He was born a Prince of Bavaria, as a member of the royal line of the
House of Wittelsbach, whose head is his elder brother
Franz, Duke of Bavaria. Max Emanuel is considered the next in line of succession to the headship of the former ruling dynasty, followed by his and Franz's first cousin
Luitpold. He has been using the title of
Herzog in Bayern (
Duke in Bavaria) since he was adopted as an adult by his grand-uncle,
Duke Ludwig Wilhelm in Bavaria, the last bearer of that title of a junior branch of the House of Wittelsbach, from whom he inherited considerable estates at
Tegernsee Abbey (including a brewery),
Banz Abbey and the spa of
Kreuth. Since the Wittelsbach dynasty was opposed to the
Nazi regime in Germany, his parents had emigrated in 1939 from Kreuth, Bavaria, to
Budapest, Hungary. The family was arrested by the
Gestapo in 1944, and 7-year old Max, along with his parents and siblings, were deported to the
concentration camps of
Sachsenhausen,
Flossenbürg and
Dachau. Badly hit by hunger and disease, the family barely survived. After the war, Max attended the humanistic high school of
Ettal Abbey and, like his elder brother, studied business administration at the universities of Munich and Zurich. He completed a banking apprenticeship in Switzerland before working in the administration of the House of Wittelsbach and of the
Wittelsbach Compensation Fund (WAF). In addition to managing his agricultural and forestry operations, he then devoted himself primarily to the expansion of the
Ducal Bavarian Brewery of Tegernsee, now managed by his youngest daughter Maria Anna. He was a member in the advisory board of a foundation running the
Augustiner-Bräu brewery in Munich. He has since taken over some honorary positions from his elder brother and is now a member of the board of trustees of
LMU Munich and a member of the Bavarian advisory board of the
Malteser Hilfsdienst, a charitable organization of the
Sovereign Military Order of Malta that runs hospitals. He also took over the chairmanship of the board of trustees of the
European Foundation for the Imperial Cathedral of Speyer in the State of
Rhineland-Palatinate, through which the House of Wittelsbach still maintains a connection to one of its former main territories, the
Electoral Palatinate. ==Marriage and issue==