Samuel Morgenstern

Samuel Morgenstern (* 1875 in Budapest ; † August 1943 in the Litzmannstadt ghetto ) was an Austrian businessman and a business partner of the young Adolf Hitler during his time in Vienna (1908–1913). In Hitler's research gained Morgenstern, who was a Jew, a certain importance because the good relationship in which he stood to Hitler, is variously seen as authority for the proposition that this in his time in Vienna - unlike later he himself claims - was not yet an anti-Semite.

Live and act

Early years (1875 to 1911)

Morgenstern was born in Budapest in 1875 as the son of Hungarian Jews . In his youth he learned the glassmaking trade ; he was also a member of the Austro-Hungarian army for several years . He later moved to Vienna, where he opened a glass shop and workshop in 1903. The shop in the back yard of the house at Liechensteinstrasse No. 4 was conveniently located near the center of Vienna, which probably contributed to the company's rapid success. In 1904 he married Emma Pragan (* 1871), the daughter of a Jewish family from Vienna. The marriage resulted in a son born in 1911. In the course of his professional activity, Morgenstern achieved modest prosperity, so that he was able to buy a country estate in Strebersdorf near Vienna for the price of 5,000 kroner . In May 1914 he bought another piece of land near Großjedlersdorf for the proud sum of 50,000 kroner .

Relationship with Adolf Hitler (1911 / 1912–1913)

In 1937, in response to a request from the main archives of the NSDAP in Munich, Morgenstern stated that Adolf Hitler first appeared in his Viennese shop in 1911 or 1912. Hitler's offer to include some of his self-painted pictures (especially watercolors) in Morgenstern's range was accepted by the glazier, who also sold picture frames . As a result, Hitler regularly supplied Morgenstern's shop with his self-painted pictures until he emigrated to the German Reich in May 1913. Morgenstern later justified this purchase decision by stating that, in his experience, it was easier to sell picture frames if they already contained a picture on the shelf as illustrative material, so that the customer could get an impression of their effect. The motifs of Hitler's pictures were mostly historical views in the style of Rudolf von Alt . Morgenstern also had the Viennese lawyer Dr. Josef Feingold. His wife Elsa, née Schäfer, liked the pictures of Hitler and bought several for his apartment and office. After the German army marched in, the pictures were picked up by the Gestapo. Josef and Elsa Feingold were arrested on the run in the Nice area and deported to Auschwitz via the Drancy camp and murdered.

Anti-Semitism Controversy

In Hitler research, some researchers propose the thesis that Hitler was not a pronounced anti-Semite during his time in Vienna, despite his enthusiastic Pan-German attitude. As evidence for this, it is stated that the young Hitler did not bother with Morgenstern's Jewish descent and his wife, but even cultivated friendly relations with the couple apart from the purely business-related - he visited the two of them once a week as a guest in their private house .

This assumption is supported by Hitler's good relationship with other Viennese Jews such as Jakob Altenberg or the men’s home residents Neumann and Löffner, whom Hitler trusted more in business matters than he did, for example. B. his petty criminal friend Reinhold Hanisch , who was an ardent anti-Semite.

This behavior is in direct contradiction to Hitler's own assertion in Mein Kampf , where he states that he had already been convinced in Vienna of the corruption of Judaism. Researchers like Brigitte Hamann , however, see Hitler's assertion, in view of his good relationship with Jews like the Morgensterns, as a political lie that was supposed to give the impression that his anti-Semitism was the result of a logical, organic development and did not arise after difficult-to-understand breaks and changes set in his thinking.

The fact that Morgenstern could have contributed in any way to provoking or nurturing prejudices or a bad image of "the Jews" in Hitler can be ruled out. Not only was Morgenstern the most important source of income for young Hitler in the years around 1912. As Peter Jahn from the main archive of the NSDAP found out in 1937, he also made him good prices for his work, so by no means took advantage of him. The hardworking Morgenstern also did not fit into the cliché of the work-shy Jew, as Hamann noted. In addition, Hitler testified to Jahn in the 1930s that Morgenstern had been his "savior" during the time in Vienna and had given him many important assignments.

Later life (1913-1943)

Morgenstern experienced the First World War as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army on the Romanian front. After the war, in which he was awarded two military diplomas for exemplary behavior, he returned to his old profession.

After the annexation of Austria in March 1938, Morgenstern was soon targeted by the anti-Semitic policies of the National Socialists. On 10 November 1938 his business was closed by the authorities on 24 November 1938 "arisiert" , d. H. Morgenstern was forced to sell it to an Aryan. The purchase price of 620 Reichsmarks for the workshop, shop and an extensive warehouse, which was written down on paper , was never paid. Morgenstern's license to practice his trade was also withdrawn; he was thus banned from working. He was dependent on the charity of friends for the following months.

A call for help, which Morgenstern wrote to his former colleague on August 10, 1939, did not reach him. Morgenstern's request to the Reich Chancellor to arrange for the authorities to pay him modest compensation for the confiscation of his property in foreign currency in return for the transfer of his property, so that he would have the material means to emigrate , remained unanswered. Morgenstern could not leave the National Socialist sphere of influence because he could not pay the travel expenses of an emigration or the so-called Reich flight tax.

Shortly after the outbreak of World War II , the Morgenstern's property was expropriated and they were deported as Jews to occupied Poland , where they had to live in the Litzmannstadt ghetto in Łódź . Samuel Morgenstern died there in August 1943 of emaciation. He was buried in the ghetto cemetery. His wife Emma, ​​who, as her brother-in-law Wilhelm Abeles (who also lived in the ghetto and survived Auschwitz) testified, was with him until the death of her husband, was most likely deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau that same month . Since it was the practice at Auschwitz to send most newcomers, especially disabled old women, directly into the gas , their death can be considered certain. Accordingly, a Viennese court ruled in December 1946 that she could not have lived to see the end of the war in 1945 and declared her dead in agreement with an application by her brother Max Pragan.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.porges.net/JewsInVienna/6TwoExamples.html Brigitte Hamann : Jews in Vienna. Two examples.
2. ↑ http://www.porges.net/JewsInVienna/6TwoExamples.html Brigitte Hamann: “ Morgenstern was the first person to pay a good price for the paintings, which is how their business contact was established. ”
3. ^ Brigitte Hamann: Hitler's Vienna , p. 182.
4. ↑ Sheree O. Zalampas: Adolf Hitler. A Psychological Interpretation of His Views on Architecture , 1990, p. 26.
5. ↑ The letter addressed to "His Excellency the Reich Chancellor and Leader of the German Empire" has been preserved. It has apparently been sighted by the bureaucratic side and has corresponding markings, such as underlining and the marginal note "Jew!" on.
6. ^ Hamann: Hitler's Vienna . In research, the irony is occasionally pointed out that of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, Hitler knew almost only people like Samuel Morgenstern personally - and that he also had a good relationship with them.