After the Baer-Schmeling fight held #OTD in 1933, David Egan of The Boston Globe wrote that, “cruelty is Baer’s stock in trade.” He observed that the world "loves a killer. And it has found one who would put Al Capone, the famous government guest to shame…. It has been our luck never to have seen a fighter killed in action. I was afraid for a few seconds tonight, that I was to see one. And that, more than paragraphs and columns of words, describes the terrific beating which Schmeling took in 1 minute 51 seconds of a round which will go down through the corridors of boxing time for its sheer brutality." Mere months before the Schmeling fight, Adolph Hitler had become Chancellor of Germany. His Third Reich had assumed control of the country. Jews already were under the burden of laws and decrees that restricted all aspects of their public and private lives. Ticket sales for the “Battle of the Maxes” were concerningly lackluster. A large portion of New York's boxing fans were Jewish. There were calls for a boycott because Schmeling was German and therefore must be a Nazi. From his publicity headquarters at the Ritz Hotel, the fight’s promoter Jack Dempsey and Schmeling’s co-manager Bill McCarney dreamed up a wicked idea. “Baer was made into a Jew overnight,” Bill later chuckled in 1938 to a Canadian reporter. He figured Jews would “delight in seeing a Nazi walloped by one of their own.” Numerous Wehrmacht officers personally approved to serve under Hitler possessed more Jewish blood than Max Baer, but he was suddenly seen wearing the six-pointed Jewish Star of David on his trunks. He was encouraged to toss around a few hundred “schmucks” and “oi veys.” Ticket sales to the fight exploded almost overnight. While Schmeling had a Jewish manager and Holocaust survivors Werner and Henry Lewin confirmed he hid them in his hotel room during Kristallnacht, Baer happily joined in to label Schmeling a Nazi. His vitriol shocked columnist David J. Walsh when in April 1933, Max roared over the phone, “I’ve never wanted to hurt a man. But that’s off in this fight.... I'm going to hurt him. I'm going to keep on hurting him.” Simply because Schmeling was German, Baer said he’d have to suffer what he “would like to give personally to some of those leaders persecuting Jews.” He was merciless in the ring. Visions of Frankie Campbell did not haunt him. As he threw each brutal round-house right, he snarled in Schmeling’s face, “this one’s for Hitler.” No punches were pulled. Fouls were abundant. Tennis matches had fewer vicious backhands. Holding, rabbit punches, headlocks, forearms to the face, low blows, shoves into the ropes, all got a touch to his forelock, or a bow of insincere contrition to referee Arthur Donovan’s warnings. He lost four rounds on fouls and was behind on points going into the tenth. After a knockdown in that round, Baer swarmed Schmeling into the ropes where he cringed, utterly dazed and helpless. Schmeling turned away as he grasped the ropes. Baer then used one of his favorite tactics; he slugged Schmeling on the back of the neck. As Baer drew back to inflict further punishment, fearful for his life, Donovan threw his arms around Schmeling to end the fight. If Arthur Donovan had not acted at that moment, Max Baer appeared perfectly willing to add another death to his belt. Schmeling’s manager realized one more punch might have killed his fighter. His face was observed to be “white and horrified” as he led his fighter from the ring, while spectators spat at Max Schmeling and called him a Nazi. "Then the World Moved On: The Brutal Truth Behind the Max Baer-Frankie Campbell Fight" - a.co/d/gq4Zad1