Looking back, I'm almost happy I lost that fight. Just imagine if I would have come back to Germany with a victory. I had nothing to do with the Nazis, but they would have given me a medal. After the war I might have been considered a war criminal.

He lived his remaining years as a wealthy man and avid boxing fan dying on February 2 2005 at the age of 99. He rose but fell moments later and Donovan stopped the fight. In 1933 Schmeling lost to Max Baer by a tenth-round TKO.

Long after the Second World War some evidence arose that Schmeling had risked his own life to save the lives of two Jewish children in 1938. In 2003 Schmeling was ranked 55 on The Ring magazine's list of 100 greatest punchers of all time. '
In 1936 Schmeling knocked out American rising star Joe Louis placing him as the number one contender for Jim Braddock's title but Louis got the fight and knocked Braddock out to win the championship in 1937.