Max Hermann (1865-1942) was a German philologist and theatre historian, universally recognized as the founder of modern theatre studies (Theaterwissenschaft) as an academic discipline. A professor at the Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Berlin, he established the world's first institute for theatre studies there in 1923. His seminal work, *Forschungen zur deutschen Theatergeschichte des Mittelalters und der Renaissance* (1914), revolutionized the approach to theatre historiography by shifting the focus from the literary text to the performance event and its socio-cultural context. Of Jewish descent, he was persecuted by the Nazi regime: deprived of his professorship in 1933, he was ultimately deported in 1942 to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where he died shortly after his arrival. In his honor, the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin awards the prestigious Max-Herrmann-Preis for services to library heritage.