He delivered the eulogy for Professor Aleksander Brückner in Berlin-Wilmersdorf in 1939 and he took over the chair of Slavistic studies at the University of Berlin.

Nevertheless, Vasmer persevered in his work, which was finally published in three volumes by Heidelberg University in 1950–1958 as Russisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch.

[citation needed] The Russian translation of Vasmer's dictionary – with extensive commentaries by Oleg Trubachyov – was printed in 1964–1973.

[citation needed] Another monumental work led by Max Vasmer involved the compilation of a multi-volume dictionary of Russian names of rivers and other bodies of water.

[1] He initiated an even grander project, completed by a team of workers after his death: the publication of a monumental (11 volumes) gazetteer that included virtually all names of populated places in Russia found both in pre-revolutionary and in Soviet sources.