Death of Max Schmeling: Former world heavyweight champion Max Schmeling, who fought two unforgettable bouts with American Joe Louis in the 1930s and fell out of favour with the Nazis after resisting Hitler's embrace, has died at the age of 99.

The Max Schmeling Foundation in Hamburg said the boxer had died at his home in Hollenstedt on Wednesday and was buried in the small town south of Hamburg yesterday.

The wife of his close friend Herbert Woltmann said Schmeling, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday in September, never recovered from a bad cold at Christmas.

"Max Schmeling was an idol for generations," said Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of a man whose warm smile and bushy eyebrows were instantly recognisable, even to Germans born decades after his retirement in 1948.

"He has remained one of the most popular and beloved sportsmen in Germany, and not only because of his boxing accomplishments.

"He was a great star but it never went to his head. We will never forget him."

Schmeling won the vacant world title when he defeated Jack Sharkey in 1930 and his sensational knockout of "Brown Bomber" Louis in 1936 confirmed his position as one of the greatest boxers of his era.

The return fight two years later, won by Louis with a first round knockout, was promoted as a battle between Nazi Germany and the United States, although Schmeling was not a Nazi and had a Jewish trainer.

Schmeling was born on September 28th, 1905, in the village of Klein Luckow, near Prenzlau, north of Berlin.

He started his career in 1923 and the following year he was the German amateur light-heavyweight champion.

He dominated German boxing in the late 1920s just as the gloom of post-war depression was being thrown off. Berlin was dancing the Charleston and revelling in a more physical freedom.

In 1930 Schmeling was crowned world heavyweight champion in controversial fashion when Sharkey was disqualified for a low blow which sent Schmeling to the canvas in the fourth round.

Defeats by Max Baer and Steve Hamas followed and many wrote Schmeling off, but he recovered to beat them both and earn the right to challenge Louis.

The American was undefeated in 27 fights and regarded as unbeatable when Schmeling faced him in New York on June 9th, 1936, and the German silenced 60,000 spectators by knocking Louis out with a fierce right in the 12th round.

Among the 1,200 telegrams of congratulation was one from Adolf Hitler. The dictator invited him for tea - just as then presidential candidate Franklin Roosevelt had done in 1932.

Schmeling had no taste for politics or for the Nazis, who told him to get rid of his Jewish trainer Joe Jacobs and stop consorting with Jewish friends.

He complained to Hitler, and Jacobs stayed on. Schmeling secretly harboured Jewish friends during the Nazi anti-Jewish pogroms.

In a 1938 rematch against Louis, facing slogans demanding: "Boycott Nazi Schmeling", he was knocked out in the first round.

Later Schmeling was philosophical. "A victory against Louis might have set me up as the Nazis' model Aryan", he wrote.

Schmeling became the only top sportsman to be drafted into the German army. He was injured, survived, but lost his property and wealth.

Schmeling struggled in the years after the second World War. In need of money, he returned to the ring in 1947-48 before retiring at 43 with a record featuring 70 fights - 56 wins including 38 inside the distance, 10 defeats and four draws.

After the war ended, with much of his fortune dissipated, Schmeling made a brief unsuccessful return to the ring, but later became massively wealthy when he won the concession to distribute Coca-Cola in Germany. Even though he had long retreated from public view, he was recently voted as one of the top German sportsmen of the last century.

"He was a great sportsman and hugely popular," said Otto Schily, Germany's minister for sport. "He left an enduring mark on the sport of boxing and made it popular in Germany. He'll be remembered for his fairness and great talent."

Former British heavyweight Henry Cooper yesterday recalled meeting the former champion in London in the 1960s. Cooper said: "Max came up to the Thomas a Becket gym on a PR visit and I remember what a striking figure of a man he was. It is a great shame to lose one of boxing's great characters who will go down in history as one of the best."