Max Hermann Maier
1891 - 1976

Max Hermann Ernst Maier was the younger son of Hermann Heinrich Maier (1855-1926) and Caecilie Maier, née Scheyer (1867-1922). His father, born in Frankfurt on the Main, was a student at the Philanthropin, the most important Jewish school in Frankfurt. He completed a banking apprenticeship with the Jewish private banker Emil Ladenburg in his native city and managed the local branch of Deutsche Bank from 1886 to 1912. Hermann Heinrich Maier came from an orthodox family. He had democratic and pacifist leanings, was a co-founder of the Verband für internationale Verständigung (Association for International Understanding) and a member of the Bund Neues Vaterland (New Fatherland League) during the First World War. He was also a member of the supervisory board of the Aktienbaugesellschaft für kleine Wohnungen (Joint-stock building company for small apartments) in Frankfurt, for which Max Hermann Maier later worked as a lawyer.

Max Hermann Maier's mother also came from Frankfurt on the Main. Her father Daniel Scheyer is listed in the Frankfurt address book from 1877 with a banking business at Oederweg 19. Her mother Mina (also Minna Rosette) Scheyer, née Schwarzschild, lived in Frankfurt from 1841 to 1926. Her father Enoch Schwarzschild is listed in the Frankfurt directory of 1868/69 as a merchant and with the company Schwarzschild-Ochs (1877: Tülle, Spitzen und Blonden/grommet, lace and blondes, at the Rossmarkt). Max Hermann Maier later sat on the supervisory board of Schwarzschild-Ochs A.G.

Caecilie Maier was also democratic and pacifist. According to his older brother Hans Maier, their Jewish mother was not orthodox, so there were often religious conflicts between the parents and between the father and his sons. According to the autobiographical review written by Max Hermann Meier in June 1951, she made sure that the sons did a lot of sport, swimming, skating, skiing, horse riding and mountaineering. Max Hermann Maier grew up in a family that hiked regularly and a lot:

"Beide Eltern waren ausdauernde Wanderer. Wir haben mit ihnen als kleinere Jungens Taunus, Odenwald, Schwarzwald, Eifel und Harz durchwandert und als größere ein gutes Teil der Schweizer Pässe, über die damals kein Auto fuhr, nur die Pferdepost. Grimsel, Furka, Klausen, Gemmi, Brünig, Große und Kleine Scheidegg waren unsere Routen. Wir zogen mir Rucksäcken los, aus denen wir tagsüber lebten, und haben mit einfachen Quartieren vorlieb genommen" (Both parents were persistent hikers. As younger boys, we hiked with them through the Taunus, Odenwald, Black Forest, Eifel and Harz mountains, and as older boys, a good part of the Swiss passes, over which no cars traveled at the time, only horse-drawn mail. Grimsel, Furka, Klausen, Gemmi, Brünig, Grosse and Kleine Scheidegg were our routes. We set off with rucksacks, from which we lived during the day, and made do with simple accommodation; Maier 1972, p. 31).

His brother Hans recalled in 1937 that the family climbed the Brünig-Haupt in 1902, when Max was 11 years old, traveled to Lenzerheide and the Engadin in 1905 and hiked over the Col de Balme to Chamonix in France the following year (Eckhardt 2020, p. 42). In the summer of 1909, the brothers Hans and Max Hermann climbed the Zugspitze from Höllenthal.

One year later, Max Hermann Maier graduated from the Lessing-Gymnasium in Frankfurt on the Main. He then began studying law and economics, which took him to Freiburg (im Breisgau), Munich, Berlin and Kiel. The two-semester study visit to Munich gave him further mountain experience. In winter, Max Hermann skied in the Bavarian and Austrian Alps, for example in March 1911:

"Kitzbühel war damals kein moderner Kurort. Jungens und Mädchen waren in zwei großen getrennten Räumen untergebracht, ohne Heizung und fließend Wasser. Wir wuschen uns aus großen Schüsseln einmal am Abend im Freien. Auf das Kitzbühler Horn ging noch kein Skilift; wir wanderten wiederholt hinauf und genossen die wunderbaren Abfahrten, bei denen wir meistens die erste Spur fuhren" (Kitzbühel was not a modern spa town back then. Boys and girls were accommodated in two large separate rooms, without heating or running water. We washed ourselves from large bowls outside once in the evening. There was no ski lift to the Kitzbühler Horn yet; we hiked up there repeatedly and enjoyed the wonderful descents, where we usually skied the first track; Maier 1972, p. 42).

