He was born in Ulm in West Germany to the painter, art teacher and author Karl Kimmich and his wife Christine, née Autenrieth.
While his brother went into banking, Max Kimmich visited military academies in Karlsruhe and Berlin after passing his school leaving exams and later fought as a regular officer in World War I.
In the next few years, he edited screenplays for cloak-and-dagger films like Under False Flag (1931/1932), The Invisible Front (1932) or On Secret Service (1933) with various partners.
He wrote the screenplays for several adventure films - sometimes with a nationalistic touch like Hangmen, Women and Soldiers from 1935 - and worked for directors such as Harry Piel and Paul Wegener.
He specialized in anti-British propaganda films,[2][3] e.g. My Life for Ireland in 1940/1941, and Germanin from 1942, which portrays scientists developing a medicine against sleeping sickness.
His works The Fugitive of Chicago in 1933/1934, I Sing Myself into Your Heart in 1934, Hangmen, Women and Soldiers in 1935, The Fox of Glenarvon in 1940 and Fourth Man Missing in 1938/1939 were recommended as "artistically valuable".
After the German surrender, Kimmich moved to the small village of Mörlach about 24 km from Munich with his family (he had become a father in early 1945).
There they lived under a false name for nearly a year, but in June 1946 he revealed their real identities to the American occupying forces.