Max von Scheubner-Richter

Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter
Dr.-Ing. von Scheubner-Richter was sometimes referred to as the "Führer of the Führer"
Birth name	Max Erwin Ludwig Richter
Birth date	21 January 1884(1884-01-21)
Place of birth	Riga, Russian Empire
Death date	⚔ 9 November 1923 (aged 39)
Place of death	Munich, German Reich
Resting place	Münchner Ostfriedhof, later Ehrentempel München
Allegiance	Russian Empire German Empire
Service/branch	Russian Imperial Army (de) Imperial German Army
Rank	1st Lieutenant
Unit	Royal Bavarian Chevaulegers Regiment “Prince Alfons” No. 7
Battles/wars	Russian Revolution 1905/07 World War I March to the Feldherrnhalle
Awards	Iron Cross Bavarian Military Merit Order Hanseatic Cross
Other work	Chemist, diplomat, political activist, Blutzeuge

Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter (21 January 1884 – 9 November 1923) was a Baltic German chemist, officer, political activist and an influential early member of the NSDAP.

Life

• Attended Gymnasium and "Petri" (Ober)realschule in Reval together with Otto von Kursell
• 1904 to 1906 Studied Chemistry and Economics (Nationalökonomie) at the Riga Polytechnic
  • Member of the German nationalist student association Corps Rubonia; The other Rubonia Fraternity members who went on to play important roles in Aufbau and the National Socialist movement, Alfred Rosenberg and Arno Schickedanz, entered Rubonia in 1910 and studied in Riga together until 1917.
    • The Polytechnic did not have university status at that time, which had the advantage of retaining its autonomy and being unaffected by Russification, so students could continue to study there in German. The 'Riga Polytechnic' was founded in 1862; the name was Russified in 1896; today, the same building houses the University of Latvia.
  • 1905 Joined the Baltic German Self-Defense to defend country and people against the Bolsheviks who roamed the country, looting over 200 estates, murdering and raping. A shock for the Baltic Germans: The appearance of the armed and violent groups must have seemed like a signal for civil war.
    • The Baltic Germans fought in a Cossack detachment of the Imperial Russian Army. This participation in a Cossack detachment meant that Max Richter was not only involved in protecting goods, farms and manufactories (also the factory of his later wife, where he met Mathilde for the first time), but also in the bloody suppression of unrest and terror by the Russian army in the Baltic provinces. Richter was wounded in the knee by a gunshot. Michael Kellogg writes: „While he was considered a subject of Imperial Germany, Scheubner-Richter spoke fluent Russian from his early Russian schooling, and he regarded himself a Baltic German since he had spent his entire youth in the Imperial Russian Baltic ports Riga and Reval and had risked his life for Baltic German interests in 1905. During the Revolution of 1905, nationalist Latvians and Estonians had joined forces with socialist revolutionaries to overthrow Baltic German landowners who held the leading societal role in the Baltic provinces. Scheubner-Richter had been shot in the knee while serving in the Baltic German Selbstschutz (Self-Protection) forces that had combated his anti-Baltic-German alliance.”
• c. 1907 Relocated to Dresden for further studies
• 1908 Richter moved his permanent residence to Munich, but, as sources claim, possibly also traveled to Riga several times continuing simultaneously to study there.
  • The university is located just a few meters away from Gabelsberger Straße, where a certain Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, lived a few years earlier.
  • At the same time as the chemistry student, another Russian lived in Munich-Schwabing, who later became famous as a painter-revolutionary and founder of abstract painting: Wassily Kandinsky. The artist also had ties to Richter's homeland: Kandinsky's grandmother was Baltic German, and she spoke German with him a lot during his childhood. It is not known whether von Scheubner-Richter and Kandinsky later met at the numerous events organized by the Russian colony in Munich.
• c. 1910 Diploma Engineer (Dipl.-Ing.)
• Private Lecturer in Economic Policy and Russian History
• 10 August 1914 Joined the 3rd Squadron/Royal Bavarian Chevaulegers Regiment “Prince Alfons” No. 7 under Rittmeister Graf von Preysing
  • Basic training in Straubing
  • 3 October 1914 into the field (Western Front)
    • Due to his Russian language skills, one of his superiors arranged for him to be posted to the Russian front lines at the Eastern Front, where he served until November 1914. During this time, senior officials at the Foreign Office in Berlin had conceived a plan to blow up the Russian oil production areas behind the Russian-Turkish lines through a sabotage operation, thereby disrupting rail transport and the supply of crude oil to the country.
• 7 November 1914 Commanded to the Ottoman Empire
