Futility Closet - 297-A Sinto Boxer in Nazi Germany

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 11,000 quirky curiosities from Atlantic stepping stones to nonsense cookery. This is episode 297. I'm Greg Ross.. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In the 1930s, Cinto boxer Johann Trollmann was reaching the peak of his career when the Nazis declared his ethnic inferiority. In today's show, we'll describe Trollmann's stand against an intolerant ideology and the price he paid for his fame. We'll also

Starting point is 00:00:43 consider a British concentration camp, and puzzle over some mysterious towers. Johann Trollmann was born in 1907 into a poor family of nine children in Hanover, Germany. He was born in the apartment of the local barkeeper, and his illiterate father signed the birth certificate with three Xs. The Trollmanns had lived in northern Germany for centuries, but they were careful not to speak their own language in public and made efforts not to stand out. They were Sinti, members of a Romani people of central Europe. The Roma had faced prejudice for centuries. Outsiders referred to them as

Starting point is 00:01:25 gypsies and spread the stereotype that they were conniving, treacherous, and prone to crime. As a result, they were excluded socially and often lived in dire poverty. At age seven, Johan shared a bed with his older brother Carlo in an apartment that lacked running water and was infested with mice and bedbugs. The family never had a key to the apartment because someone was always home. They leased a garden to grow beans and cooked all their food in one big cast iron pan. Where the white children at school had short hair, Johans was long, wild, and black, and he had holes in his shoes. In the spring and fall, when farmers needed laborers, the whole family would go out in a wagon, and the children would attend school as they could along the way. The family would show off the skinnier children in

Starting point is 00:02:09 hopes that sympathy might bring a meal, and if there was no work or charity, the father might sometimes steal a rabbit or a chicken. When Johann was eight years old, a friend started training at a sports hall, and he brought Johann along. At the time, boxing was illegal, in part because it was associated with England, which had been an enemy in the Great War. The friend soon quit, but Trollmann was hooked. To him, the sport was forbidden, enticing, a way to prove who was toughest. The few men in Germany who boxed were glamorous in his eyes, sailors, traders, and soldiers who had learned it as prisoners of war. Carlo worried about his brother, but their father saw no harm in a pastime that would teach the boy to defend himself. He started going to the sports hall on Schaufelder Street. When he began, the older students shunned

Starting point is 00:02:54 him. He was the only Sinto there, and he was small and frail and had the wrong shoes and clothes. But he kept going back, and eventually they showed him around the gym. He trained for months before he was allowed to enter the ring, and then he was put up against a boy a year and a half older and much bigger. Trollmann thought he'd won the fight, but he found that the judges awarded more points to the other boy. He feared at first that meant he wouldn't be allowed to come back to the gym, but the others explained that it was only a loss,

Starting point is 00:03:21 that everyone loses sometimes, and that it's wisest to learn from it. Before he was nine years old, Trollmann had already participated in three fights and got as far as the South District Championship as a bantamweight. He was still very skinny in a sport that favors large, well-nourished boys, but he kept learning and eventually won the district title four times. The ban on boxing ended in 1919, and soon amateur clubs and associations were springing up. At a time when poverty and economic uncertainty were growing, the German people were looking for distractions, and many of them turned to a sport in which they could show their strength. Part of boxing's appeal was that a fighter won with his own two hands, not through favoritism,

Starting point is 00:04:00 and the sport offered heroes in a period when boys couldn't find many. The rising politician Adolf Hitler began to recommend it to new recruits in the National Socialist German Workers' Party. As Hannover began to produce good boxers, several boxers from Trollmann's club started to advance in international competitions, and some of them became national champions. In 1925, a new trainer at the club recognized Trollmann's talent, discipline, and willingness to learn, and kept an eye on him during sparring. The other fighters respected him. He was the only Sinto, but there was no discrimination, at least according to the standards of the time. All of them lived in poverty. As he gained confidence, he started to develop his own style, a sort of dancing stance that let him attack his opponents while avoiding their counterattacks.

