Max Kuschner

Name: Max Kuschner
Hometown: Vienna, Austria
Birthplace: Jagielnica, Poland
Died: 1978-06-23 (Age:69)
Pro Boxer: Record
Amateur Boxer: Record

Kuschner was an Austrian flyweight and bantamweight of Jewish ancestry.

Max Kuschner was born Max Beder July 27th 1908 in Jagielnica; A small town in southwestern Poland near the Czech border. Max Kuschner’s early childhood was in Poland as the youngest of 8 children. In 1920, he was left in the care of a family friend in Vienna when his mother and other family members immigrated to America. Max did not attend school in Vienna and supported himself as a young man, doing manual labor. He started boxing as a teenager at the Vienna Sports Club.

Kuschner fought his first professional match in July, 1930. After his last bout in 1935 he became a boxing trainer at the Vienna Sports Club. During his fighting career, Kuschner made friends with Fly Weight World Champion, Victor (Young) Perez, with whom he fought an exhibition match in Vienna. This exhibition bout was – at one time – listed on Boxrec.com.

Kuschner was arrested, sometime after the Nazi takeover of Austria in 1938 and sent to the Dachau concentration camp, and then transferred to the concentration camp at Buchenwald. While the details are unclear, he obtained a release from concentration camp under the name Max Beder and fled to England where he stayed for 2 years before immigrating to the U.S. It is believed that some of Max’s politically “well placed” friends from his days as a professional boxer arranged his release and paperwork.

Max Beder settled in New York City where he opened a dry cleaning business on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. He married in 1948 and had 2 sons. In 1973, Max returned to Vienna to live out his final years in the city of his youth. Max Beder (nee Kuschner), died on June 23, 1978 in Vienna, Austria.