  • At the end of the month, von Scheubner-Richter traveled to Turkey, arriving in Erzerum/Erzurum shortly before 19 December. Meanwhile, commander Paul Schwarz (1882–1951) had made further preparations for the planned sabotage operation on site. This included disguising both actors as the head and deputy of the German consulate in Erzurum. When the Turkish army launched an offensive against the Russian fortress of Kars on 19 December 1914, Schwarz seized the opportunity to cross the Russian front lines in the shadow of this military action with a small group selected for the initial acts of sabotage. When he set out on 21 December 1914, von Scheubner-Richter remained in Erzurum as "consulate secretary." The planned sabotage operation failed because the Turkish units were unable to break the resistance of the Russian troops, and Schwarz's group was unable to reach the oil fields in the first place. Meanwhile, Scheubner-Richter had established himself as "consular administrator" at the consulate and occasionally even presented himself to visitors as an attaché. He hoped that his assignment would lead to further employment in the consular service of the Federal Foreign Office.
• 15 November 1914 Promoted to surplus non-commissioned officer (überzähliger Unteroffizier)
• 18 December 1914 Promoted to Feldwebel (Staff Sergeant) and Deputy Officer
• 18 January 1915 Promoted to 2nd Lieutenant of the Reserves
• January to August 1915 Titular Vice Consul (without appointment) in Erzerum/Erzurum
  • He employs a personal servant named Tahir, organizes equestrian games and hunts, builds a wine cellar, and invites guests to dinner at his house – a diplomatic life in times of war. However, the idyll is quickly disrupted: The vice-consul witnesses the Turkish massacre of the Christian Armenian minority, with well over a million people killed. Around Erzerum, residents drive Armenian women and children from their homes, forcing them to leave their villages.
  • In the midst of preparations for the next military operation, information arrived about increasingly widespread unrest in the Armenian territories. Aware that crimes were being committed against defenseless people there, Max von Scheubner-Richter criticized Turkey's actions and called on the German Foreign Office and the German Ambassador to Constantinople, Ernst Friedrich Ulrich Hans Freiherr von Wangenheim, to take action.
  • Although Scheubner-Richter managed to rescue individual Armenians, his interventions in Constantinople and Berlin remained ineffective. As the marginal notes to his letter included in the embassy from Constantinople reveal, his behavior toward the Armenians was even considered unrealistic and inappropriate to the political situation. At the same time, von Scheubner-Richter continued to strive to advance military and sabotage plans toward the Caucasus. The Foreign Office decided at short notice to dispatch Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg with a small group to the region to assess the situation on the ground. Disguised as civilians, they arrived in Erzurum on 6 August. However, at the end of August 1915, 500 soldiers under the command of the brothers Paul and Karl Gustav Leverkühn, along with 50 Turkish cavalry and 100 infantrymen led by von Scheubner-Richter, left Erzurum heading south. In his situation reports to Werner von der Schulenburg, just a few days after setting out, he nominated the Leverkühns for promotion. In January 1917, the group set out from Mosul towards Erbil. In the meantime, however, Russian attacks had taken place on Erzurum and the consulate had to be relocated to Sivas. The military situation for the group around von Scheubner-Richter and the Leverkühns became increasingly difficult; they were running out of financial resources and their partner Arslan Khan was increasingly revealing himself to be an impostor. In March 1916, Scheubner-Richter handed command over to Karl Gustav Leverkühn (⚔ 1918). In July of the same year, he disbanded the military unit.
• Summer 1916 Convalescent leave at home in Munich due to dysentery and malaria
  • 18 December 1916 Acceptance of the dissertation
  • 21 December 1916 Oral examination at the Technical University of Munich (Dr.-Ing.)
• 26 January 1917 After von Scheubner-Richter's return to Berlin from Munich, the Foreign Office declined to accept his further proposed assignments. His secondment was also canceled. He then served on various assignments, including in Straubing, in the regiment under Adolf Friedrich von Mecklenburg.
• 5 August 1917 Transferred to the section "Politics" of the Great General Staff in Berlin; commanded to Stockholm for the purpose of dealing with Ukrainian-Georgian issues (intelligence gatehring).
• 1 December 1917 Intelligence/Signals Officer with the Supreme Commander of All German Forces in the East (Ober-Ost)
• 5 September 1918 Commanded to Riga for the purpose of dealing with issues concerning the German advance in Livonia and Estonia (intelligence gatehring).
  • The mood in his hometown had changed: Lenin's Bolsheviks held power, and news of strikes, revolution, and soldiers' and workers' councils was coming from Germany. Before the war, Riga was home to over half a million people; after 1910, the population fell to 160,000, of whom 9 percent were from the German upper class. Factory chimneys had stopped smoking, and entrepreneurs had moved into the interior of Russia. Those who could were bringing their wealth to safety in Moscow. At least the wealthy at this time believed that Moscow was a safe place – a misjudgment, as would soon become apparent.
