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Ian Robert Maxwell, MC (10 June 1923 – 5 November 1991) was a Czechoslovakian-born British media proprietor and Member of Parliament (MP). He rose from poverty to build an extensive publishing empire. After Maxwell's death, huge discrepancies in his companies' finances were revealed, including his fraudulent misappropriation of the Mirror Group pension fund. Early in his life, he escaped from Nazi occupation, joining the Czechoslovak Army in exile in the Second World War and was decorated after active service in the British Army. In subsequent years he worked in publishing, building up Pergamon Press to a major publishing house. After six years as an MP during the 1960s, he again put all his energy into business, successively buying the British Printing Corporation, Mirror Group Newspapers and Macmillan, Inc, among other publishing companies. Maxwell had a flamboyant lifestyle, living in Headington Hill Hall in Oxford from which he often flew in his helicopter, and sailing in his luxury yacht, the ''Lady Ghislaine''. He was notably litigious and often embroiled in controversy, including about his support for Israel at the time of its 1948 Palestine war. In 1989, he had to sell successful businesses, including Pergamon Press, to cover some of his debts. In 1991, his body was discovered floating in the Atlantic Ocean having fallen overboard from his yacht. He was buried in Jerusalem. Maxwell's death triggered the collapse of his publishing empire as banks called in loans. His sons briefly struggled to keep the business together, but failed as the news emerged that Maxwell had stolen hundreds of millions of pounds from his own companies' pension funds. The Maxwell companies applied for bankruptcy protection in 1992. ==Early life== Robert Maxwell was born Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch into a poor〔Марк Штейнберг. Евреи в войнах тысячелетий. p. 227. ISBN 5-93273-154-0 〕〔 〕 Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jewish family in the small town of Slatinské Doly〔Craig R. Whitney ("Robert Maxwell, 68: From Refugee to the Ruthless Builder of a Publishing Empire" ), ''New York Times'', 6 November 1991, ()〕 (now Solotvyno, Ukraine), in the easternmost province of (pre-Second World War) Czechoslovakia. His parents were Mechel Hoch and Hannah Slomowitz. He had six siblings. In 1939, the area was reclaimed by Hungary. Most members of his family died in Auschwitz after Hungary was occupied in 1944 by its former ally, Nazi Germany, but he had already escaped to France.〔 In Marseille he joined the Czechoslovak Army in exile in May 1940.〔(Ludvík Hoch (Maxwell) in the database of Central Military Archive in Prague )〕 After the defeat in France and the retreat to Great Britain, Maxwell (using the name "Ivan du Maurier" 〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Naughty Boys: Ten Rogues of Oxford )〕) took part in the protest against the leadership of the Czechoslovak Army, and with 500 other soldiers, he was transferred to the British 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.〔 He gained a commission in 1945, and was promoted captain. In January 1945, he received the Military Cross from Field Marshal Montgomery. Attached to the British Foreign Office, he served in Berlin during the next two years in the press section.〔 In 1945, he married Elisabeth "Betty" Meynard; a French Protestant, with whom he had nine children, with the goal of "recreating the family he lost in the Holocaust". Five of his children were later employed within his companies. His three-year-old daughter Karine died of leukemia and his eldest son, Michael, was severely injured in a car accident in 1961 (at the age of 15) while being driven home from a post-Christmas party. His driver fell asleep at the wheel, and Michael never regained consciousness. He died seven years later.〔Maxwell: The final verdict〕〔"A mind of my own" by Elisabeth Maxwell〕 After the war he used various contacts in the Allied occupation authorities to go into business, becoming the British and United States distributor for Springer Verlag, a publisher of scientific books. In 1951 he bought three quarters〔Haines (1988) 135〕 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 publishing house. In 1964, representing the Labour Party, he 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."〔Cited by Sandra Barwick ("The beast and his beauties" ), ''The Independent'', 25 October 1994〕 Maxwell lost his seat in 1970 to the Conservative William Benyon. At the beginning of 1969, it emerged that Maxwell's attempt to buy the ''News of the World'' had failed.〔("1969: Murdoch wins Fleet Street foothold" ), BBC On this Day 2 January〕 The Carr family, which owned the title, had been incensed at the thought of a Czech immigrant with socialist politics gaining ownership, and the company's board had voted against his bid without any dissent. The ''News of the World''s editor Stafford Somerfield wrote about the corporate disquiet〔Roy Greenslade (''Press Gang: How Newspapers Make Profits From Propaganda'' ), London: Pan, 2004 (), p.395〕 in an October 1968 front page leader article, in which he referred to Maxwell's Czech origins and used his birth name. "This is a British paper, run by British people," he wrote. "Let us keep it that way."〔Bill Grundy ("The Press: Mr Maxwell and the Ailing Giant" ), ''The Spectator'', 24 October 1968, p.6〕 The tycoon who had gained control was the Australian Rupert Murdoch, who later the same year acquired ''The Sun'', which had also interested Maxwell.〔("The Maxwell Murdoch tabloid rivalry" ), BBC News, 5 November 2011〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Robert Maxwell」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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