Starting point is 00:04:44 stance that let him attack his opponents while avoiding their counterattacks. It had no name, but it was closer to modern boxing than the standard German style of the time, in which fighters would stand stolidly and exchange blows. As it grew in popularity, the sport was taking on political significance. It's one of only two sports mentioned in Hitler's Mein Kampf, which he published in 1925. He wrote, Boxing and jiu-jitsu have always appeared more important to me. Give the German nation six million sporty, impeccable, trained bodies, all glowing from fanatical love of fatherland and trained to the highest fighting spirit, and a national state will come from them, the creation of an army. By that year, the 18-year-old Trollmann was the amateur district champion in his weight

Starting point is 00:05:23 class, and patrons began to support him so that he had time to train. His new style continued to evolve. He was quick on his feet and had learned to throw punches while evading his opponent's blows. As Trollman began to earn money, he used it to help his family and he was especially generous to children. He was passed over for the Amsterdam Summer Olympics of 1928 but but went pro in June 1929, and the future looked bright. At a time when large employers were closing and laying off employees, he had the support of a manager and promoter, as well as of the leading professional fighter in his weight class, Erich Zielig. He won all of his first three professional fights, and in 1930 he took on 13 opponents. His good looks attracted women to the fights, and he would throw

Starting point is 00:06:05 them kisses from the ring. He moved into his own apartment and bought a fancy hat and a camel hair coat. Between October 1929 and May 1933, he won 29 of 52 fights. In that period, he's been compared to a young Muhammad Ali in technical proficiency and dynamic style. Soon he was fighting only the top German fighters in their weight classes, welter, middle, and half heavyweight. As Trollmann was rising, though, so too was the Nazi party. In 1932, as Trollmann became the country's most active professional fighter, the Nazis became the largest party in the national legislature, and sports editor Ludwig Heymann began to promote the idea of a distinctly German style of boxing, different from that practiced in the United States and the United Kingdom. He argued that the sport must be purified Hitler wrote that boxing would hone young German men for war, embolden and inspire them.

Starting point is 00:06:56 Almost insensibly, the prevailing sentiment began to turn against Trollmann. The press gradually yielded to the pressure of National Socialist politics and began to criticize his fighting style, referring to him as the gypsy in the ring. When Hitler was appointed chancellor in 1933, the Nazis took control of boxing. They assumed positions as top officials in the Boxing Federation, and it was announced that Jews could no longer participate in any way, not as fighters, trainers, cutmen, or even doctors. in any way, not as fighters, trainers, cutmen, or even doctors. The nation's light heavyweight champion, Erich Zilich, who was Jewish, received a letter giving him two weeks to leave the sport and the country. When Zilich fled, the title lay open, so in June, Trollmann entered an open-air ring in a huge Berlin beer hall to fight for it. His opponent was Adolf Witt, an experienced fighter

Starting point is 00:07:43 from Kiel. Witt managed to win the first round, but by then Trollmann had understood his opponent's style, and after that there was no contest. Trollmann scored repeatedly with his left hand. Witt tried to land solid blows, but against Trollmann's nimble footwork and defensive skill, he found himself hitting nothing. To the Nazi establishment, this was unacceptable. Before an audience of 1,500 people and the national press, Trollmann, a member of a disparaged ethnic minority, was winning. In the sixth round, Georg Radam, a committed Nazi and leader of the National Boxing Association, ran to the ringside and whispered to the referee. But there were no grounds to stop the fight or to

Starting point is 00:08:20 change the result. Only the boxers themselves could determine who would win, and Trollmann was ahead on points. At the end of the 12th round, the bell sounded and the crowd waited for the result. When it came, it stunned them. The referee called, no decision. The title would remain open. The spectators leapt from their seats, shouting and demonstrating. Trollmann's manager, Ernst Zirzo, leapt into the ring, cursing, grabbed the judges' scorecards, and showed them around. By every count, Trollmann had won. Trollmann wept in frustration, and fights began to break out in the stands. Boxing historian Zovia Schmitz says, This was an audience that knew about boxing and could see that the match was being manipulated for political ends. The crowd was definitely not prepared to take part in this kind of

