Known in early records as "Osias Ausschnitt", Max's father had a background in the iron trade. He registered his own import–export firm in the port city of Galați on June 14, 1884. Olias steadily amassed a large fortune, which in 1908 included one of Romania's two largest "entrepôts", and which Max would later treble. The family home in Galați was situated across from that of Panait Malaxa, uncle of Auschnitt's lifelong business rival, Nicolae Malaxa. According to one account, Max grew up in Galați, his native city, and attended the same school as Virgil Madgearu, who was to become his political associate. This is contradicted by other records, which note that Olias had been moved back into Austria-Hungary "shortly after Max's birth", meaning that the latter spent all his childhood years in Vienna, only returning to Galați in 1910. It is known that he studied abroad, in Vienna and London, graduating from the Academy for Advanced Commercial Studies. Upon regaining Romania, he formed a commercial firm dealing in Austrian sheet-iron imports, and then set up the Kingdom's first wire manufacturing plant. Rumors surfaced that such ventures were being propped up financially by the Austrian secret police. Several members of the Auschnitt family, including Max, served in the Romanian Army during the campaigns of World War I, which resulted in the establishment of Greater Romania; Edgar had been bypassed for the 1915 draft, after presenting himself as an Austro-Hungarian subject.