Max Weisweiler, born in Cologne (Germany) on 17 April 1902, studied Oriental languages at the universities of Bonn, Leipzig, Göttingen and Tübingen from 1920 to 1924. He finished his doctoral dissertation in Tübingen under Enno Littmann. After following courses in librarianship he obtained a position as subject librarian, first, in 1926, at the university library in Tübingen, and from 1927 at the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin. Formally drafted into the army, and apparently for his lack of 'National Socialist fervour,' he was unable to become head of the Oriental department at the Staatsbibliothek. Nevertheless, the management of day-to-day affairs during the Second World War was left in his hands. It was due to his efforts that the Berlin manuscript collections were evacuated to Western Germany instead of Silesia as originally intented, which saved the collections from being confiscated by the Soviet Union after the war.

After the war he pursued his career at the library of the University of Bonn, where he rose to the rank of 'Oberbibliotheksrat (senior library counsellor). He retired in 1967. In 1954 he received an appointment as honorary professor of Arabic, but his teaching duties remained a dead letter. Weisweiler died the year after his retirement in 1968.

Max Weisweiler is best known for his comprehensive study of Islamic bookbindings, to which he devoted thirty years of his active life. His main publication is his monograph Der islamische Bucheinband des Mittelalters (Wiesbaden 1962). He is also known for his German translation of Ibn Hazm’s Tawq al-Hamama, published in Leiden in 1941 under the title Das Halsband der Taube über die Liebe und die Liebenden. A full list of his publications is contained in Wiesmüller (2007), p. 8-10.

Weisweiler’s typology of the ornamentation of bookbindings is still regarded as authoritative by François Déroche in his Manuel de codicologie des manuscrits en écriture arabe (2000), p. 312-319.