Starting point is 00:09:04 manipulation based on racism. In the face of the uproar and perhaps fearing for their safety, Radam and the promoters called for order. They made a show of considering the scorecards and announced that there had been a mistake. Trollmann was the winner. The fans cheered this outcome. Johann Trollmann was the country's new light heavyweight champion. But the result was inconvenient. Germany had proclaimed itself the strongest nation in the world, and Hitler and Nazism had declared boxing to be a new light heavyweight champion. But the result was inconvenient. Germany had proclaimed itself the strongest nation in the world, and Hitler and Nazism had declared boxing to be a supreme demonstration of courage and the warrior spirit. But the nation's new champion was a member of a

Starting point is 00:09:34 dark-skinned race that the government had said was unclean and a danger to Aryan society. So on the next business day, the leaders of the boxing association met and nullified the result. The announcement read, The result is cancelled and the fight, because of the insufficient effort of both fighters, is a fight without a decision. They also alleged that Trollmann wasn't worthy of the title because he'd been unsportsmanlike and wept, and they fined Tzirtso and others for disputing with the referee. Trollmann faced an impossible situation. with the referee. Trollmann faced an impossible situation. He had shown that his own novel style of boxing was superior and that his ethnic identity had nothing to do with his skill as a boxer,

Starting point is 00:10:10 but the regime under which he was fighting had decided that he could not be allowed to win. For his next fight, a month later, he dropped to a lower weight class to fight the holder of the welterweight title, Gustav Eder of Dortmund. Eder was both shorter and lighter than Trollmann, but in this new reality, it was foreordained that he would win the match. And the boxing authorities had warned Trollmann that he could not use his dancing stance. He must fight in the approved German style. This was so enforced and artificial, and it made such a mockery of the sport he loved, that Trollmann decided on a fateful demonstration. As the boxers were called to the ring at the start of the fight and the crowds turned to see him descending the aisle, they were

Starting point is 00:10:49 struck by what they saw. Trollmann had dyed his black hair blonde, a blonde so light it was nearly white, and he had covered himself from head to toe in white powder. If the game was rigged against him, he would make the travesty explicit. He had made of himself a caricature of the Aryan sport boxer. As the fight began, he kept his feet rooted to the canvas, not retreating, daring Eder to come to him. Even though he had given up his dancing style, he was still a formidable opponent. By the end of the second round, Eder was bleeding badly, and in the third, Trollman backed him into a corner. But in the fourth, Eder knocked Trollman off his feet twice, and the second time he stayed down for a count of nine. The cut man was unable to stop the bleeding.

Starting point is 00:11:30 In the fifth round, Trollmann returned to his normal style, but it was too late. He was hit twice in the head, twice in the body, fell, and was counted out. He may have been doomed to lose the fight, but he had maintained his dignity and made a mockery of the racial politics that had overtaken his sport. In the 1930s, Trulman was hounded out of boxing and struggled to earn a living, often going into hiding to avoid being sent to the so-called gypsy camps, where the Nazis had begun collecting Roma and Sinti before sending them on to concentration camps. He had married a woman who was not a Sinti, and he divorced her to spare her from sharing in his persecution. When the war started, he was called up and served until 1942, when all Roma and Sinti were discharged from the Wehrmacht. In that year, he was arrested and taken to the Neuengamme concentration camp outside Hamburg with a truckload of other Roma and Sinti.

Starting point is 00:12:23 The camp was a brick factory and severely overcrowded. By the end of the year, its prisoners numbered 5,000 and were sleeping two to a bed, and the rations dwindled. Trollmann tried to keep a low profile, but one officer there had been a boxing referee, and at length he recognized him as a former professional boxer and ordered him to report to the SS camp in the evening to train some of the guards. As Trollmann began to teach them, they treated him decently at first, even giving him some bread afterward, which he shared with children and friends. But on the second night, he was too weak to do much more than get hit, and he returned to the barracks with a black eye.