• 9 November 1918 Head of the Press Office at the High Command of the 8th Army in Riga; His colleagues in the press office were Arno Wolfgang Schickedanz and Max Hildebert Boehm.
• December 1918 After Germany's surrender in November, the envoy, August Winnig, appointed Scheubner-Richter as acting head of the German diplomatic mission.
  • In January 1919, the Red Army entered Riga. The last remaining Germans in Riga flee westward, fearing attacks by the Red Guards. Despite the chaos and the turmoil, Scheubner-Richter maintains a sense of perspective and does what seems most important to him: He secures the embassy's money from the Reds. He develops a sense of imagination when concealing the treasure: The diplomat hides the banknotes in the bucket next to the toilet in the house of a German friend.
  • When von Scheubner-Richter attempted to deport himself, he was arrested by soldiers' councils and taken to the police prison on Alexanderstrasse. The troops were outraged; Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg had been assasinated in Berlin. In retaliation, the Bolsheviks demanded the execution of the German diplomat. In street demonstrations, the insurgents reaffirmed their intention. They set up a revolutionary tribunal, which sentenced von Scheubner-Richter to death. At the last minute, the commander of the Soviet units ordered his release. Von Scheubner-Richter left his hometown of Riga, this time for good – in his luggage, in a butter dish, in a loaf of bread, and in a jar of honey with the banknotes from the hiding place.
• January to May 1919 in Königsberg as political advisor to the district commissioner for the East
  • 1 February 1919 at the same time head (Obmann) of the Ostdeutscher Heimatdienst (East German Homeland Service) in Allenstein with the order to combat Bolshevism
• May 1919 Commanded to Danzig as managing director of the Parliamentary Action Committee North for the purpose of preparing the referendum, then returned to Königsberg
• March 1920 Resigned as head of the East German Homeland Service due to the Kapp Putsch which he supported together with Freikorps units; he was officially relieved of duty on 1 June 1920.
• June to October 1920 Visit to Crimea to discuss further actions against Bolshevism with General Wrangel, then return to Munich.
• 1920 Acquired Bavarian citizenship
• October 1920 Alfred Rosenberg introduced von Scheubner-Richter to Adolf Hitler; he reported on his secret mission to Crimea.
  • Von Scheubner-Richter uses his organizational and diplomatic talents to raise money for the financially weak NSDAP. He becomes a valuable supporter of the party leader for another reason: "He opened all doors for me," Hitler admits after von Scheubner-Richter's death. Contacts with higher circles were particularly important for the upstart from Braunau, because influence and power still lay in the hands of the old elite, who were consistently recruited from the upper class. But Hitler knew only a few people there; the vast majority of his members and friends were middle-class people, artisans, soldiers, and workers. Scheubner-Richter's ties to the Russian exiles in Munich, in particular, made the cash register ring. To this end, he founded two organizations in 1921 as a contact point and fundraising pool: the "New German-Russian Society" and the Aufbau or "Economic Reconstruction Association." This proved to be a wise move, as it made it easier to attract supporters who were enthusiastic about the idealistic goals of intensifying contacts between Germany and Russia.
• 22 November 1920 Joined the NSDAP (# 2,414)
  • The Bavarian aristocrat Theodor Freiherr von Cramer-Klett, representative of the Vatican in Bavaria, Hereditary Imperial Councilor of the Crown of Bavaria, and a fervent monarchist and fascist, serves as president of the Aufbau Association. The influential General Vasilij Biskupskij is involved on the Russian side. The German-Russian Society has even more distinguished members. In addition to the Bavarian Swabian and linguist Professor Adolf Dirr (1867–1930) as first secretary, Grand Duchess Viktoria Fedorowna (born Princess Victoria Melita von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha) assumes the honorary presidency. Von Scheubner-Richter's wife Mathilde became friends with the Grand Duchess, and they went on excursions together—even if the destination hardly corresponded to the usual ladies' get-togethers of the time: They attended SA military exercises in Munich together.
• 1 to 2 September 1923 Took part in the Deutscher Tag in Nuremberg with over 100,000 participants
  • One of the most important results of the "German Day" or "German Diet" in Nuremberg was the formation of the Deutscher Kampfbund from the SA (Hermann Göring), Reichsflagge (Captain Adolf Heiß) and Bund Oberland (Friedrich Weber), with Hermann Kriebel appointed as its military leader. Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter became managing director; political leadership was taken over by Hitler on 25 September 1923.

