Born in Berlin, he relocated to England with his Jewish family at a young age soon after the Nazis came to power, and together with his brother Ken Adam was one of very few German-born pilots to serve in the British Royal Air Force during the Second World War.

[3] Fritz co-owned a well-known high-fashion clothing and sporting goods store with his three brothers called S. Adam (Berlin, Leipziger Straße/Friedrichstraße).

[4] While attending the College Francis, Denis at the age of nine had a fight with a playground bully wearing a Hitler Youth uniform, who was older and bigger than him.

This fight and the increasing discrimination against Jews convinced Denis's parents to send him and Klaus to Craigend Park Boarding School in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The rest of the Adam family stayed in Germany as Denis's father felt that the Nazi's were only a temporary aberration and they would wait it out.

[9] Now reluctantly coming to the conclusion that Jews had no future in Germany, Fritz, Lilli, and Loni, as well as some of Denis's aunts and uncles, fled to England in the summer of 1934.

[1] The family were declared refugees on their arrival to England and identified as "friendly aliens" with the exception of Denis, who was too young to be classified.

[1] After leaving school, Denis obtained a loan from the Jewish Education Aid Society and studied accountancy for a year before obtaining a job in a small insurance broker called Leroi Flesch & Co.[13] When the Second World War broke out in 1939, the government declared that all those of Austrian or German nationality over the age of 16 who hadn't been screened should be interned.

Denis had been too young to be screened when he had arrived in the country and, as a result, soon after his 16th birthday was arrested and spent a month incarcerated on the Isle of Man.

As his brother Ken advised him that it would be difficult to transfer from ground crew to pilot training, he opted to stay home on leave until he reached the required age.

After the end of the war in Europe, the squadron was sent to England and was re-equipped with Tempest IIs in preparation for its deployment to the Asia theatre of operations.

As demobilisation of individuals was based upon age and length of service Denis was trained as an instructor before finally being demobbed in October 1946.

[1] He arrived via a holiday in America in New Zealand on 21 January 1947 with £6 in his pocket and took up his cousins' (Hans Adam and Greta Roger) offer of employment.

[24] To obtain the required capital to establish his own insurance business, Adam took advantage of a scheme whereby oil companies were prepared to assist with financing suitable people into ownership of a service station.

He quickly discovered that some staff and some customers had been stealing from the business and that the petrol delivery drivers were delivering less than they claimed on the invoice.

Their first piece of New Zealand art was Bush Scene by John Snadden whose work they had admired when it was hanging in a Willis St coffee bar.

In 2017, the Adam Foundation made a substantial gift towards a new centre of musical, cultural and educational excellence being planned for Wellington's Civic Square.

[29] In the 1993 Queen's Birthday Honours, Adam was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, for services to the arts and community.

[34] Adam's story features in Promised New Zealand – Fleeing Nazi Persecution by Freya Klier and translated by Jenny Rawlings.