Starting point is 00:12:54 His will began to fail. At first, his friends pressed him to continue in order to provide bread for the children, but on February 7th, he came back with a broken nose, and the prisoners resorted to a last expedient to save him. When another prisoner died two days later, Trollmann exchanged clothes with him, and they recorded the dead man's name as Johann Trollmann. Then they spirited Trollmann to another nearby camp, Wittenberge. That was no escape. He was put to work doing some of the hardest jobs in the camp, unloading, stacking, and transporting bales of straw. And again, he was recognized as a boxer, and the prisoners organized a fight between him and Emil Cornelius, a former criminal. Trollmann won the fight, but Cornelius wanted revenge, tracked him down, and killed him. Trollmann was just 36 years old. Johann Trollmann could not

Starting point is 00:13:41 control the events that overtook his society just as he was reaching the zenith of his career, but he could refuse to dignify them. He loved his sport precisely because there was no room for prejudice. Talent and ability made themselves known undeniably in the ring. The ideology that opposed him was false, and he proved that by forcing it to bend the rules in order to defeat him. Trollmann's biographer Jud Nirenberg writes, most Sinti and Roma perished as numbers in the camps. They were anonymous deaths stripped of personhood. Trollmann died because of who he was. He was killed for being the Sinto boxer that so many white opponents could not defeat. In 2003, the German Boxing Federation recognized

Starting point is 00:14:23 Johann Trollmann as winner of the 1933 German Light Heavyweight Championship. Sports writer Roger Reppinger wrote that the fight had lasted 70 years and two rounds. In 2010, a memorial to Trollmann toured Germany, a boxing ring that sloped steeply to one side. And in 2012, Chancellor Angela Merkel opened a memorial in Berlin to Roma victims of the Nazi regime. A flower surrounded by a circular pool of water meant both to commemorate the dead and to stress the need to protect the living from prejudice and hate. A couple of our listeners let us know about a recent update to the story in episode 253 about how Sybil Hathaway, known as the Dame of Sark, worked to protect the inhabitants of her small island when the Germans took over the Channel Islands in 1940.

Starting point is 00:15:30 Ben Schwartz wrote, Dear Greg and Sharon, National Geographic recently published a story, Forgotten Nazi Camp on British Soil Revealed by Archaeologists. The story reminded me of episode 253, The Dame of Sark, so I thought I'd pass it along. The camp was on Alderney, which is the northernmost of the Channel Islands and is the closest one of the Channel Islands to both France and Great Britain. Like most of the other Channel Islands, the population of Alderney evacuated the island in advance of the Nazis' arrival. According to a historian quoted in the article, the treatment of prisoners was particularly brutal because there were no civilians around to witness it. Efforts to study, document, conserve, and remember this history are very important. It also reminds us of the brave people, such as those on Sark, who were able to resist and

Starting point is 00:16:11 hinder the Nazi war effort. So, I hadn't known that there was a Nazi concentration camp on British soil during the Second World War, and apparently the full story of this camp has generally been rather hidden and downplayed. But a British team of archaeologists recently published an article of their research into the camp, uncovering a number of details that had been physically and metaphorically buried, according to the lead author of the study. The Zult camp on Alderney was originally built in 1942 to be used as a forced labor camp for political prisoners, one of four such labor camps on the island, and was intended to house 100 to 200 inmates. Conditions were harsh, as the inadequately dressed and very underfed prisoners were forced to perform heavy construction work 12 hours a day.

Starting point is 00:16:57 Prisoners were beaten, and many of those who were died of their wounds. There was no medical treatment at the camp, although ill prisoners who could walk were sometimes allowed to go to the hospital at another labor camp. It's been reported that one-fifth of Zult's prisoners died between August 1942 and January 1943. Then, in March 1943, Zult was turned into a concentration camp and conditions worsened further. Over a thousand more prisoners were transferred to the camp, leading to severe overcrowding. Given the size of the barracks and the number of prisoners they contained, there would have been about one and a half square meters, or about five square feet of space, for each inmate. Prisoners were still subjected to hard physical labor, inadequate food, and harsh punishments, including beatings and dog attacks, and were hanged or shot on the slightest pretext.

