Key Dates in Max Schmeling's Life:

1905 - Max Schmeling is born on 28 September in Klein-Luckow, Germany.

1906 - The family moves to Hamburg, where Max's father works as a helmsman/navigator for the Hamburg-Amerika Linie (shipping line).

1914 - Future boxer Joe Louis Barrow is born in Lafayette, Alabama on May 13.

1922 - Schmeling moves to the Rhineland, Germany's boxing center, to begin serious training as a boxer.

1924 - Schmeling is the surprise winner of an amateur bout at Easter in Chemnitz. In August in his first professional bout, Max defeats Kurt Czapp with a TKO in six rounds in Düsseldorf.

1927 - On June 19 Schmeling becomes the European light-heavyweight champion by defeating Belgian Fernand Delarge.

1928 - On 4 April he wins the German heavyweight champion.
 

1928 - Schmeling hires Joe Jacobs, an American Jew of Hungarian extraction, as his new boxing manager. In 1928 and 1929 he wins several matches in the US.

1930 - On June 12 in New York Schmeling takes the world heavyweight championship title by default when Jack Sharkey hits him below the belt.

1933 - In July Max marries the Czech-Austrian film actress Anny Ondra (Anna Sophie Ondráková), who had appeared in Czech films and in Alfred Hitchcock's BLACKMAIL (1929). They had met while Max was making the film LIEBE IM RING (1930).

1936 - On June 19 Max Schmeling and Joe Louis have their first match. Schmeling gets a surprise knockout victory in the 12th round.

1938 - The Louis-Schmeling rematch takes place on June 22. Louis knocks out Schmeling after a mere 124 seconds. Schmeling is hospitalized.

1938 - During the anti-Jewish Kristallnacht violence of 9 November, Schmeling hides two Jewish brothers, Henry and Werner Lewin, in his Berlin apartment and later helps them go to the US.

1939 - Joe Jacobs dies of a heart attack. World War II begins.

1940 - Schmeling joins the Wehrmacht as a paratrooper. (He was not drafted as some sources claim.)

1942 - Joe Louis joins the segregated US Army and reaches the rank of sergeant.

1945 - World War II ends; Schmeling and Germany try to recover.

1948 - Max retires from boxing.

1952 - Schmeling begins his long association with the Coca-Cola company in Germany.

1954 - Max visits the USA and his former boxing opponent Joe Louis.

1957 - Schmeling is offered the opportunity to become a partner in Coca-Cola Germany. It is the start of a successful business career. Anny Ondra makes her last film (DIE ZÜRCHER VERLOBUNG) and retires from the movie business.

1960 - Max and Joe Louis appear together on the TV show "This Is Your Life."

1977 - Schmeling publishes his autobiography, Erinnerungen ("Memoirs")

1981 - Joe Louis dies in Las Vegas. Schmeling serves as a pallbearer at Louis' Arlington Cemetery burial.

1987 - Anny Ondra (b. 1903) dies in Hollenstedt on 28 February.

1991 - The philanthropic Max-Schmeling-Stiftung (foundation) is founded. Schmeling is the first German to be accepted into the boxing Hall of Fame.

1996 - The Max-Schmeling-Halle opens in Berlin.

2005 - Max Schmeling dies in his sleep aged 99 on Feb. 2. In a quiet ceremony he is buried next to his wife in Hollenstedt, near Hamburg. He misses his goal of living to be 100 by just eight months.

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