Excessive Masculinity: Boxer Narratives in Holocaust Literature
Excessive Masculinity: Boxer Narratives in Holocaust Literature

Summary/Abstract: This article examines boxer narratives in Polish and international Holocaust literature in order to reveal the function of masculinity within the ontology of sports. Wolski uses the example of Roger Repplinger’s Leg dich, Zigeuner, a double biography of the German footballer Otto (“Tull”) Harder, member of the Waffen-SS, Wachmann and later com¬mander at the German concentration camps, and German Sinto boxer Johann “Rukeli” Trollmann, who faced discrimination on ethnic grounds and was later killed in one of the camps. The biographies of these two individuals show a marked difference in the way in which masculinity functioned within Nazi ideology. In the case of Harder, masculinity is an immanent category, while Trollmann’s masculinity appears as contingent. The boxer’s strategy of avoiding direct confrontation in the ring was perceived as “unmanly,” leading to his exclusion from the community of men.

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