FRANKFURT, Dec. 28 (S&S) — Sugar Ray Robinson last. might settled the question of how long Hans Stretz, ex-middleweight champion of Germany, could stand up against the world welterweight champion by knocking out the 159-pound hopeful from Erlangen with a savage right that ended the fight after 30 seconds of the fifth round.

It was the second knockdown of the round and the fourth during the last full minute of fighting. Stretz knew what was waiting for hire when he got up. He wasn't unconscious when Robinson flattened him for the last time, but he decided against coming back for more. He just lay there until the referee was safely to 10.

What was waiting for him any time he wanted to get off the canvas was a 152-pound fighting machine, increasingly widely recognized as the greatest fighter in the world, Sugar Ray was spectacular last night, especially after the half-dozen mediocrities who had stumbled through three preliminary bouts.

The 10,000 assorted spectators who had gathered in the freezing Messehalle had never seen anything quite like this match between the flawless machine and the local talent, who, in a larger picture, figured pretty much as an unknown. Robinson came out of his corner fast, and within 30 seconds of the first round he had unleashed one of his wicked left hooks that left Stretz flat on the floor.

Many of the spectators thought they were in for another Basora fight — Basora being the man Sugar Ray felled for good in exactly 52 seconds of the first round.

Throughout the fight, however, Stretz seemed to respond with superhuman agility to the sound of the word "nine." In this case, he rose to his feet and began fighting again. Before the round was over, the uncelebrated young man had even dared to attack the champion on his own ground and to land a couple of surprising, if ineffectual, punches.

After one look at that left hook, though, everyone knew that it was just a matter of time — and not much time at that. When the first-round gong sounded, some considered it a great moral victory for Stretz. The German audience, given an occasional chance to hope that the champion was not all he had been cracked up to be, set up a roar every time Stretz hit his opponent. And Stretz gained everyone's sympathy by being so valiant in so hopeless a cause.

The third was the German's best round. After being revived twice by the sound of "nine" in the previous stanza, Stretz still managed, in the third, to make some show of fighting it out. In one exchange of blows on the ropes, Stretz got in his only blows that amounted to anything, a pair of body punches that brought a look of surprise to the champion's imperturbable face.

But at the end of the third, Stretz was reeling. Robinson kept connecting with head blows, not only the murderous left hook that kept coming in fast and hard, but an occasional right hook for variety.

After two and a half minutes of the fourth, it looked as though it were all over. Robinson's right hook connected again with jarring force. Stretz literally left the ring for a split second and then collapsed in a heap. At the count of nine, he was up again, trying now to evade the champion until the bell might save him from harm.

But Robinson is too fast to be evaded. He trapped Stretz against the ropes and a left hook sent the German down again. The bell rang before the count was finished, and Stretz was lugged back to his corner.

In the fifth, what there was of it, Stretz' counterattacks were almost a forgotten piece of bravado.: After 20 seconds he went down, but bounded up after a count of two, only to meet another right 10 seconds later. This time, he went down with a thud. At the count of eight, he raised his head briefly but thought better of the whole thing and decided to stay where he was.

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