Max Rudolf Kaufmann
| Max Rudolf Kaufmann | |
|---|---|
| Born |
29 April 1886 Basel, Switzerland |
| Died | 1963 (aged 77) Bonn, Germany |
| Nationality | Swiss |
| Education | Ph.D. Philology |
| Alma mater | University of Bern, Switzerland |
| Occupation | Journalist, Orientalist |
| Employer | Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Osmanischer Lloyd, Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Hamburger Fremdenblatt, Basel University Library, Inter Nationes |
| Known for | various translated books and original articles about Turkey and the Middle East |
Max Rudolf Kaufmann (29 April 1886 in Basel, Switzerland - 1963 in Bonn, Germany), was a Swiss author, translator from Turkish, and journalist, who worked and published in Switzerland, Turkey, the United States and Germany.
Kaufmann was born on 29 April 1886 in Basel and studied philology in Bern, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1907.
After some years as journalist in Paris, he moved to Constantinople in 1910, where he joined the editorial staff of Osmanischer Lloyd, the German language newspaper co-founded and managed by Dr. Friedrich Schrader. As his mentor, who was a German liberal democrat and a sympathizer of the German SPD, Kaufmann soon criticized the arrogant and imperial behaviour of official German representatives in Turkey. He was rather soon fired by the owners of Osmanischer Lloyd (the German Foreign Office and the consortium of the Baghdad Railroad Project), but continued working for various newspapers as a correspondent, including Neue Zürcher Zeitung and Frankfurter Zeitung. The chief correspondent at that time of Frankfurter Zeitung was Paul Weitz, a key figure in German diplomacy at that time and main adversary of Hans Humann.
After German intelligence got hold of a letter where he openly expressed these critical views right in the middle of World War I, in 1916, Kaufmann was deported by the Turkish authorities allied with Germany to Ankara, and later expelled from Turkey. Schrader was fired from the editorial board of Osmanischer Lloyd one year later. Back in Germany, Prof. Dr. Eugen Mittwoch, who just had become head of German Nachrichtenstelle für den Orient, the semi-official German Intelligence and propaganda organisation for the Middle East, immediately hired Kaufmann. After the end of World War I, Kaufmann stayed in Berlin and worked for Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, at that time the leading liberal-conservative Berlin newspaper. He worked as deputy editor in chief for some time, until he was fired after the newspaper was bought by the powerful Stinnes trust, and Hugo Stinnes had made Hans Humann, the former German military attache in Constantinople, and back then the main adversary of Weitz, Schrader and Kaufmann, the CEO of the DAZ publisher.
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