Starting point is 00:17:45 For example, a historian is quoted in a BBC article as saying that a number of sick workers were herded out through a hole in the perimeter wire and shot on the other side for attempting to escape. When prisoners died, pre-printed death certificates were issued, which usually labeled the cause of death as faulty circulation or heart failure. Alderney's doctors were usually not allowed to see the dead bodies for themselves, but were instructed by the SS to just sign these death certificates. It still isn't known how many people died at Zolt. Much of the camp was demolished by the Germans when it was closed in 1944, and investigations by the British in 1945 found a false-bottomed coffin and documented

Starting point is 00:18:26 rumors of mass graves. A British major who assumed control of the investigations in June 1945 documented the brutality, murder, and deplorable conditions in the camp and said, German records in Alderney were so confusing that one cannot but doubt whether those traditionally so renowned for meticulous and efficient administration were in this instance really aiming for clarity. The official report of the investigation wasn't publicly released until 1981, and it softened many of the worst findings, aligning with the wishes of the British government and the local government and residents of Alderney. There is still some tension on Alderney between those who

Starting point is 00:19:05 would prefer to not have the area associated with such wartime atrocities and those who feel that the past should be remembered and the stories of those who suffered should be uncovered and told. The team of researchers on the Zolt project faced some local resistance to their work, and they were denied permits to be able to excavate any of the sites, so they had to rely on non-invasive methods only for their research. National Geographic reports that Graham McKinley, an elected member of the states of Alderney, is one of those who supports having Zolt studied, preserved, and made into a memorial.

Starting point is 00:19:36 He is quoted as saying, There is still a small group of people who want to put the past behind them and continue without looking into it too much. I believe we should be doing a lot more to show the world what actually happened here. I remember reading just a little bit about this as I was researching this Ark story, and even then there was very little known about what was going on there. I think there were just rumors were just finding their way back to the island, the other islands. Oh, oh, I see. Yeah, because there were almost no civilians left on Alderney, so there was nobody to really report it.

Starting point is 00:20:04 Yeah. Yeah, because there were almost no civilians left on Alderney, so there was nobody to really report it. Yeah. The main story in episode 291 was about how in 1946, Australian engineer Ben Carlin decided to circle the world in an amphibious jeep he named Half-Safe. He began the journey with his wife, Eleanor, and spent 10 years accomplishing his goal. Catherine Sylvester sent us an email with the subject line, I think Ben Carlin may have reincarnated as my boyfriend. Dear Sharon and Greg, my name is Catherine, but you may as well call me Eleanor because I too am coupled with an eccentric adventurer who is determined to circumnavigate the globe sans airplane and sufficient funds.

Starting point is 00:20:39 As we listened to episode 291 on our daily quarantine walk around the neighborhood, I didn't know whether I should laugh, weep, or merely feel exasperated that you shared this story, which only validated my own madman's unshakable conviction as he refuses to give up on his quest against all odds. It's been nearly four years since he started his overland journey from Melbourne, Australia. I drove with him across the Nullarbor to Perth in a massive eight-berth camper van. What's really weird to think about is that we pass through the suburb of Guildford in Perth, where Half Safe is displayed, and I think that's where we must have picked up Ben's ghost as a hitchhiker. Our plans definitely started going awry from then. From Perth, Garth, my adventurer, was meant to catch a freighter ship to Singapore. Unfortunately, due to some

Starting point is 00:21:24 strict Australian bureaucracy and a mishap with a medical document, Garth missed that boat. Instead of waiting several months for another ship to leave from Fremantle, Garth ended up taking public buses to Adelaide, backtracking 4,000 kilometers so he could catch a different freighter. I couldn't believe it when we finally met up in Singapore. From there, we managed to spend a full year in Southeast Asia as we saved up for the next leg of the journey and debated whether we should take the Trans-Siberian Railway out of China or to go east to introduce him to my family in California. I won that argument, so from Vung Tau, Vietnam, Garth sailed across the Pacific. He arrived in Los Angeles

Starting point is 00:22:00 Harbor just in time to spend Thanksgiving dinner with my entire extended family. We spent the next two years exploring and teaching in Mexico while we saved sufficient funds for the journey east. The plan was to take the Trans-Canadian towards none other than Halifax, Canada, where Garth would take his third boat. We really felt excited about 2020. We would finally get some momentum. When the COVID-19 whispers started, we decided to postpone the voyage until September. Now it looks like it might be longer. We are in our fourth year of this trip, and at this rate, completing the circuit in 10 years feels like a reasonable goal. Thank you for sharing the story of Half Safe, which feels so congruous with our own.

