1. Such behavior drew negative attention to his businesses, particularly since Auschnitt used his political connections to secure Romanian state contracts, on which his fortune largely rested.
100 Facts About Max Auschnitt
1. 2.
Max Auschnitt's alleged corruption, along with his ethnicity and his publicized anti-fascism, made him a target for verbal and physical attacks by the far-right movements, in particular the Iron Guard.
3.
Max Auschnitt attempted to diffuse this threat by paying public tributes to Romanian nationalism and, more discreetly, by sponsoring the Guardist network.
4.
Max Auschnitt found himself at odds with Carol after a string of matrimonial, economic, and geopolitical disputes.
5.
Max Auschnitt was arrested shortly after the start of World War II, and imprisoned following a show trial.
6.
Max Auschnitt had a minor role in plotting the anti-fascist coup of 1944, though he himself had to flee Romania before the event, and was sentenced to death in absentia.
7.
Several members of the Auschnitt family, including Max, served in the Romanian Army during the campaigns of World War I, which resulted in the establishment of Greater Romania; Edgar had been bypassed for the 1915 draft, after presenting himself as an Austro-Hungarian subject.
8.
Economist Nicolae Pavaluca suggests that Max Auschnitt built his personal wealth around the Galati nails factory that was sold to him by Nita Caltofeanu "not long after the first world war".
9.
Max Auschnitt moved his offices to the Banat once that region united with Romania, entrusted with the administration of the Iron Domains and Factory.
10.
Max Auschnitt established an empire that included the UDR, as well as smaller factories or mines in such places as Anina, Armenis, and Bocsa.
11.
Max Auschnitt went on to serve as President of the Banat's General Association of Industry and Vice General of the Union of Industrialists of Romania.
12.
Together with his brother Edgar, Max Auschnitt owned several steel and munitions businesses including the Titan-Nadrag-Calan chain, which is claimed to have employed over 4,900 workers.
13.
Max Auschnitt was especially successful as owner of the UDR, which had amassed 1 billion lei in capital.
14.
Max Auschnitt claimed that Edgar alone ran TNC from 1929, but his connections to that company surfaced in later talk about his conflicts of interest.
15.
Max Auschnitt was among the managers of various foreign companies in Central Europe, as well as of Romanian-based companies, including Chrissoveloni and the Romanian Telephone Company.
16.
Journalists circulated rumors according to which Max Auschnitt had enjoyed a close connection to Carol Caraiman, who, in 1930, became Carol II, King of the Romanians.
17.
Max Auschnitt belonged to a branch of Romanian Freemasonry, frequenting Mesterul Manole Lodge alongside Malaxa and Aristide Blank, and, through it, sponsoring Revista Fundatiilor Regale, a political-cultural journal.
18.
From 1929 to 1933, Max Auschnitt represented Galati Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the Senate of Romania.
19.
In February 1932, Calendarul newspaper reported that Max Auschnitt had intervened to bloc senators from approving of a price ceiling on sugar.
20.
At the time, Max Auschnitt himself admitted that his Creditanstalt was trying to collect the 50-million schilling it was owed by Romanian sugar refineries, and would therefore oppose any reduction of their profit margin.
21.
In that context, Max Auschnitt was becoming noted as the PNT's financial backer.
22.
Lawyer-memoirist Petre Pandrea alleges that Max Auschnitt had corrupted his old friend Madgearu, who was by then the PNT ideologue, ensuring that Madgearu never acted in the interest of Romanian peasants.
23.
Already in the late 1920s, Max Auschnitt allegedly purchased scrap iron from Iron Guard cooperatives, as a means to disguise his purchase of influence.
24.
Max Auschnitt noted that Guardists took Auschnitt's money while still reining violence on lower-class Jews, who were powerless.
25.
Max Auschnitt was then engaged to Leonora Brooke, daughter of the White Rajah, Charles Vyner Brooke, whom he was set to marry in September 1933.
26.
Max Auschnitt remained noted for his escapades with film stars and high-society ladies, before finally marrying Livia Pordea, from a political family of Cluj.
27.
Max Auschnitt bought his family the Gheorghe Manu villa on Aleea Alexandru, Dorobanti, Bucharest.
28.
Argetoianu reports that, in 1937, Max Auschnitt attempted to buy a portion of Romania's sugar industry from Creditanstalt, which had foreclosed various Romanian refineries.
29.
Max Auschnitt found himself overwhelmed by liabilities and resold his shares to Carol II, who immediately obtained a debt restructuring.
30.
Max Auschnitt alone purchased from the Aga Khan the steed Firdussi, which he then presented as a gift for Carol.
31.
Argetoianu notes that Max Auschnitt made sure to play a losing hand.
32.
Max Auschnitt intended to purchase, and thus rescue, the Teitler house in Galati, which popular opinion claimed as the house of a national hero, Alexandru Ioan Cuza.
33.
Max Auschnitt renounced this plan upon being told by historian Nicolae Iorga that the building had no cultural value.
34.
