, for then arrogance and cruelty show themselves in the most bestial way," it declared. for he had checked black arrogance. "The Negro is of a slave nature, but woe unto us if this slave nature is unbridled, for then arrogance and cruelty show themselves in the most bestial way," it declared.

Though the Nazi press had built up Schmeling's previous adversaries to make his triumphs that much more magnificent, extolling a Negro proved too much to bear. One newspaper claimed that Louis "made a one-sided and primitive impression." Another charged that his low blows were deliberate. Schmeling had not just knocked out Louis, a Box-Sport Box-Sport editor suggested, but dispensed with him once and for all. "Beaten is not the right word for the terrible catastrophe that has befallen the Negro," it stated. "The myth of Joe Louis is smashed, smashed for all times." Thankfully, the editor suggested, but dispensed with him once and for all. "Beaten is not the right word for the terrible catastrophe that has befallen the Negro," it stated. "The myth of Joe Louis is smashed, smashed for all times." Thankfully, the 8 Uhr-Blatt 8 Uhr-Blatt wrote, the moral inferiority of black boxers gave whites a fighting chance to overcome any physical disadvantages. Hellmis agreed. "When an acquaintance said, 'The mind is just better,' he hit the nail on the head!" he wrote. Sure, Louis took Schmeling's punches with inhuman toughness. "But what a man of 'genuine' courage would have done-once again, with fierce determination, to risk everything and try to turn the match around-one waited for that in vain," Hellmis wrote. wrote, the moral inferiority of black boxers gave whites a fighting chance to overcome any physical disadvantages. Hellmis agreed. "When an acquaintance said, 'The mind is just better,' he hit the nail on the head!" he wrote. Sure, Louis took Schmeling's punches with inhuman toughness. "But what a man of 'genuine' courage would have done-once again, with fierce determination, to risk everything and try to turn the match around-one waited for that in vain," Hellmis wrote.

The day after the fight, during a press luncheon at the Forrest Hotel, Schmeling donned a chef's hat for the photographers and ate turkey with elan. At one point Braddock came by, and took Schmeling's right fist in his hand. "Take good care of that, Max, until September," he said. "You will need it." "Dot's a good idea, Jim," Schmeling replied. "I take care and expect I will use it." Julian Black also stopped in, and was asked about Louis. "Joe's all right," he answered. "He's on the train now for Detroit." The legendary black boxer Harry Wills, who'd also congratulated Schmeling, expressed faith in Louis's future. "I don't think Louis is through," he said. "Sure, he took an awful licking, but I was proud of that boy as he lay on that canvas. He showed his heart was right. And when a man's heart is right, he can win. Didn't Mistah Schmeling prove that las' night?"

The Daily News Daily News described how Schmeling, "beaming like a school kid on the first day of a Summer vacation," "twitching" and "trembling" with excitement, watched films of the fight in a darkened Broadway movie house. Three sounds, always in the same sequence, filled the theater: the ominous thud of a Schmeling right; then the awestruck "ooooph" of the audience; then Schmeling's husky, throaty laugh. "Dot is good, dot is good," he would roar. Then he would slap Joe Jacobs on the back. described how Schmeling, "beaming like a school kid on the first day of a Summer vacation," "twitching" and "trembling" with excitement, watched films of the fight in a darkened Broadway movie house. Three sounds, always in the same sequence, filled the theater: the ominous thud of a Schmeling right; then the awestruck "ooooph" of the audience; then Schmeling's husky, throaty laugh. "Dot is good, dot is good," he would roar. Then he would slap Joe Jacobs on the back.

"Should clean up," Variety Variety predicted about the fight films, which, in a rare lapse of judgment, Mike Jacobs had sold for a mere $27,000. Theaters hyped them-"The End of the Reign of Terror of the 'Brown Bomber,'" the predicted about the fight films, which, in a rare lapse of judgment, Mike Jacobs had sold for a mere $27,000. Theaters hyped them-"The End of the Reign of Terror of the 'Brown Bomber,'" the Oshkosh Northwestern Oshkosh Northwestern advertised; "The Fight So Thrilling It Caused the Death of Twelve People," claimed the advertised; "The Fight So Thrilling It Caused the Death of Twelve People," claimed the Times Recorder Times Recorder of Zanesville, Ohio, alluding to all those who'd had heart attacks during the broadcast- but it was hardly necessary. In San Francisco, police were called in to handle the nearly 100,000 people who passed through one theater; in Chicago, three cinemas in the Loop showed it simultaneously. Everywhere, North and South, people who once cheered Louis jeered him now, laughing or applauding whenever Schmeling landed a punch or Louis faltered. "All this turning of coats to be on the winning side, all this mirth and high spirits in the face of a man's ambition and body being broken under spotlights-this is callous, knavish ... somehow obscene," wrote Otis Ferguson in of Zanesville, Ohio, alluding to all those who'd had heart attacks during the broadcast- but it was hardly necessary. In San Francisco, police were called in to handle the nearly 100,000 people who passed through one theater; in Chicago, three cinemas in the Loop showed it simultaneously. Everywhere, North and South, people who once cheered Louis jeered him now, laughing or applauding whenever Schmeling landed a punch or Louis faltered. "All this turning of coats to be on the winning side, all this mirth and high spirits in the face of a man's ambition and body being broken under spotlights-this is callous, knavish ... somehow obscene," wrote Otis Ferguson in The New Republic. The New Republic. "Daddy, I could kill those people who laughed when Joe was knocked down," Walter White's son said sobbingly after watching the film in New York. If Louis really had it, White replied consolingly, he'd come back greater than ever. "Daddy, I could kill those people who laughed when Joe was knocked down," Walter White's son said sobbingly after watching the film in New York. If Louis really had it, White replied consolingly, he'd come back greater than ever. "If he's "If he's got it?" the boy replied. "He got it?" the boy replied. "He has has got it!" got it!"