Memberships

• Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund (German Nationalist Protection and Defiance Federation/League; DVSTB), 1919
• Wirtschaftliche Aufbau-Vereinigung (founder)
• NSDAP, 1920
• Deutscher Kampfbund (German Battle League), 1923

Death

March to the Feldherrnhalle

Hitler told Scheubner-Richter to accompany him to the beer hall Bürgerbräukeller in uniform, which he did. When Hitler entered the beer hall, where many Bavarian leaders were gathered, including Kahr, the Aufbau member Rosenberg was at his side. Hitler fired his pistol at the ceiling and announced the outbreak of a national revolution. While Hitler negotiated with Kahr and other Bavarian leaders in a side room of the beer hall, Scheubner-Richter carried out his own, ultimately unsuccessful, talks with high-ranking members of the Bavarian Police. He then drove Hitler’s car to pick up General Ludendorff, who had been left out of the loop and had not participated in the negotiations in the Bürgerbräukeller. Scheubner-Richter came home in the early morning of 9 November and told his wife Mathilde that things had gone “wonderfully,” without the shedding of blood.

Von Scheubner-Richter disapproved of the idea of ​​a march through Munich's city center; his inconsistency in participating, possibly due to his loyalty to Erich Ludendorff, cost him his life. Witnesses report that he marched in the uniform of a Chevau-légers officer with a spiked helmet next to Hitler, arm in arm with him, and Ludendorff in the front row.

"The attempted coup ended in bloodshed with the 'March to the Feldherrnhalle.' Arriving at Odeonsplatz, von Scheubner-Richter was hit by police bullets and died on the spot. His longtime friend Otto von Kursell recalled: 'I found von Scheubner among the other dead, dressed in the uniform of his beloved Chevaux-Legers regiment, decorated with his gallantry awards, his chest torn open under his arm by rifle bullets. His life was meant for Germany, and he had to fall to German bullets.'"

Eight days later, on 17 November 1923 at 10 a.m., the cremated body of von Scheubner-Richter was ceremoniously buried at Munich's Ostfriedhof Cemetery in the presence of his friends. Hitler, now in custody, had survived the aforementioned shootout. He may even have von Scheubner-Richter to thank for his life, as von Scheubner-Richter, after being hit, fell and pulled the Führer to the ground with him (dislocating Hitler's shoulder). Hitler paid tribute to him posthumously with the following words:

"All are replaceable, except one: Scheubner-Richter!"

Otto von Kursell gave an eulogy, Grigorij Nemirovič-Dančenko another. In this speech he said:

“No one knew like him how to bring people who were hostile to one another closer together and to reconcile them.”

On 9 November 1935, he was reentered next to Rittmeister Johann "Hans" Rickmers (de), the waiter Karl Georg Kuhn (de) and Kurt Ernst Neubauer (de), General Ludendorff's servant, in the Temple of Honor on Munich's Königsplatz, the foundations of which can still be seen today.

In 1934, no commemorative march was made on the anniversary because of Hitler’s purge of the SA’s ranks in the Night of the Long Knives. The next year on 8 November, the putschists were exhumed from their graves and taken to the Feldherrnhalle, where they were placed beneath sixteen large pylons bearing their names. The next day, after Hitler had solemnly walked past from one to the next, they were taken down the monument’s steps and taken on carts, draped in flags to Paul Ludwig Troost’s new Ehrentempel monuments at the Königsplatz, through streets lined with spectators bustling between 400 columns with eternal flames atop. Flags were lowered as veterans slowly placed the heavy sarcophagi into place. In each of the structures eight of the martyrs were interred in a sarcophagus bearing their name. The martyrs of the movement were in heavy black sarcophagi in such a way as to be exposed to rain and sun from the open roof. When Gauleiter [r Adolf Wagner] died from a stroke in 1944 he was interred metres away from the north temple in the adjacent grass mound in between the two temples.

