Max Husmann was a Swiss citizen who helped instigate and orchestrate Operation Sunrise, the secret negotiations that led to the surrender of German troops in Italy in 1945, the beginning of the end of World War II.
11 Facts About Max Husmann
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Max Husmann played a crucial role in persuading high-ranking officers of the Wehrmacht and the SS to force a surrender of German troops in spite of Hitler's orders.
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Max Husmann was a teacher who founded Institut Montana, a residential school near Zug in Switzerland, in 1926, based on the belief that education could help build a more tolerant and more peaceful world.
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Max Husmann was born in Proskurov, in current day Ukraine, but when he was ten years old his family emigrated to Switzerland, perhaps because of their Jewish origins.
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The Husmanns settled in Zurich, where Max gained the Swiss Matura and went on to study mathematics at the ETH and then earn his doctorate in 1915.
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In 1925, Max Husmann bought the old Hotel Schonfels on the Zugerberg overlooking Lake Zug as a site where he could found a school.
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Max Husmann lived much of the rest of his life in Rome, where he died of an arteriosclerosis in 1965.
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Max Husmann accompanied the Germans across the Alps, ensuring that the presence of high ranking Nazi officials on Switzerland's neutral territory remained undiscovered.
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Waibel's report was published in 1981, the first account in which Max Husmann's role was fully described.
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Max Husmann maintained that immunity to war crime prosecution had been discussed and agreed.
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Documents from the 1920s and 1930s describing the early years of Institut Montana show that Max Husmann founded the school with specific aspirations about education and its goals.