Samuel Morgenstern

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

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.

Hitler's antisemitism 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 did business with Morgenstern, and maintained a friendly relationship with him and his wife. For a while, he visited the two once a week as a guest in their home. This idea 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 friend Reinhold Hanisch, 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 including Brigitte Hamann see Hitler's assertion in the light of his good relationship with Jews such as 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. 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.