Family

Max Erwin Richter was born in 1884 as the son of Saxon conductor, composer and music teacher Karl Ludwig Richter (d. 1890) from Oschatz in the German Empire and a Rigensian woman in Riga, the capital of the Russian province of Livonia, and was thus a citizen ofthe Kingdom of Saxony from birth. His mother was Justine, née Hauswald (d. 1917 in München), daughter of the wealthy engineer and factory owner Gottlob Hauswald. Max Erwin grew up in a wealthy household, and his parents raised their son in the Evangelical Lutheran faith – an abstract religiosity that the offspring maintained throughout his life. His father died when Max was six years old. His mother had to support her son alone, perhaps for this reason she sent him to school in the Estonian city of Reval, where Max lived and achieved his Abitur.

In 1911, Max Richter married Mathilde "Hilde" Mündel, née von Scheubner (1865–1953). His good friend Otto von Kursell later wrote:

His marriage to Mathilde [...] was a close friendship that proved its worth in good times and in difficult ones, and until his death. In addition to mutual affection, they were united by a common understanding of their views, but also by their passions. Both spouses were enthusiastic mountaineers. Scheubner was an excellent rider. However, he claimed that this was nothing compared to his wife's excellent horsemanship.

A close Saxon relative from Borna, Klara von Scheubner (d. 1921 in Leipzig), who had no children, was, however, wealthy and owned vast lands, adopted Max Erwin Richter in 1912. He was then granted nobility and inherited the name "von Scheubner" (and the wealth which went with it) which he soon changed to "von Scheubner-Richter". Some sources state, he now went by Ludwig Maximilian "Max" Erwin von Scheubner-Richter.

Mathilde von Scheubner

Mathilde "Hilde"/"Hilda" von Scheubner (b. 16 April 1865 in Riga) was the daughter of factory owner and engineer Otto von Scheubner, originally from Saxony, and his wife Clara, née Bornhaupt. She became the second wife of Johann Carl August Mündel (1851–1919). At some point, Mathilde and Max met, fell in love and, despite the big age difference, became lovers. It is not certain, when she was divorced. Her father Otto died in August 1907. On the obituary, "August und Mathilde Mündel" still appeared as a married couple. It is possible, she relocated to Munich together with her mother in 1908, but possibly also in 1911, shortly before the marriage. Mathilde von Scheubner-Richter volunteered for service in the German Red Cross during World War I and received the “King Ludwig Cross” award.

In addition to relying on Scheubner-Richter for political counsel, Hitler enjoyed a close personal connection with him and his wife Mathilde. [...] Hitler had his home away from home at Scheubner-Richter’s house, and he honored Mathilde like his mother (his own mother was long since dead). She, for her part, adored him. Mathilde had been unable to bear children because of a venereal disease contracted in her first marriage, and she seems to have regarded Hitler as a replacement son. – Michael Kellogg

Hitler had asked widow Mathilde von Scheubner-Richter to establish a collection in collaboration with Heinrich Himmler that would document the National Socialist press as well as the press of the National Socialist movement's opponents; in addition, material on individuals hostile to the "movement" would be compiled. The inclusion of Himmler's deputy Reich Propaganda Director suggests that this collection was intended to serve both documentary and propaganda purposes from the outset. Around 1928, Mathilde von Scheubner-Richter's collection was taken over and continued by the Reich Propaganda Directorate. With the establishment of the Reich Press Office by Führer decree of 28 February 1934, the collection likely passed to the Main Archive of the NSDAP.

On 11 March 1953, Mathilde von Scheubner-Richter died at the Evangelical Deaconess Institution Munich branch in Bayrischzell. The deaconry informed the goddaughter Ellen Margarethe Schmidt, now living in Rotenburg (Wümme), of this on 4 April 1953. Ellen was born on 11 January 1918 in Riga, Dr. von Scheubner-Richter had signed the birth certificate as godfather and took part in the baptism on 17 March 1918 in the St. Petri Church. Mathilde von Scheubner-Richter was cremated and buried on 14 March 1953 in Munich.

