Hans Maier autobiography

Hans Maier (1889-1937) was born in Frankfurt and became a prominent figure in social reform and welfare in Weimar Germany. He married Anna Margarete Grätz in 1914, and the couple had three children: Hanna (1915-2003), Heinrich (Henry, 1918-2005), and Margarete (1921-1997). Maier served as assistant secretary for welfare services within the Department of the Interior and later Department of Labor and Welfare in Saxony from 1923 to 1933. He committed suicide a few months after his wife’s death in 1937, and his brother, Max Maier, became his children’s legal guardian. The Hans Maier autobiography is a photocopy of a typed and annotated translation of Maier’s original autobiography, which he wrote in German and mailed to his children just before his suicide in December 1937. Maier describes growing up in Frankfurt, his university education in law and economics, his marriage, the beginnings of his career in social work, his membership in the German Democratic Party and the German Social Democratic Party, the political turmoil in Germany following World War I, his work leading welfare services in Saxony, the economic depression, the rise of the Nazi party, Hitler’s appointment as chancellor, his own dismissal from office, and his wife’s illness and death. Copyright Holder: Margaret West