Max James Emden was a German-born Swiss businessman, art collector, heir and bon vivant.
24 Facts About Max Emden
1.
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Max Emden was the owner of the Brissago Islands on Lake Maggiore from 1926 until his death.
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Max Emden had an older sister, Alice Stephanie Aboucaya.
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Max Emden's mother hailed from a wealthy banking family from Frankfurt am Main.
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Max Emden graduated from Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Hamburg on 7 September 1893.
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Max Emden then pursued studies in chemistry and mineralogy at the Universities of Heidelberg, Geneva, Zurich and Leipzig earning a Doctor of Philosophy in 1898.
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Emden worked in the family textile trading company M J Emden Sohne becoming a partner in 1904 and later sole owner.
8.
Max Emden revealed some grounds for this, he and his wife had become estranged, and both had decided to divorce but wanted to remain good friends.
9.
Max Emden was forlorn and purchased a revolver, and for some months never left home without it.
10.
Max Emden had framed his life for this woman, for her love of nature, he even bought two island's on Lake Maggiore.
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In 1926 Max Emden acquired the Brissago Islands on Lake Maggiore from the heavily indebted island owner Baroness Antoinette de Saint Leger.
12.
Max Emden accused Emden of having betrayed him, and the two old friends quarrelled and never spoke with each other again.
13.
Max Emden replaced the island's residence with a Palazzo style 24-room villa, finished with a luxurious interior, designed by the Berlin architect Alfred Breslauer.
14.
Max Emden had the gardens renewed and the marina expanded with a flotilla of thirteen motorboats.
15.
The present botanical garden there, which Max Emden continued to preserve and maintain, is essentially the work of the previous owner of the Brissago Islands, the Saint Leger family.
16.
In 1928 Max Emden had financed the clubhouse of the Hamburg Golf Club in Hamburg-Rissen "with a generous donation".
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Up until the 1930s, Max Emden owned the premises of the Hamburger Polo Club in Klein Flottbek, which he had to sell to the city of Altona in 1935 for a low price.
18.
In 1934 Max Emden acquired the Swiss civil rights from the municipality of Ronco sopra Ascona, which is adjacent to the Brissago Islands, but could not secure the same for his son Hans Erich.
19.
The inheritance included the archipelago of the Brissago Islands on Lake Maggiore, which became orphaned and neglected from 1941 when Max Emden's son, branded and deported from Germany as a "first-degree hybrid Jew" and could neither secure permanent Swiss residence in 1940, eventually managed to emigrate to his mother's birthplace Chile.
20.
Max Emden's son had to give up the Brissago Islands after the Second World War and sold them to the canton of Ticino and the surrounding communities in 1949 for around 600,000 Swiss francs.
21.
In 1910, Max Emden married the Chilean-born Concordia Gertrud Helene Anna "Anita" Sternberg, a daughter of Emilio Sternberg and Margaretha Sternberg, of Valparaiso.
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Max Emden's wife held a social class of friends from the aristocracy and both belonged to the best social circles in Hamburg.
23.
Max Emden died on 26 June 1940 in Muralto, Switzerland aged 65.
24.
The film works on the story of Max Emden and depicts the heirs' lavish struggle for restitution and justice against the authorities and private art collectors.