Hitler and his Nazi Party wanted to prove their racial superiority in every single aspect of life. Not only that, they devoted their time, power, and money to make themselves even better. Well, that’s what they thought. Of course, one of the easiest ways to show people how superior and strong they were was through sports. Convinced that Aryan athletes had superior abilities, the sports department loved organizing events in which their Aryan stars defeated those they conceived as inferior to show society that their beliefs were right. But everything was about to change one evening in 1933, when Adolf Witt (boxing star) was facing Johann Trollmann, a Romani boxer known as Rukeli.
Trollmann had Sinti origins, a Romani group that had migrated to Europe during the Middle Ages. Many of them settled in Germany and Austria, converting into Christianity. Yet they were still seen as heretics and thieves, a stigma that Gypsies have always had, even today. He started boxing as a child, soon developing a unique and elegant technique that won him many battles. He was admired by many not only because of his abilities, but because of his charisma. However, uniqueness wasn’t playing in his favor, especially at a time where race determined one’s value.
When he was only 21 years old, he was already an important boxing figure with a promising future in the Olympic circles. Being prepared and excited to prove his athletic worth in Amsterdam 1928, he was denied a place in the Olympic German committee arguing that his boxing style wasn’t representative of their country. Of course, it was just an excuse to cover the racial discrimination that was about to erupt in the following years. Eager to make a name for himself in the boxing world, he moved from Hanover to Berlin and became a professional boxer, which leads us to the night of our story.
On June 9, 1933 the fight between Trollmann and Witt took place. Hitler had been elected Chancellor earlier that year, and his visions about race were normalized all over Germany. Everybody was so expectant about the battle that even the Nazi distributed propaganda in which they ridiculed Trollmann for being a Gypsy. However, people were really rooting for Rukeli. The fight started, Trollmann was ahead of his opponent. He was about to win when, out of the blue, the battle was stopped. They called it a “no decision”, so that he couldn’t claim the title which had been left vacant by the champion Erich Seelig, a German Jew who had fled the country. The attendants were so upset and mad about the arbitrary decision that they had to agree and give him the victory. But offending those in power is not something one can easily get away with.
Some days later, the Boxing Federation took away his belt once again, arguing that his style and techniques were against the norms. They had decided that he had to fight again, now against Gustav Eder. Trollmann was told that he had to fight in accordance to the German style. Knowing that they were doing all this so that he could lose in public, he wanted to leave a message to the world. Brave and daring, he entered the ring on July 21, all covered in white powder and with his hair dyed blond. The battle started and he just stood still and let his opponent beat him without making any movement to fight him back. It was his way to protest against the discrimination he had endured all his life. He showed them what was like to be caricatured and ridiculed.
Naturally, the Nazi were outraged by this daring provocation and decided to make Trollmann pay. In the following years, he was sent to a labor camp. Once free, the harassment was so strong that he tried hiding in the woods, but it was not enough. When the Nuremberg Laws came into effect, Gypsies were to be treated with the same dehumanizing procedure as Jews. They traced him and, in order to avoid deportation to a concentration camp, he was sterilized, something many Romani men agreed on. When the war began, he obviously was enlisted in the army. After three years serving, he was dismissed from the army due to his racial origins and the laws that dictated Gypsies had to be deported to concentration camps. He was sent to Neuengamme, where he was constantly tortured and forced to box for the soldiers’ entertainment. Finally, in March 1944, he faced his final fight. He boxed against a man called Emil Cornelius and defeated him. But out of anger and revenge, he beat Trollmann to death with a shovel.
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Hitler and his followers were so stubborn that they constantly organized these types of events only to be ridiculed again and again. Johann Trollmann was the first to prove them wrong. But in the next years, others showed him and the world that there’s not such thing as a superior Aryan race. Take for instance Afro-American athletes Jesse Owen, who in the Berlin Olympic games of 1936 won four gold medals and beat the German athlete star, and Joe Louis, who won against Max Schmeling in a boxing championship.
***Source:
Holocaust Memorial Day Trust
