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He is probably the most popular German athlete of the 20th century. The only German Heavyweight champion, movie hero, and model husband with a big heart and a hard right punch. Max Schmeling’s career in sports starts in a cinema. In 1921, at the age of 16, he watches a movie on the World Championship fight between Jack Dempsey and Georges Carpentier, and he convinces father Schmeling that his son has to become a professional boxer. In 1926, Schmeling is already the German Champion, another year later the European Cruiserweight Champion. But Max wants more. He travels to New York, the boxing El Dorado. On June 12th, 1930, Max Schmeling defeats American Jack Sharkey and wins the World Heavyweight Championship. One fight cements the legend of Max Schmeling: On June 19th, 1936, 30-year-old Schmeling knocks out the highly favored "Brown Bomber" Joe Louis in the 12th round. 90000 shocked spectators at Yankee Stadium in New York and millions more at home in front of their radios witness the "biggest sports sensation of all times". Schmeling’s victory over the African-American Joe Louis is a perfect propaganda coup for the regime in Berlin. Hitler sounds: "Every German can be proud today!" Schmeling allows them to celebrate him, but he is not a Nazi or an anti-Semite. When he is asked to separate from his Jewish manager Joe Jacobs, he successfully refuses. Until June 1938, Max Schmeling remains one of the most important figureheads of the NS-propaganda machinery – until he is counted out after only 124 seconds in the rematch against Joe Louis. Good luck, as Schmeling himself will realize later. Together with actress Anny Ondra, whom he marries in 1933, he moves back to his manor Ponickel in Pomerania. One year later, he is suddenly drafted by the army. He will remain one of Germany’s most prominent athletes to go to the front. In 1947, at the age of 42, Schmeling climbs into the ring once again – to make money, for his family has lost almost everything in the war. Eventually, Coca-Cola director James A. Farley offers Schmeling a job as manager in the company. Schmeling becomes a wealthy man who always shows his generosity when he is asked for help. When Joe Louis dies a poor man in 1981, Schmeling selflessly pays for the funeral. Today, Max Schmeling leads a reclusive life on his manor in the Hamburg area.