In the summer of 1911, he was out and about in the mountains:

"Ich habe leidenschaftlich gern Hoch- und Klettertouren im Wettersteingebirge unternommen. Die Zugspitze, auf die damals auch noch keine Bahn ging, habe ich von allen Seiten mehrmals bestiegen. Auch den großen Waxenstein, die Dreitorspitze und die Alpspitze habe ich erklettert" (I was passionate about mountaineering and climbing in the Wetterstein mountains. I climbed the Zugspitze, to which there was no train at the time, several times from all sides. I also climbed the Großer Waxenstein, the Dreitorspitze and the Alpspitze; Maier 1972, p. 44).

Max Hermann Maier married the chemist Dr. Mathilde Wormser, known as Titti, in May 1920. The religious wedding ceremony was performed by his friend, the Frankfurt rabbi Dr. Jakob Horovitz (1873-1939). The marriage was childless.

Max Hermann Maier completed his studies in Kiel in 1913 by passing the legal clerkship examination. He then moved to the Herborn district court for further training and worked on his doctorate in the meantime. In August 1914, he volunteered for military service. After a short time in Hanau and Darmstadt, he joined the 6th Dragoon Regiment in Mayence. Max Hermann Maier first fought as a cavalry soldier in East Prussia. There he was awarded the Iron Cross II Class. He was then deployed in Poland, Lithuania and Courland. He was promoted to non-commissioned officer in 1915, then to lieutenant in the reserve in France at the end of 1917, already an infantryman at the time. He remained on the Western Front until November 1918.

After the First World War, he went to Frankfurt on the Main and initially worked as a trainee lawyer at the regional court there. In 1920, Max Hermann Maier passed his doctoral examination at the Faculty of Law at the University of Cologne with a thesis on "State and Individual in General Land Law for the Prussian States" under Professor Dr. Hans Planitz. In 1921, he passed the assessor exam in Berlin and joined the Frankfurt law firm of Dr. Emil Benkard, his son Dr. Georg Benkard and Dr. Gustav Spier, for whom he had already worked during his legal traineeship. After Emil Benkard's death, his son Dr. Georg Benkard was admitted to the Frankfurt Regional Court and the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court until December 1927, then worked as a lawyer at the Reich Court in Leipzig until 1945 and later served as a judge at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe from 1951 to 1953. In 1951, he described his work at the firm as follows:

"Wir hatten eine derartige harmonische Sozietaet, dass auch nicht ein Schatten der kleinsten Differenz in den vielen Jahren auf die gemeinsame Arbeit fiel. Es war eine Lust zu arbeiten." (We had such a harmonious partnership that not even a shadow of the slightest difference fell on our work together over the years. It was a pleasure to work.)

Maier also ran his own law firm and worked as a lawyer for the city of Frankfurt on the Main, among others. In June 1921, he was admitted to the Frankfurt District Court as a lawyer. His appointment as notary followed in June 1927. Max Hermann Maier was a member of the board of the Frankfurt Bar Association from 1921 to 1933. As a former "Frontkaempfer" (front-line fighter), he was able to continue working after January 30, 1933, but his notary's office was revoked in November 1935. Nora Rothschild, who worked in the law firm under Maier during her legal clerkship, describes his experiences at the beginning of the Nazi dictatorship in a memoir from 1985 as follows:

"I recall the day when Max returned from the court, all shaken-up, his face white, as I had never seen him. He had witnessed at the court a scene of abuse of some of his Jewish colleagues at the hands of street people."

In January 1936, he took over the management of the advice center of the Hilfsverein der Juden für Hessen-Nassau and Hessen. As an officially licensed emigration counselor, he--together with Mathilde Maier--helped numerous Jews to emigrate from the German Reich. After the November pogroms, Max Hermann Maier (like all remaining Jewish lawyers) was ultimately banned from practicing law and was removed from the list of lawyers on December 1, 1938, but he had already left Germany by then.

