Born in 2613, Hans was the son of an alcoholic father living in an icy mining world. Hans applied to the Academy and was rejected (for no good reasons). Then, for a way out of that life, he got a job aboard a cargo hauler. By age 21, in 2634 he was wanted for murder in the Confederation (though it had been in self defense) and his former employer, Mr. Haffa Sarn, wanted to kill him for his (Kruger's) killing one of his sons (though Kruger had done that because the Sarn junior was lifting his blaster to kill a lady who had refused him, at a bar). So he then takes a job on a ship called Phantom, hoping to get as far away as possible from the Sarn's; comes aboard it in Gainer's World. The ship gets into a fight with two cat frigates. They manage to destroy one of them using an illegally obtained nuclear mine (they sell them at Gar's Emporium, though they aren't cheap). The other frigate manages to breach the Phantom's hull just before it jumps to another system. Everyone aboard the Phantom dies from wounds, decompression or both, except Kruger, whose suit and helmet are still intact.

He takes possession of the ship, renames it Lazarus, and becomes an independent hauler. He reinvests a lot of his profits in his ship: Upgrades the engines to Reverberator C 3000, puts an extra half inch of durasteel lamination on the titanium pressure hull, and installs an autotracking turret, among other things.

On 2634.170, he's at a bar in Hellhole to meet with Winston Turner, Vance Richards, and (then young ensign) Geoffrey Tolwyn, who want to hire Kruger to fly them to Gar's Emporium on a secret mission disguised as shipping and selling glass-works. The Emporium is a sort of resort and trading place, ran by a cast out cat named Gar, illegally, within cat territory. As they are leaving the bar, Turner shoots someone who was about to shoot them, who presumably had been hired by Haffa Sarn.

It is not clear in the story why exactly they want to go to Gar's Emporium, of all places; but, reading between the lines, the hints seem to point out that Baron Vakka (the father of Baron Jukaga) is in contact with Naval Intelligence, directly or indirectly, had an important piece of evidence for them, and told them it would be delivered to Gar's Emporium. But this is highly speculative. In any case, Hans takes them to Gar's Emporium, and after the four of them spending a month or so at that place, a cat pretending to be interested in glassworks, buys a artsy piece, and pays them with a coin that has a memory chip taped to it. They try to catch the cat, who seems to be in a bit of a hurry, but snipers kill the kat and try to get them too, but instead hit a drunken Woo, while some party hidden somewhere throws a smoke bomb over the dead cat. At the same time the general alarm goes off and the PA system announces a cat fleet has jumped in-system. Everybody trying to leave at once; pandemonium; and the Lazarus gets attacked, as they are leaving, by an unmarked ship that Turner believes is cat Counterintelligence. They pick a jump point at random and go for it, only to find themselves in front of a huge cat fleet, so they jump back. That fleet was the fleet that was being gathered to attack the Landreich, as a diversion for the main cat attack force going to McAuliffe.

Back in Hellhole, then Landreich's president Blucher decripts and translates the chip, and it's a secret War Orders document; and he immediately drafts Hans Maximilian Kruger into the Landreich's military. Turner, Richards and Tolwyn borrow Kruger's Lazarus to get back to McAuliffe in like a hurry. (See also the Lost War Orders mystery page.)

Here the story gets a little weird: According to False Colors, Kruger played a descisive role in defending the Landreich from the diversionary invasion force, but for some not too convincing explanation, ends up crash-landing at Fawcett's World, a planet controlled by Vakka where there are human prisoners that Vakka had Imperial orders to kill but didn't want to; and supposedly, with only a hand held weapon, Kruger manages to steal a cat frigate to get back to Hellhole?!… for which action he is hailed as a hero. The truth of the story, it would seem to me, ought to be slightly different; but I digress.

By 2668, Hans Maximilian Kruger has become President of the break-away Free Republic of the Landreich, and he goes by “Max”, rather than “Hans”.