Starting point is 00:22:36 He doesn't know I'm writing this, but I really think that Garth was bolstered by Ben's words at the end of your story, answering the question, why do you do it? It hasn't been easy, constantly justifying himself to friends and family. Listening to this episode at this moment in time when the world has shut down feels so incredibly apt. Ben's story shows us that things don't always go according to plan. There is value in being adaptable and flexible. It shows how important resilience is, especially when it feels that there is no way forward. Above all, we must have unlimited patience. And Catherine added a postscript to her email saying that it would be fine to read her email on the show and added, I also ask that if you do reply to the email, could you please CC Garth as he is a huge fan of the website and podcast and will be equally

Starting point is 00:23:19 tickled and mortified that I've shared his story with you. Thank you again for all your amazing stories and lateral thinking puzzles. So hi, Garth. I'm hoping you're more tickled than mortified, and it was really interesting to hear your story. And that was a really nice point that Catherine made about how Ben's story can illustrate the value of resilience, flexibility, and patience in achieving what's important to us. Especially, I think, a trip like that. I remember thinking that about reading about Ben Carlin's trip is that it's almost designed to show you how big the world is and how many vicissitudes you're going to face as you try to get around it. And of course, we're sending our very best wishes to Garth and Catherine for their successful

Starting point is 00:23:56 completion of their journey. And please do let us know when you finish it. We are rooting for you. Thank you so much to everyone who writes to us. We really appreciate getting your follow-ups, comments, and feedback. So if you have any that you'd like to send to us, please send them to podcast at futilitycloset.com. And yes, I do still appreciate pronunciation tips. It's my turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. Greg is going to give me a strange-sounding situation, and I have to see if I can figure out what is actually going on,

Starting point is 00:24:30 asking yes or no questions. In the early 1800s, volunteer fire stations often had towers. What was their purpose? Hmm. Does it matter where this takes place? No. Volunteer fire stations often had towers. Would that be so somebody could stand up in the tower and look around for fires? No. An excellent guess, but that's not it.

Starting point is 00:24:53 Okay. All right. When you say a tower, do you mean a human-built structure? Yes. That is tall? Yes. Would people go up into the top of this tower or near the top of the tower? No. No.

Starting point is 00:25:08 Was something stored in the tower? No. No. But people, would you say that people never went up into the tower? To simplify this, yes. I mean, they were sometimes used as auxiliary observation posts or belfries, but cities maintained watch posts at central locations. I didn't understand the last thing. Cities maintained watch posts?

Starting point is 00:25:33 Basically, they did watch for fires, but those were typically done— Somewhere else. Somewhere else. Okay, so conceivably one of these towers could exist and no person would ever go up into it? Yes. Did some kind of animals use it? No. And you said nothing was stored in it.

Starting point is 00:25:55 And nobody ever went up into it. Does it matter what the height of these things was? Were they kind of a specific height? I've stumped you. i want to say yes i mean probably they varied but i want to say yes to for a the purpose they were used for there was sort of it could have been made to sort of a standard height okay um i'm trying to make it simple okay all right let's back up would you say that the purpose of these towers was in some way used to help fight fires? No. Only indirectly. Yes or no. Okay. Would you say the primary purpose of these towers was in some way to help prevent fires? Again, only indirectly.

Starting point is 00:26:41 Only indirectly. And you said it was volunteer fire departments that primarily had these. Yes, but firehouses in general would have used them for the same purpose. Okay, but firehouses, not some other type of organization. Right. Specifically fire departments or firehouses. Yes. Would have had a tower. Yes.

