Max Amann

Note a different Max Amann was a German water polo player at the same time.

SS-Gruppenführer Max Aman

Max Aman (November 24, 1891 – March 30, 1957) was a German Nazi official with the honorary rank of SS-Obergruppenführer, politician and journalist.

Biography

Amann was born in Munich on November 24, 1891. During World War I he was Adolf Hitler's sergeant.

He joined the NSDAP in October 1921, as the Party's business manager and president of the Reichspressekammer (Reich Media Chamber) in 1933. After 1922, he also led the Nazis' publishing house, Eher Verlag, which, among other things, published the SS magazine Das Schwarze Korps.In 1924 he was elected as a NSDAP candidate to the Munich city council and in 1933 became a Nazi member of the Reichstag for the electorial district of Upper Bavaria/Swabia. Perhaps Amann's most notable contribution to history was persuading Hitler to retitle his first book from Four and a Half Years (of Struggle) Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice to Mein Kampf, which he also published, and became a major source of Eher-Verlag's income. He lost his left arm in an accident with a firearm while hunting with Franz Ritter von Epp on 4. Sep. 1931 ^[1].

During the Third Reich, Amann became (by forced appropriation) the largest newspaper publisher in Germany and made enormous profits off Nazism. In this role, he established National Socialist control over the industry and gradually closed down those newspapers that did not fully support Hitler's regime. He pursued a dual-pronged strategy. In his official role as president of the Media Chamber, he had the power to seize any paper that ran counter to the government's wishes. Then, as head of the Eher Verlag, he bought them for mere pfennigs on the mark.

However, as a party official, Amann lacked talent, being a poor speaker and debater. In addition, his handwriting was illegible, thus his deputy, Rolf Rienhardt, performed these duties for him.^[2]

Arrested by Allied troops after the war, Amann was found guilty of being a Hauptschuldiger (Prominent Guilty Party) and sentenced to ten years in a labour camp on September 8, 1948, but was released in 1953. He also lost his property and pension rights and died in poverty on March 30, 1957, in Munich.

Sources

• Hale, Oron. J, The Captive Press in the Third Reich, Princeton, 1964
• Wistrich, Robert Who's Who in Nazi Germany, Bonanza Books, 1982

References

1. ^ "[1]
2. ^ Hale, p. 28

External links

• Max Amann : Nazi Germany

Persondata
Name	Aman, Max
Alternative names
Short description	German Nazi official and publisher
Date of birth	November 24, 1891
Place of birth	Munich, Germany
Date of death	March 30, 1957
Place of death	Munich, Germany