One anecdote suggests that Max Auschnitt heard actors Grigore Vasiliu Birlic and Ion Iancovescu plead for financial assistance, before presenting them with a literal wall of cash, and asking them to pick out a layer of money.
35.
Max Auschnitt had remained discreetly involved in political life, a sponsor of the least radical nationalist platforms, leading to paradoxes.
36.
At a meeting of the General Union of Industrialists in November 1935, Max Auschnitt himself argued for tariffs on Romanian exports as a means of preventing "weak-currency countries" from competing with local factories.
37.
In late 1936, rumors that Max Auschnitt had attended a hunting party with PNT leaders Maniu and Ion Mihalache were dismissed by the party press as "intended to stoke the people's animosity".
38.
Prat claimed that Max Auschnitt sponsored his diplomatic mission, though, as noted by scholar Judith Keene, this too was an attempt by the businessman to appease the Romanian fascists.
39.
Vaida hypothesized that Max Auschnitt's baptism had changed his perspective on Romanianization; he hinted that such messaging was vetted by the PNT, which was courting the far-right.
40.
From September 1937, Max Auschnitt's activities became a main topic of scrutiny for the pro-fascist daily Universul, whose staff believed that he was behind Zaharia Stancu's left-wing newspaper, Lumea Romaneasca.
41.
Max Auschnitt confessed being taken by surprise when Carol appointed Goga as Premier, as the king never mentioned his plans to his poker partners.
42.
In February 1938, Max Auschnitt announced that he was giving up on politics and moving abroad, sparking alarm that he was going to create chaos by giving up on his managerial duties.
43.
Max Auschnitt believes that the conflict between Malaxa and Auschnitt exploded when Malaxa's young daughter, seduced by Carol, came to usurp Livia's role at the court.
44.
Max Auschnitt was often credited as the mastermind behind Tilea's action, though Tilea himself later revealed that he was urged on by people close to Malaxa.
45.
The pretext was offered by his alleged conflict of interest: Max Auschnitt was claimed to have tampered with a signed UDR contract in order to obtain state compensation for TNC budgetary losses.
46.
Max Auschnitt is cited by Argetoianu as emotionally shaken by the interpretation of facts, openly denying that the document in question was ever modified.
47.
Pandrea reports that Livia Max Auschnitt once insulted Urdareanu, who enjoyed Lupescu's protection.
48.
Business rivals where then allowed to engineer a trial against Max Auschnitt, who was accused of fraud and money laundering.
49.
Argetoianu adds speculation that Carol was resentful because his stocks in the Lujani sugar refineries, obtained from Max Auschnitt, had been subject to litigation; or that the king intended to please Adolf Hitler by "sacrificing his own kikes".
50.
Argetoianu partly backs this rumor, by relaying a story allegedly told by Iamandi, according to which Max Auschnitt agreed to cede his stock if promised immunity from prosecution.
51.
Writer Radu Tudoran, who covered the trial as a young reporter, contrarily noted that Max Auschnitt was not guilty, and that his "concise", "hard-hitting" self-defense was proof in itself.
52.
Prosecutors looked into another issue of conflicting interests, noting that Max Auschnitt had used CEPI to buy off UDR assets.
53.
Argetoianu assesses that Max Auschnitt's imprisonment had by then brought a great surge in the king's popularity, since the public, especially the "nationalist and antisemitic circles", could now believe that the tide was turning on his camarilla.
54.
Max Auschnitt's shares were reportedly split between the Nazi iron conglomerate and Malaxa.
55.
Antonescu was lenient toward Max Auschnitt, dispatching him to a sanitarium, but continued to enforce and enhance antisemitic laws.
56.
Prosecutors reportedly found a trove of foreign currency, which they confiscated, preparing to have Max Auschnitt placed on trial for tax evasion.
57.
Max Auschnitt openly acknowledged that Auschnitt was in fact innocent of any crime, and favored allowing him to leave Romania if he would transfer all his property to the state; this attempt was foiled by protests from Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German Foreign Minister.
58.
In October 1941, Max Auschnitt had offered to donate his share of the TNC to a state company.
59.
Max Auschnitt's proposal caused much embarrassment for Antonescu's ministers, since accepting under the circumstances would have looked like their blackmailing a prisoner.
60.
In January 1942, Max Auschnitt sorted the issue by appointing Orghidan as caretaker of his estate, which allowed for TNC stock to be issued and bought by the state using Max Auschnitt's money.
61.
Max Auschnitt finally moved to the United States in early 1942.
62.
Around that time, Max Auschnitt managed to transfer money from his accounts with the Swiss Bank Corporation to a cell of anti-fascist exiles in England, which was overseen by Grigore Gafencu.
63.
Max Auschnitt partnered with Arthur Tester, whom he himself described as "naturally an anti-Semite, but a civilized one"; Tester organized transports of Romanian Jews to Palestine in exchange for Max Auschnitt's cash.
64.
In early 1943, Max Auschnitt was in contact with the American Office of Strategic Services, to which he transmitted some of Antonescu's earliest offers to the Allies.
65.