Max Hermann Maier joined the Frankfurt section of the German and Austrian Alpine Club in 1922. His lawyer colleague at the firm, Dr. Gustav Spier, had already joined the section in 1905, so he had probably recommended him for membership. From the documents we have seen so far, it is not possible to say whether Max Hermann Maier actively participated in events organized by the Frankfurt section. It also remains unclear for the time being whether he left the section or was expelled, as no documents have yet been found. As a so-called "Frontkaempfer" (front-line fighter) during the First World War, he could have remained a member, but it is more likely that he left the section due to his positive work for Jewish victims of persecution.

In his memoirs published in 1972, he does not mention the Frankfurt section. But he does describe his mountain activities during the years of his membership:

"Für Titti und mich waren Wanderungen im Gebirge die schönste Erholung von der Berufsarbeit und von dem Leben in der Großstadt. Die Sonntage verbrachten wir, wenn es nur immer möglich war, im Taunus, Odenwald, Spessart, Vogelsberg oder in der besonders geliebten Rhön. […] In den Ferien, die wir meistens in den Monaten Juli oder August nahmen, waren außer der Schweiz die bayerischen und österreichischen Alpen bis 1933 unsere Hauptziele, Wetterstein, Tauern, Stubaier-, Ötztaler- und Zillertaler Alpen. Mit Rucksäcken blieben wir gern zwei bis drei Wochen auf Höhenwegen zwischen 2.000 und 3.000 Metern Höhe, von Hütte zu Hütte wandernd. Gelegentlich bestiegen wir von einer Hütte aus einen hohen Berg. Wenn es über ewigen Schnee und Eis ging, nahmen wir einen einheimischen Führer mit, weil wir uns auf diesen Urelementen nicht so sicher fühlten wie auf dem uns vertrauten Wald und Fels. Von Mittenwald aus haben wir die Arnspitze, von Hindelang aus den Iseler und den Daumen (2.280m), in den Tauern den Großvenediger (3.721m), in den Ötztaler Alpen den Similaun (3.594m) und von Saas-Fee aus das Alalinhorn (4.000m) bestiegen. Mit Vorliebe reisten wir in die Schweiz, die nach 1933 für uns ein Refugium wurde, in dem man frei atmen konnte. Doch schon vorher haben wir in Arosa das herrliche Skigelände genossen und sind auch einmal vom Egishorn aus über den riesigen Aletschgletscher recht anstrengend bei Neuschnee auf das Jungfraujoch (3.457m) hinaufgestiegen, wo wir in guter Unterkunft übernachteten und noch vor dem Eintreffen des ersten Zuges der Jungfrau-Bahn den Sonnenaufgang und den überwältigend großartigen Blick auf die Schnee- und Eiswelt und auf Gebirge und Täler genossen haben. Vom Jungfraujoch sind wir dann mit der Bahn zur Kleinen Scheidegg hinabgefahren" (For Titti and me, hiking in the mountains was the best way to relax from work and life in the big city. Whenever possible, we spent Sundays in the Taunus, Odenwald, Spessart, Vogelsberg or in the Rhoen, which we particularly loved. [...] During the vacations, which we usually took in July or August, our main destinations apart from Switzerland were the Bavarian and Austrian Alps until 1933, the Wetterstein, Tauern, Stubai, Ötztal and Zillertal Alps. We liked to spend two to three weeks with rucksacks on high-altitude trails between 2,000 and 3,000 meters above sea level, hiking from hut to hut. Occasionally we climbed a high mountain from a hut. If we had to cross eternal snow and ice, we took a local guide with us because we didn't feel as safe on these primeval elements as we did on the forest and rock we were familiar with. We climbed the Arnspitze from Mittenwald, the Iseler and the Daumen (2,280m) from Hindelang, the Großvenediger (3,721m) in the Tauern, the Similaun (3,594m) in the Ötztal Alps and the Alalinhorn (4,000m) from Saas-Fee. We loved traveling to Switzerland, which became a refuge for us after 1933, where we could breathe freely. But even before that, we enjoyed the wonderful skiing terrain in Arosa and once climbed quite strenuously in fresh snow from the Egishorn over the huge Aletsch Glacier to the Jungfraujoch (3,457m), where we stayed in good accommodation and enjoyed the sunrise and the overwhelmingly magnificent view of the snow and ice world and of the mountains and valleys before the first train of the Jungfrau Railway arrived. From the Jungfraujoch we then took the train down to Kleine Scheidegg; Maier 1972, p. 156-158).