Quotes

• "The rise of Germany and the German nation from today's shame and defenselessness can only take place if we remove ruthlessly and completely from Germany and the German lines all those that carry the guilt for the destruction of the German national body. All illusions on the solidarity of the international proletariat, all illusions that a nation is justly dealt with if itself it is righteous, all illusions that foreign nations will not permit the destruction of Germany – all these stupid dreams must die." – Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, 1923

• An ascent of Germany and the German nation from its current disgrace and defenselessness can only occur if everything that is responsible for the destruction of the German national body and the failure of the German nation's power of resistance is ruthlessly and completely removed from Germany and from the ranks of the German people. A national united front is conditioned by a ruthless struggle against everything foreign within the German national body. It is conditioned by the ruthless purification of Germany of all elements that are hostile to it and that work against the ethnic unification of all German tribes. – Aufbau-Korrespondenz, 1923

Awards, decorations and honours

• Iron Cross (1914), 2nd and 1st Class
  • 2nd Class on 26 November 1914
  • 1st Class in 1918
• Bavarian Military Merit Order, 4th Class with Swords (BMV4⚔/BM4⚔)
• Lübeck Hanseatic Cross (Lübeckisches Hanseatenkreuz; LübH/LüH)
• Red Cross Medal (Prussia), III. Class
• Gallipoli Star (Eiserner Halbmond; TH) on the red ribbon for combattants

Honours

• Street Scheubner-Richter-Straße in München Ramersdorf-Perlach on 18 May 1934
• Street Von-Scheubner-Richter-Straße in Gelsenkirchen, 1937
• Street Von-Scheubner-Richter-Straße in Düsseldorf-Golzheim, 1937(Schlagetersiedlung)
• Street Scheubner-Richter-Straße in Recklinghausen on 20 April 1939
• Street Scheubner-Richter-Straße in Leslau (im Wartheland)
• Street Scheubner-Richter-Straße in Wuppertal-Ronsdorf
• Street Erwin-von-Scheubner-Richter-Straße in Danzig-Ohra
• Street Erwin-von-Scheubner-Richter-Straße in Kassel

Wehrmacht

• Renaming of the Wehrmacht barracks of the Anti-Tank Battalion 10 to Max-von-Scheubner-Richter-Kaserne in the city of Straubing on 25 June 1938

Writings (excerpt)

• Über das Pinenhydrobromid und sein Verhalten zu Silberoxyd, Dissertation 1916
• Vom Kampf um die deutsche Ostmark: Tätigkeitsbericht des Obmanns des Ostdeutschen Heimatdienstes für die Zeit vom 1. Februar 1919 bis zum 1. Juni 1920
• Der russische Wiederaufbaukongress in Bad Reichenhall: Ein Rückblick und Ausblick, August 1921
• Judenverfolgungen in Sowjetrussland, in: "Wirtschaftspolitische Aufbau-Korrespondenz für ostpolitische Fragen", 25 September 1922
• Abriss des Lebens- und Bildungsganges von Dr. Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, sent to Walther Nicolai, the head of German intelligence during World War I, in April 1923
• Reichsregierung und Bolschewismus, in: "Wirtschaftspolitische Aufbau-Korrespondenz für ostpolitische Fragen" Nr. 31, 3 August 1923
• Deutschlands Bolschewisierung, 21 September 1923

Gallery

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Further reading

• Georgii Nemirovich-Danchenko: “Ein schöner Tod.” Dr. Ing. M. E. von Scheubner-Richter gefallen am 9. November 1923, Müller und Sohn, Munich November 1923
• Paul Leverkuehn: Posten auf Ewiger Wache. Aus dem abenteuerlichen Leben des Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, Essener Verlagsanstalt, 1938
• Otto von Kursell
  • Die Linie im Leben Max von Scheubner-Richters, Hauptarchiv der NSDAP, November 1923
  • Erinnerungen an Dr. Max von Scheubner-­Richter, München 1966
  • Dr.-Ing. Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter zum Gedächtnis, München 1969
• Karsten Brüggemann: Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter (1884-1923) – der „Führer des Führers“? In: "Deutschbalten", Weimarer Republik und Drittes Reich Bd.1, ed. Michael Garleff (=Das Baltikum in Geschichte und Gegenwart), Köln 2001, pp. 119-147
• Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, in: "Der finanzierte Aufstieg des Adolf H." by Wolfgang Zdral, 2002, pp. 47 ff.
• Bernhard Valentinitsch: Max-Erwin von Scheubner-Richter (1884–1923), Graz 2012