Around that time, Max Auschnitt was interned at the Targu Jiu camp, where he was held alongside Tudor Arghezi, who described him as a "distinguished man when it came to his relations with others".
66.
In May 1943, the genocidal Obersturmbannfuhrer Adolf Eichmann was working on the case, insisting that Nazi spies were to prevent Max Auschnitt from leaving Romania.
67.
Max Auschnitt eventually caught news that Nazi envoys wanted him included in what was to be the final stage of Holocaust crimes in Romania.
68.
Max Auschnitt had brought with him messages sent by PNT leader Iuliu Maniu, agreeing to Antonescu's overthrow, as well as a letter from Patrascanu.
69.
Max Auschnitt was then transported to Egypt, as he and Hurmuzescu still had to be screened by Security Intelligence Middle East, as potential Nazi spies.
70.
Max Auschnitt was released at Cairo, but his "lavishness with money" remained a point of contention for the remainder of his stay.
71.
Max Auschnitt was charged with defection to the enemy and instigating desertion.
72.
Max Auschnitt was then tried in absentia, and sentenced to death; the same verdict was pronounced against Ghika.
73.
Immediately following these events, Max Auschnitt sent letters home demanding that Antonescu aide Valentin Georgescu face punishment for his wartime activities.
74.
Max Auschnitt asked to purchase the archives captured from Antonescu's spy chief, Eugen Cristescu, which included minute details on communist networks active in Romania.
75.
That same month, when he founded a Swiss Balkan Finance and Trading Company, Max Auschnitt was registered as residing on Campineanu Street, 2.
76.
Max Auschnitt was secretly backing Radescu's coalition against the rising PCR, who wanted Groza as prime minister.
77.
On March 9,1945, as Groza formed a communized cabinet, Max Auschnitt catered champagne for a pro-communist group, the Romanian Society for Friendship with the Soviet Union, later becoming Vice President of its Economic Section.
78.
Max Auschnitt claimed to have been approached by Soviet General Ivan Susaykov, whom he advised to recruit economic experts from outside the PCR.
79.
Max Auschnitt, who expressed his disdain for SovRoms and for Malaxa's willingness to participate in them, had recovered some of his UDR stock.
80.
Max Auschnitt was still prevented from reusing his villa, which was requisitioned by the Red Army in 1946.
81.
In tandem, Max Auschnitt served as Vice President of a rival club, called "Friends of America".
82.
Informatia Prahovei journalists commented that the event was in poor taste, at a time when Romania's children were starving; they appealed to Max Auschnitt's Christianity, asking him to donate more to charities.
83.
Max Auschnitt still hoped that the Potsdam Conference would push back Soviet hegemony in Romania, but reassured Schuyler that he was prepared to leave the country at a moment's notice.
84.
Max Auschnitt contended that industrial workers and peasants, wishing to be left alone, had turned virulently anti-communist.
85.
Max Auschnitt claimed to have personally solved a labor dispute at Astra Brasov once he prevented workers from sacking the managerial staff.
86.
Alexandru Grigoriu, himself an industrialist and a Mason, noted that Max Auschnitt personally handled grants for Titel Petrescu and Anton Dumitriu, who had by then formed an Independent Social Democratic Party.
87.
Schuyler finally warned him that his life was in danger, prompting Max Auschnitt to relocate in France at some point before August 15,1947.
88.
The allegation was stated by Ana Pauker, who represented the PCR's internationalist circles, against national-communists such as Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej; she implied that Max Auschnitt had won them over with his patriotic rhetoric.
89.
Max Auschnitt's defection happened just before he could be implicated in a show trial against engineer Popp, himself accused of having masterminded a terrorist plot.
90.
Max Auschnitt was the only in absentia defendant at that trial, and was sentenced to life imprisonment "for the crime of high treason" on November 2,1948.
91.
Max Auschnitt joined Edgar and Steve in New York City, where he acquired American citizenship, though he continued to send money to Livia and his child by her.
92.
Malaxa headed for America, but Max Auschnitt repeatedly sought to prevent him from settling there.
93.
Max Auschnitt's allegations were partly successful, in that Malaxa never applied for naturalization.
94.
Max Auschnitt spent the remainder of his life at a luxurious home on Park Avenue.
95.
Max Auschnitt died there after a prolonged illness, on January 18,1957.
96.
Max Auschnitt's death was closely followed by that of his friend Grigore Gafencu, who had been involved with the RNC.
97.
In 1985, the Romanian communist authorities allowed Radu Tudoran to publish an autobiographical novel, Victoria neinaripata, in which he stated his belief that Max Auschnitt was a victim of Carol's machinations.
98.
Max Auschnitt sponsored a Max Auschnitt Cycling Cup and promoted Holocaust studies through a Memorial Library.
99.
Max Auschnitt was awarded the golden key of Lugoj for his investments in that city's industry, which include a freight terminal.
100.
Max Auschnitt received back the family villa, but sold it to politician Gigi Becali in 2009; it is noted for featuring a monument-sized gilded crucifix.