Robert Maxwell was born Jan Ludvik Hoch in the small town of
Slatinské Doly on the border with Romania, in the region of
Carpathian Ruthenia in
Czechoslovakia (now
Solotvyno, Ukraine) on 10 June 1923. Like the rest of the then-newly formed Czechoslovakia, the area of Maxwell's birth and upbringing had been part of
Austria-Hungary until early November 1918. During this time until just before his birth (1919), the family name had been not Ludvik but Hoch, as per Austro-Hungarian census and registration. The area would later be annexed by
Hungary during World War II before being part of the Soviet Union in 1945. Maxwell was born into a poor
Yiddish-speaking
Orthodox Jewish family and had six siblings. His authorised biography states that he was also a distant relative of
Elie Wiesel, but
The Dispatch claimed they could find nothing to substantiate such a claim. In actuality Maxwell's maternal grandmother (Tzipporah Feig Slomowitz) was the sister of Wiesel's maternal grandmother (Sarah Feig Wiesel). Most of Maxwells' relatives were deported to
Auschwitz and perished there after Hungary's occupation by
Nazi Germany in 1944. Years earlier Maxwell had escaped to
France. After the
fall of France and the
British retreat to Britain, Maxwell (using the name "Ivan du Maurier", or "Leslie du Maurier", the surname taken from the name of a
popular cigarette brand) took part in a protest against the leadership of the Czechoslovak Army, and with 500 other soldiers he was transferred to the
British Army, initially to the
Royal Pioneer Corps and later to the
North Staffordshire Regiment in 1943. He was then involved in action across Europe, from the
Normandy beaches to
Berlin, and achieved the rank of
sergeant. Attached to the
Foreign Office, he worked in Berlin during the next two years in the press section. and changed his name to Ian Robert Maxwell by
deed of change of name on 30 June 1948. In 1945, Maxwell married
Elisabeth "Betty" Meynard, a French
Protestant, and the couple had nine children over the next sixteen years: Michael, Philip, Ann,
Christine,
Isabel, Karine,
Ian,
Kevin, and
Ghislaine. Five of his children—Christine, Isabel, Ian, Kevin and Ghislaine—were later employed within his companies. Karine died of
leukaemia at age three, while Michael was severely injured in a car crash in 1961, at age 15, when his driver fell asleep at the wheel and crashed headlong into another vehicle. Michael never regained consciousness and died seven years later. After the war, Maxwell used contacts in the
Allied-occupation authorities to go into business, becoming the British and US distributor for
Springer Verlag, a publisher of scientific books. In 1951, he bought three-quarters of Butterworth-Springer, a minor publisher; the remaining quarter was held by the experienced scientific editor
Paul Rosbaud. They changed the name of the company to
Pergamon Press and rapidly built it into a major academic publishing house. After a disagreement with Maxwell, Rosbaud left in 1956. In the
1964 general election, representing the
Labour Party, Maxwell was elected as
Member of Parliament (MP) for
Buckingham and re-elected in
1966. He gave an interview to
The Times in 1968 in which he said the
House of Commons provided him with a problem. "I can't get on with men", he commented. "I tried having male assistants at first. But it didn't work. They tend to be too independent. Men like to have individuality. Women can become an extension of the boss." Maxwell lost his seat in
1970 to
Conservative challenger
William Benyon. He contested Buckingham again in
both 1974 general elections, but without success. At the beginning of 1969, it emerged that Maxwell's attempt to buy the
tabloid newspaper
News of the World had failed. The Carr family, which owned the newspaper, was incensed at the thought of a Czechoslovak immigrant with
socialist views gaining ownership. The board voted against Maxwell's bid without any dissent. The
News of the Worlds editor,
Stafford Somerfield, opposed Maxwell's bid in an October 1968 front-page opinion piece in which he referred to Maxwell's Czechoslovak origins and used his birth name. He wrote, "This is a British paper, run by British people ... as British as
roast beef and
Yorkshire pudding ... Let us keep it that way". The paper was later purchased by the Australian tycoon
Rupert Murdoch, who later that year acquired
The Sun, which had also previously interested Maxwell. ==Pergamon lost and regained==