The Associated Negro Press complained that while films of Louis victories had been banned in the South, films of his loss to Schmeling were shown. In Memphis, however, the film was prohibited. In Virginia, the hairsplitting state censorship board found a way to allow the Louis-Schmeling films to be shown, but let stand its ban on the Louis-Baer fight. "If it were not for the deep tragedy beneath, it would be great fun being a Negro in America," Arthur Davis wrote of Richmond's peculiar solution in the Norfolk Journal and Guide. Norfolk Journal and Guide. "One could really enjoy oneself watching the delightfully inconsistent and foolishly paradoxical situations which grow out of the kind of segregated living we have in this land." "Foolish, foolish Southerners!" he concluded. "When will... you ever lift the crushing weight of the Negro idea from your mind?" The inconsistency soon proved too much for a local white judge, who ruled that both films could be shown. The "One could really enjoy oneself watching the delightfully inconsistent and foolishly paradoxical situations which grow out of the kind of segregated living we have in this land." "Foolish, foolish Southerners!" he concluded. "When will... you ever lift the crushing weight of the Negro idea from your mind?" The inconsistency soon proved too much for a local white judge, who ruled that both films could be shown. The Richmond Times-Dispatch Richmond Times-Dispatch approved, noting that since Virginia's theaters were segregated anyway, the threat of violence was minimal. Indeed, in those southern communities where the Louis-Schmeling films could be seen, blacks and whites watched from entirely separate worlds- separate theaters, or separate portions of theaters, or at separate times of the day. In Dallas, the Rialto Theater offered three special showings-each at 11:30 p.m.-for blacks. The local black paper predicted that despite the late hour, all 1,300 seats would be sold for each show. approved, noting that since Virginia's theaters were segregated anyway, the threat of violence was minimal. Indeed, in those southern communities where the Louis-Schmeling films could be seen, blacks and whites watched from entirely separate worlds- separate theaters, or separate portions of theaters, or at separate times of the day. In Dallas, the Rialto Theater offered three special showings-each at 11:30 p.m.-for blacks. The local black paper predicted that despite the late hour, all 1,300 seats would be sold for each show.

The fight was on everyone's lips. When British reporters besieged Felix Frankfurter, then a key Roosevelt adviser, for his comments on the Republican platform, he feinted. "Was not that a surprise about the way Schmeling beat Louis?" he asked. Frank Nugent of The New York Times of The New York Times-who rechristened Louis the "Brown Bouncer"-pitied any movie unlucky enough to appear with the fight film. "Herr Schmeling's was... the most devastating right we've observed in a theater, more compelling even than the right to live, the right to love and the other rights which the film industry has defended at one time or another," he wrote. A British reporter fed up with Yankee contempt for European boxers thought America had gotten a well-earned comeuppance. "If a German, with the best of his fighting years behind him, can beat a young coloured boy who had the whole of the United States hypnotized, then the fist-swinging business here cannot be all that is claimed for it," he wrote.

The press kept Schmeling company in his hotel suite on June 23 as he packed for Germany. If he beat Braddock in September, he pledged, he'd defend his title the following June against anyone, Louis included. He was still wearing his sunglasses, removing them only to go over his receipts and to get a shave. Schmeling left New York late in the afternoon, ate steamed clams and lobster at Mike Jacobs's house in Red Bank, New Jersey, then headed for the Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, where the dirigible was docked. There, a thousand people had gathered in the pouring rain to see what one local reporter called "two marvels of the Twentieth Century": the world's largest airship, and the man who had just knocked out Joe Louis. And of the two, Schmeling proved the greater attraction. A mob of photographers, plus many of his fifty-six fellow passengers, took his picture, sunglasses and all. He was presented with a cake shaped like a boxing ring, in which a marshmallow fighter stood erect over his prostrate, chocolate-covered opponent. "I just want to touch him! I just want to touch him!" a young woman shouted as she lunged toward him.

Schmeling pushed his way through the crowd and boarded a bus that ferried him to the enormous aircraft, moored half a mile away. As he stood on the gangplank, the last hand he shook was Mike Jacobs's. "Get Braddock ready!" Schmeling told him. Having paid his American taxes and settled some old debts, he was leaving with only $12,000. He still faced German taxes, the money the boycotters had warned would land in Hitler's coffers: another $40,000, by one estimate. Yet the balance sheet didn't include the most precious item in his luggage: a film of the fight, for which Schmeling had bought the German rights, and for a song. Some speculated it would make as much as $800,000, with Schmeling pocketing a quarter of that.