Emden, Max James |
| BUSINESSMAN, ART COLLECTOR (GERMANY) |
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BORN 28 Oct 1874, Hamburg - DIED 26 Jun 1940, Muralto, Ticino GRAVE LOCATION Ronco sopra Ascona, Ticino: Cimitero di Ronco sopra Ascona |
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Max Emden was the son of Jakob Emden (1843.1916), a wealthy Jewish merchant from Hamburg who was the owner of department stores. His mother was Mathilde Emden, born Kann (1941-1910). Max studied chemistry and mineralogy in Heidelberg, Geneva, Zürich and Leipzig. After fulfilling his military duty from1876 to 1897, he obtained a PhD in 1898. He worked in the family business and later he became a partner and the sole owner. In 1906 the architect Wilhelm Fränkel built a country house for him at Klein Flottbek in the Altona area of Hamburg. In 1910 he married Concordia Gertrud Hélène Anna Sternberg (1888-1973), who was born in Chile. They had one son, Hans Erich Emden (1911-2001). When Max was almost fifty years old, he sold most of the company assets to Karstadt. He was estranged from his wife. They divorced in 1926 but remained on good terms. He had a lover, but she did not want to marry a Jew and he was shocked when she rejected his marriage proposal in 1926. In that year he bought the Brissago Islands on Lake Maggiore from Baroness Antoinette de Saint Léger. A large palazzo was built for him there by the architect Alfred Breslauer (1866-1954). In 1931 a large collection of his paintings was auctioned off in Berlin. After the nazis came to power he mostly lived in Ticino. He surrounded himself with young women, including an 18-year-old girlfriend. In 1934 he acquired Swiss civil rights. He was visited on his island by Erich Maria Remarque and by his ex-wife, who was still a friend and was Countess Einsiedel after marrying Adolkar von Einsiedel, Graf von Einsiedel (1889-1963) in 1927. He was forced to sell paintings he had brought to Switzerland and several paintings by Bernardo Bellotto were acquired for Adolf Hitler's collection. Emden suddenly died in 1940 in Muralto, Ticino. His son Hans Eric inherited his possessions. He could not secure permanent Swiss residence and emigrated to Chile, where his mother was born. After the Second World War he sold the Brissago Islands to the canton of Ticino and the surrounding communities. In 1950 they became publicly accessible. Related persons • was a friend of Remarque, Erich Maria |
| Images |
 The grave of Max Emden at the Cimitero di Ronco sopra Ascona, Ticino. Picture by Androom (16 Feb 2019) |
Sources • Max Emden - Wikipedia (EN) |
