Max Wenner Mystery part two

Following on from my earlier piece on Max Wenner and his mysterious death, I have been doing more research. That sounds a bit more involved than the truth of the matter, which is that I have acquired a copy of “So It Was”, Michael A. Wenner’s autobiography. He was the nephew of Max, and so the first section of his book gives plenty of detail on his Wenner forebears, including his Uncle Max, who actually features on the cover, holding a hawk, as described in my earlier piece.

I was relieved to find  that the story I had pieced together was broadly correct. And, of course the biog. gave a lot more detail and background. Some minor details in my piece were incorrect. For instance, what I stated (repeating someone else’s mistake) was a photo of Max and his brother is it seems a picture of the brother and some Icelanders. However, I suspect that it was actually Max who took the photo, because the book emphasizes Max’s keen interests in the natural world and photography.

As well as giving family background and some personal details about Max , it has suggested some further lines of research. One of which is the Royal Flying Corps, in which Max served as a pilot during World War One. This may have been where he began his interest in photography as at that point in time military aircraft had a more observational role (including photographic reconnaissance), rather than being used for combat.

On Max’s demise the book is rather brief, but does introduce a curious new element. It says as follows “I must have been around fifteen in the mid to late ’30s when Max – returning by air from a visit to Essen, the home of a German lady of whom after Dolly’s death he had grown fond – unaccountably fell to his death from the aircraft. One of his fellow passengers was a Mr John Vincent Cain, a colourful entrepreneur and former smuggler of arms and planes to Franco – and possibly a not too reliable witness. The Daily Express reported Mr Cain as stating that he had watched my uncle ‘hurry on to the airliner at Cologne and…pen sheet after sheet of note-paper at furious speed; thrust the notes into his pocket and suddenly disappear into the back compartment..The letters stated to have been written were missing when Max’s body was found and were never recovered.’

I find it a little odd that the book’s author has relied on a newspaper article to tell this part of his  history, after all he was fifteen years of age at the time; hardly a child, but perhaps his recall failed him, nonetheless it does seem strange to me.

The newspaper tale is not entirely accurate since, as we have seen, the letter (singular) was found on the poor man’s body.

What is also curious is the presence of an arms smuggler in the story.  This only adds weight to the Agatha Christie-esque colour of the whole tale.

I shall in due course update my earlier piece, to include more of the background to Max Wenner, provided by this biography. And there are of course more lines of research to take forward, not least of which is the curious Mr Cain, for whom my initial research has proved largely fruitless.