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Crowd Crowd Control: Control: Boxing Boxing Spectatorship
Spectatorship
and and Social Social Order Order in in Weimar
Weimar
Germany
Germany
Erik Jensen
Boxing launched the modern era of spectator sports in Germany during the Weimar
Republic, a sport consumed by the masses, mirrored in film, newspapers, music,
and literature, and celebrated in the highest social circles. With the possible
exceptions of soccer and the six-day races, professional boxing resonated in the
popular culture of the age far beyond any other sport, and it melded elements of
both athletic competition and show business into a modern, hybrid form of popular
entertainment that the public could afford. The allure of a top fight drew sold-out
crowds in Berlin and other major cities, and discussions of the most recent bouts
peppered everyday conversation. A 1925 poem evoked the trendiness and fashionability
of professional boxing during this heyday: “A big fight beckons today . . .
whether you ride or whether you sail . . . whether you flicker or [whether you] foxtrot
– you have to go there: – there will be boxing!” 1 The public, in other words,
not only wanted to watch the fights, but also had to watch. Boxing was “in.”
This poem tellingly emphasized the viewing of the sport, rather than its practice.
Despite tireless campaigning on the part of boxing associations, boxing never
achieved the status of a Volkssport, a sport in which a large segment of the
population actively engaged. Whereas both soccer and cycling attracted large
numbers of weekend hobbyists and amateur players, as well as viewers, boxing
enjoyed popularity primarily as a spectator sport, an activity that one cheered,
analyzed, and discussed, but did not actually do. 2 A network of local boxing clubs
certainly established itself throughout Germany in the 1920s, but the sport
appealed to audiences out of all proportion to the numbers who actually practiced
it.
Despite this mass following that boxing, and sports in general, enjoyed in
Germany’s larger cities in the 1920s, scholars have largely overlooked the social
and cultural impact of this new form of spectatorship. 3 Pierre Bourdieu paved the
way for examining the social significance of sports viewership as early as the
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