Max Warburg

Max Warburg (1867-1946) was a German banker and was, from 1910 till 1938, director of M. M. Warburg & Co. in Hamburg, Germany. As head of that important firm, he advised Kaiser Wilhelm II prior to World War I. In the 1930s, despite the rise of the Nazi Party, Warburg felt there was hope for a better future in Germany and from 1933 served on the board of the German Reichsbank under governor Hjalmar Schacht. Because however he was Jewish, he ultimately had to sell the bank under duress and emigrate in 1938 to the United States.