author
Max Bauer
1861–1932
A German journalist and cultural historian, he turned a hard early life into a long writing career that reached many readers. Best known for vivid works on social customs and everyday history, he also wrote under the names M. Dammann and M. B. von Teplitz.
2 Audiobooks
About the author
Born in Teplitz-Schönau in 1861 and later raised in Vienna, he had to leave school at just 14 when his family fell into financial trouble. A further personal tragedy followed in 1881, when his mother and one of his brothers died in the Ringtheater fire in Vienna; accounts of his life say that writing about the trial that followed led to his first major newspaper article.
He went on to work as a journalist and became an editor at the Berliner Tageblatt. Alongside newspaper work, he built his reputation through books on cultural and social history, especially studies of manners, customs, crime, and everyday life in the German past. Several of these works were reprinted over many years, which suggests they found a lasting audience.
He died in Berlin in 1932. Reliable biographical sources also note that he published under the pseudonyms M. Dammann and M. B. von Teplitz.