As a former "Frontkaempfer" (front-line fighter) in World War I, Maier was still able to work as a lawyer during the Nazi dictatorship. In 1935, he acquired 200 alqueiras in Paraná, a federal state in Brazil, from the English land company Paraná Plantations Ltd. 86 of which later had to be sold in order to make a living, so that the farm, known as a fazenda in Portuguese, ultimately only comprised 114 alqueiras (around 277 hectares). In January 1936, Max Hermann Maier took over the management of the advice center of the Jewish Aid Association in Frankfurt on the Main in addition to his work as a lawyer. He was responsible for helping Jews in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, in Hesse-Darmstadt and in some nearby parts of the Prussian Rhine Province to emigrate. This activity regularly took him to Kassel, Fulda and Worms for consultations. In his function as an emigration consultant, he also had to visit the Frankfurt Gestapo on several occasions. As a lawyer, he was also involved in so-called "Aryanizations", for example at Schwarzschild-Ochs A.G.

After the death of his sister-in-law and his brother Hans Maier in 1937, he took over the guardianship of the two younger children Heinrich, called Heiner (later Henry, born 1918) and Margarete, called Gretel (later Margret, born 1921), who were not yet of age. Heiner was able to emigrate to the USA in April 1938. In November 1938, he emigrated with his wife Mathilde Maier and his niece Margarete via the Netherlands and Great Britain to Brazil, only escaping arrest on November 10 with the help of friends. The Maiers reached Santos (Brazil) on December 8, 1938.

From January 1939, Max Hermann Maier and his wife Mathilde ran a coffee plantation in Rolândia, Brazil, together with the Jewish farmer Heinrich Kaphan (1893-1981) and his wife Käte, née Manasse (1906-1995), from Pomerania, who had already emigrated in April 1936. Their fazenda was located on the Jaù river. They also grew maize, rice and cotton.

Max Hermann Maier had become a member of the "Movimento dos Anti-Nazistas Alemaes do Brasil" during the Second World War. In 1945, his niece Margarethe Maier went to the USA, where her older siblings were already living. Maier became a Brazilian citizen in 1951. He later became involved in the so-called restitution proceedings in the Federal Republic of Germany for Jewish victims. In 1957, he and his wife traveled back to Europe for the first time and also visited Frankfurt on the Main. Both also repeatedly visited former friends in Israel, such as Dr. Eugen Meyer, the syndic of the Frankfurt Jewish community from 1919 to 1933, who had already emigrated to Palestine in October 1933.

Margot Benary-Isbert, who had known Max Hermann Maier since her school days in Frankfurt on the Main, described him as follows during a visit to Brazil in 1966:

"Max und Titti, das merke ich schon nach wenigen Tagen, sind nicht nur für die Familien ihrer Arbeiter, sondern auch unter den Nachbarn und Freunden ein Zentrum der Hilfsbereitschaft. Max, der ehemalige Anwalt, ist auch hier "honoris causa" der juristische Berater des großen Freundeskreises. Es ist verständlich, daß es ihm Freude macht, auch auf seinem ursprünglichen Berufsgebiet noch tätig zu sein. In seinem schönen Arbeitszimmer geht es oft zu wie in einem Anwaltsbüro. Jeder in der Siedlung, der legalen Rat braucht, kommt zu ihm, und da es weit und breit kein Telefon gibt, muß eben jeder persönlich kommen" (Max and Titti, I realize after just a few days, are not only a center of helpfulness for the families of their workers, but also among their neighbors and friends. Max, the former lawyer, is also the 'honoris causa' legal advisor to the large circle of friends here. It is understandable that he still enjoys working in his original professional field. His beautiful study often feels like a lawyer's office. Everyone in the estate who needs legal advice comes to him, and since there is no telephone for miles around, everyone has to come in person; Benary-Isbert 1968, p. 209).

In 1972, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. He finally died in Rolândia (Brazil) in August 1976.