Starting point is 00:27:01 Is there anything about the dimensions besides the height that I should worry about or be concerned about? No. The location of it, is that important? Not the location, like where this would be in relation to other things. Within the building. Yeah. I mean, was this put in some specific location in relation to anything else? No. Doesn't matter where it was, but they had a tower. Did they use this for training purposes somehow, would you say? No.

Starting point is 00:27:34 And you said this was done in the 1800s. Yes. That's important? Yes, but I think it would take a while to go down. To figure out why. The towers were entirely hollow on the inside, if that helps. But they didn't have, like, stairs or some way of getting up them. Right.

Starting point is 00:27:57 Okay. Okay. Did they have vents or something at the top? Was something like smoke expected to go up them? No, but you're sort of warmer. Warmer? Did they have anything to do with temperature control? No.

Starting point is 00:28:14 Anything to do with water? Yes. Something to do with water? Yes. Okay. Something to do with the collection of water, like to help collect water from a stream or something? And not the storage, because you said they're not used for storage. They were used to help maintain part of the firefighters' equipment.

Starting point is 00:28:37 Water pressure somehow? No. Firefighters' equipment. Maintain the firefighters' equipment. Maintain the firefighters' equipment. All right, it's the 1800s. You're fighting a fire. What do you need? You need water. You need a way to get the water to where the fire is.

Starting point is 00:28:54 You need human beings. Yep. You don't have a lot of technology. Okay, which part of that process was the tower helpful with? Getting water to where the fire is? It was concerned with that part of the process. The towers were used after a fire. They were used after a fire?

Starting point is 00:29:15 Yeah, they'd come back from the fire. They'd come back from the fire. And use the tower. And use the tower. For this purpose. After you'd fought the fire, would it matter if you were injured or not? No. Whether you'd inhaled smoke or anything

Starting point is 00:29:29 like that? No. And somehow this helped maintain the equipment you said. Yeah, if they didn't do this then the equipment would suffer. Part of their equipment. Oh, okay, alright. Okay, equipment. Hoses? Yes. Hoses. Hoses had to be um, I don't know, re-spooled?

Starting point is 00:29:49 No. Re-wound up into whatever? What do you do with a hose? Hoses. Hoses for carrying water. At the fire, they use the hose to spray water onto the fire. Okay. I'll agree to that. I don't know. Which left the hoses... Wet? Yes. So they would dry them out in a tower?

Starting point is 00:30:12 Yes. How do you get the hose up in the tower? Oh, with a winch or something? Yeah. Basically, they did this to dry hoses. Hoses were made of leather in those days and would rot if they weren't properly cared for. So firehouses regularly installed towers equipped with pulleys, ropes, and hanging hooks to dry them out.

Starting point is 00:30:29 It didn't occur to me that they'd be made out of leather and could rot. I wasn't thinking. Well, apparently that's true of canvas hoses as well. Really? Now, from what I understand, at least they dry them in cabinets or on racks, but it's still something you have to do. See how much I know about fighting fires. We're always on the lookout for more lateral thinking puzzles. So if you have one that you would like to send in for us to try,

Starting point is 00:30:50 please send it to podcast at futilitycloset.com. Futility Closet is supported entirely by our amazing listeners. If you'd like to support our celebration of the quirky and the curious, you can find a donate button in the supporters section of the website at futilitycloset.com. Or you can join our Patreon campaign, where you'll not only help support the show, but also get more discussions on some of the stories, extralateral thinking puzzles, outtakes, and peeks behind the scenes. You can find our Patreon page at patreon.com slash futilitycloset or see our website for the link. At our website, you can graze through Greg's collection of over 11,000 concise curiosities,

Starting point is 00:31:31 browse the Futility Closet store, learn about the Futility Closet books, and see the show notes for the podcast with links and references for the topics we've covered. If you have any questions or comments for us, you can email us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and performed by my phenomenal brother-in-law, Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

Futility Closet - 297-A Sinto Boxer in Nazi Germany

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