Samuel Morgenstern

Samuel Morgenstern (1875, Budapest – August 1943, Łódź Ghetto) was an Austrian businessman and a business partner of the young Adolf Hitler in his time in Vienna (1908–1913). Morgenstern, who was a Jew, gained some importance in Hitler's research, since the good relationship he held with Hitler was sometimes taken as evidence of the thesis that he was not yet an anti-Semite.

Life and work

Early years (1875 to 1911)

Morgenstern was born in 1875 as the son of Hungarian Jews in Budapest. In his youth he learned the craft of glassmaking, and served in the Austro-Hungarian Army for several years. Later Mogenstern moved to Vienna, where he opened in 1903 a glass shop with associated workshop. The store in the backyard of the house Liechensteinstraße No. 4 was conveniently located near the center of Vienna, which probably contributed to the rapid success of the company. In 1904 he married Emma Pragan (born 1871), the daughter of a Jewish family from Vienna. They had a son born in 1911. In the course of his professional career, Morgenstern achieved modest prosperity, so that he was able to gain a country estate in Strebersdorf near Vienna for the price of 5,000 crowns. In May 1914 he bought another piece of land at Großjedlersdorf for 50,000 crowns.[1]

Relationship with Adolf Hitler (1911/1912 to 1913)

Morgenstern stated in 1937 at the request of the main archive of the NSDAP in Munich that Adolf Hitler first appeared in his Viennese shop in 1911 or 1912. Hitler's offer to include some of his pictures (especially aquarelles) in Morgenstern's assortment was taken up by Glaser, who also sold picture frames. As a result, Hitler regularly supplied Morgenstern's business with his pictures until his emigration to Germany in May 1913. Morgenstern later justified this purchase decision with the fact that in his experience it was easier to sell picture frames if they already contained a picture on the sales shelf as illustrative material, so that the customer could get an impression of their effect. The motifs of Hitler's paintings were mostly historical views in the style of Rudolf von Alt. Morgenstern also had the Viennese lawyer Dr. Joseph Feingold. His wife, Elsa, née Schäfer, liked the pictures of Hitler, and he bought several for his apartment and law firm. After the invasion of the German Army, the pictures were picked up by the Gestapo. Josef and Elsa Feingold were arrested while fleeing in the Nice area, deported to Auschwitz via Drancy internment camp, and murdered.

Later life (1913–1943)

Morgenstern participated in the First World War as an officer of the Austro-Hungary's army on the Romanian front. After the war, when he was honored with two military diplomas for exemplary behavior, he returned to his old profession.

After the annexation of Austria in March 1938, Morgenstern soon became the target of the anti-Semitic policy of the National Socialists. After the Kristallnacht, his business was closed by the authorities, and on 24 November 1938, it was "aryanized", i.e. Morgenstern was forced to sell it to an Aryan. However, the purchase price of 620 Reichsmark for workshop, shop and an extensive warehouse was never paid. Morgenstern was also deprived of his license to practice his trade; he was banned from working. In the following months, he depended on public generosity.

Morgenstern addressed by letter to his former colleague on 10 August 1939. The letter addressed to "His Excellency the Chancellor and leader of the German Reich" has been preserved. It had apparently been spotted by bureaucratics and had corresponding markings, such as underlines and the marginal expression "Jew!" on it. In his letter, Morgenstern asked to induce the authorities, in exchange for the transfer of his landed property, to pay him a modest compensation for the confiscation of his property in foreign currency, so that he would have the material resources to emigrate. His letter remained unanswered. Morgenstern could not leave the National Socialist sphere of power because he could not pay the travel expenses of an emigration and Reich Flight Tax.

Shortly after the outbreak of World War II, Morgensterns were expropriated and deported as Jews to the occupied Poland, where they were imprisoned in the Łódź Ghetto. There Samuel Morgenstern died of wasting in August 1943. 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) witnessed her husband's death, was most likely deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp at the same month. Since it was a standard practice in Auschwitz to send most of the newcomers, especially old women unable to work, directly to the gas chambers, their death can be considered certain. Accordingly, a Viennese court ruled in December 1946 that they could not have experienced the end of the war in 1945 and pronounced them dead in agreement with a motion filed by their brother Max Pragan.[2]

Anti-Semitism controversy

Some scholars argue that Hitler was not a pronounced anti-Semite during his time in Vienna despite his enthusiastic Pan-German League attitude. As evidence for this, they state that young Hitler not only did business with Morgenstern, but also maintained friendly relationship with him and his wife. For a while, he visited the two once a week as a guest in their home.

This assumption is supported by Hitler's good relationship with other Viennese Jews such as Jakob Altenberg or his cohabitants at the men's dormitory, Josef Neumann and Siegfried Löffner, whom Hitler trusted more in business affairs than, for example, his petty criminal buddy Reinhold Hanisch, who was a fervent anti-Semite.

This behavior is in direct contradiction to Hitler's own claim in Mein Kampf, where he claims to have already been convinced in Vienna of the perishability of Judaism. However, researchers like Brigitte Hamann see Hitler's assertion in the light of his good relationship with Jews and the Morgenstern as a political statement purported to give the impression that his anti-Semitism developed in a straightforward line, and conceal changes in his thinking.

That Morgenstern could have contributed in any way to provoke or nourish Hitler's prejudices or a bad image of "the Jew" can be considered as ruled out. Not only was Morgenstern the most important source of income for the young Hitler in the years around 1912, he also offered, as Peter Jahn of the main archive of the NSDAP still noted in 1937, good prices for Hitler's pictures.[3] In addition, Hitler gave Jahn an appreciative statement in the 1930s that Morgenstern had been his "savior" during the Vienna period and had given him many important commissions.[4]

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References
  1. http://www.porges.net/JewsInVienna/6TwoExamples.html Brigitte Hamann: Jews in Vienna. Two Examples.
  2. Hamann: Hitler's Vienna.
  3. http://www.porges.net/JewsInVienna/6TwoExamples.html
  4. Sheree O. Zalampas: Adolf Hitler: A Psychological Interpretation of His Views on Architecture, Art, and Music, 1990, p. 26
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