Max Gottheiner grew up in Bernburg; he was the son of the Jewish businessman Wilhelm Gottheiner and his wife Hulda. He trained as a store decorator, then worked for six months as a salesman and later as a construction worker. After moving to Berlin, he retrained as a locksmith. Both his parents had already been deported. After receiving the news that he was also to be deported, Max Gottheiner went underground around the spring of 1942. In fall 1942, he hid in Daisy Grochowski’s home in the Friedrichshain district. From then on, he and Gerhard Redlich and Heinz Riechert, who were classed as Jewish and likewise at risk of deportation, posed as police detectives, searched apartments, and confiscated valuables from other Jews. Max Gottheiner was arrested in December 1942, sentenced to death by the special court at the Berlin district court on May 14, 1943, and murdered in Plötzensee on July 8, 1943.