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Crowd Control: Boxing in Weimar Germany
metaphor for the turbulent times in which postwar Germany found itself, but it
also provided urbanites with a safe and controlled form of violence, in stark
contrast to life on the streets. Birk Meinhardt, an historian of boxing, writes:
Since brass knuckles and rubber truncheons counted as everyday pieces of equipment in
the country, the people must have seen boxing as normal. It hardly appeared alarming in
light of the conditions outside of the hall or stadium. Quite the opposite, it appeared
orderly. The order of events were known, and the dangers, too. Violence, yes, but divided
into tolerable doses. And most important: you weren’t drawn into it, you remained a
spectator. 34
Boxing counteracted the irrational violence of the First World War and of the
turbulent postwar German society by refracting it through the prism of sport, a
“rational” form of violence. As the sociologist Karl Raitz notes, regarding the
attraction of sport, “the rules create an order, both social and spatial, that is not
found outside the playing site.” 35 At the same time, boxing federations vigorously
assailed the depiction of boxing as violent and emphasized instead its graceful
athleticism. Boxing, then, could appeal both to those who sought an ersatz form
of violence to that which surrounded them and to those who sought an escape from
that violence altogether.
Boxing not only reflected the struggle of daily life, but also offered a ray of hope
in the figure of the boxer himself, who represented a modern success story.
Because most of the early boxers in Weimar Germany came from modest backgrounds,
boxing developed a reputation as a blue-collar sport that attracted its best
talent from the raw youth of working-class neighborhoods. Rags-to-riches boxing
stories rapidly became a staple of Weimar popular culture. 36 The popular image
of the champion fighter who had pulled himself up by his bootstraps contributed
to the mystique of the boxer and lent a powerful element of heroism to the sport
of boxing. Working-class fans, at least, flocked to boxing matches partly to see
one of their own, someone who had “made it.” And those who had made it attracted
a loyal following.
Fans identified closely with their favorite boxers, and the personality and
charisma of top fighters in Weimar Germany drew ever larger crowds to the big
matches. The public idolized boxers to a degree witnessed in few other sports of
the time. Boxsport championed boxers as “the embodiment of a modern national
hero,” 37 and boxing’s popularity grew as German boxers achieved international
success in the late 1920s and early 1930s. As the fortunes of one boxer fell, several
new boxers emerged to take his place in the national pantheon. In the early 1920s,
boxers such as Hans Breitensträter, Kurt Prenzel, and Paul Samson-Körner
captivated the public. By the late 1920s, Franz Diener and, especially, Max
Schmeling had eclipsed these former greats. A poll of 14-year-olds taken in 1930
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