Johann Wilhelm Trollman, known as ‘Rukeli’ in Romanes, was born on 27 December 1907 in Wilsche, Gifhorn district in Lower Saxony, Germany. The Sinto spent his childhood with his parents Wilhelm ‘Schnipplo’ Trollmann (1867–1933) and Friederike ‘Pessy’ Trollmann, née Weiss (1874–1946), and his eight siblings in Hanover.
Boxing Career
His promising sporting career began there in the 1920s. While still an amateur boxer, he won the title of North German champion in 1928, but despite this achievement, he was denied a place in the Olympic selection that same year. Trollmann switched to professional boxing in Berlin, and at the height of his career he competed for the German light heavyweight title on 9 June 1933. Although he defeated his opponent Adolf Witt (1913–1964), the Association of German Professional Boxers, which had long since accepted National Socialist racial ideology, stripped him of the title a few days later on flimsy grounds.
Shortly afterwards, he suffered a bitter defeat in a staged fight against Gustav Eder (1907–1992) at the Bockbrauerei in Berlin. By 1934, Trollmann was no longer receiving invitations; his licence was revoked and his professional boxing career came to an end.
Persecution and Murder
In the years that followed, Trollmann and his family were subjected to increasing marginalisation, destitution and persecution. While interned in the Arbeits- und Bewahrungslager Rummelsburg, a detention centre for ‘asocials’, the boxer was forcibly sterilised, probably on 23 December 1935.
In the 1930s, the National Socialists conscripted him and his brother into forced labour in Hanover. His wife Olga Frieda Bilda (1915–unknown), whom he had married in 1935 and divorced in 1938, and their daughter Rita (born 1935) lived in Berlin. At the end of 1939, Trollmann was called up for service in the Wehrmacht. He fought in Poland, Belgium and France; the last known date of deployment as a soldier, presumably on the Eastern Front, is May 1941.
In 1942, after he had returned to Hanover, detectives from the ‘Office for Gypsy Affairs’ in Hardenbergstraße arrested him, severely maltreated him and in September sent him to Neuengamme concentration camp. The camp’s death register recorded on 9 February 1943 that Johann Trollmann had died of pneumonia.
There is no clear evidence to support later suggestions that he was deported to Wittenberge, a satellite camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp at Phrix-Werke AG, in 1944 and murdered there. The exact circumstances of his death are also unclear.
Legacy
Johann Wilhelm Trollmann’s life story has been widely publicised and still has strong international appeal today. In the 1970s, Hanover-based journalist Hans Firzlaff (1921–2012) began to research and write about the boxer’s life. In 1997, he published an extensive collection of material that is still used today.
After Manuel Trollmann, Johann’s great-nephew, also became active in commemoration initiatives, the Association of German Professional Boxers reinstated Trollmann to the list of German champions in 2003 and presented the family with an unofficial championship belt as symbolic recognition.
However, the boxer’s life story only finally came to the attention of the wider international public around five years later. Since then, novels in various languages, graphic novels, theatre performances and film adaptations have popularised Trollmann’s story. A ‘temporary monument’ in the form of a boxing ring was on display in Berlin-Kreuzberg in 2010, then in Hanover and Dresden. A street in Hanover, a sports hall in Berlin and a memorial association now bear Trollmann’s name; a memorial plaque and stumbling stones in Hanover, Hamburg and Berlin commemorate him. The championship belt can now be seen in the German Sports and Olympic Museum in Cologne.
‘Rukeli’ has also become a username in various social media, the title of events for young international boxers and a ‘pop star’ on T-shirts. The boxer is perceived as a symbol of social mobility and as a figure of resistance. In view of the patchy source material on his story of persecution, fictional set pieces from literary, theatrical or cinematic adaptations are repeatedly incorporated into representations and accounts of the boxer.
