Max Ursprung was born on September 9, 1886 in Traunstein. He was the son of the master glazier Eduard Ursprung and his wife Marie, née Geitner. A tinsmith, he lived in Munich, at times also in Freising, Rosenheim, and Berlin. In Munich he moved a lot and was mostly a subtenant, often for just a few days or weeks. His last place of residence was in Dreimühlenstraße 28, moving in on November 1, 1932. He lived on the second floor of the rear building.
Max Ursprung was arrested on April 30, 1933 and sent to Neudeck prison. Previously he had been convicted of offences on several occasions, along with begging and possession of firearms also because of his homosexuality. In Germany, a sexual act between men was a punishable offence since 1872. Noted on Max Ursprung’s residential registration card is that he had to report regularly to the police on account of his homosexuality. In 1935 the Nazi regime considerably toughened the relative paragraph 175 of the Reich Criminal Code.
Although he spent five years in prison, Max Ursprung still was not free at the end of his sentence. Categorized as a “career criminal” due to his previous convictions, the Munich police ordered on August 13, 1938, that he be put in “protective custody” and transferred him to Dachau concentration camp on September 14, 1938. Not long after, on October 3, 1938, Max Ursprung was moved to Flossenbürg concentration camp in the Upper Palatinate. He was then registered as a new arrival at Stutthof concentration camp near Danzig (today Gdansk) on July 5, 1942. The transfer list from Flossenbürg gives the impression that Stutthof had requested prisoners with specific job skills. The list is arranged according to “skilled trades” and Max Urspung is entered under tinsmith. Max Ursprung died in the Stutthof camp on October 12, 1942, obviously fully exhausted after four years of camp imprisonment. The camp doctor noted: “feeble, old man,” died of “heart failure and infirmity.” (text Stefan Dickas, editor C. Fritsche, translation P. Bowman)
