Jakob Altenberg (18751944) was an Austrian businessman and

picture frame A picture frame is a protective and decorative edging for a picture, such as a painting or photograph. It makes displaying the work safer and easier and both sets the picture apart from its surroundings and aesthetically integrates it with them. ...

dealer. Altenberg, who was

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

by birth, was a business partner of the young

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

in his Vienna period (190913).

Early life

Jakob Altenberg was born in

Hrymailiv Hrymailiv ( uk, Гримайлів; pl, Grzymałów; yi, רימאלאוו, ''Rimalov'') is an urban-type settlement in Chortkiv Raion (district) of Ternopil Oblast (province) in western Ukraine. It hosts the administration of Hrymailiv settlemen ...

, near

Skalat Skálat (; pl, Skałat, links=no, yi, סקאלאט, Skalat) is a town in Ternopil, Ternopil Oblast (province) of western Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest Europea ...

, eastern

Galicia-Lodomeria The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria,, ; pl, Królestwo Galicji i Lodomerii, ; uk, Королівство Галичини та Володимирії, Korolivstvo Halychyny ta Volodymyrii; la, Rēgnum Galiciae et Lodomeriae also known as ...

(in present-day

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian invas ...

), in 1875. He was the son of a Jewish couple, Moses and Sarah Altenberg. As a young man, Altenberg travelled to Vienna, where he learned

gilding Gilding is a decorative technique for applying a very thin coating of gold over solid surfaces such as metal (most common), wood, porcelain, or stone. A gilded object is also described as "gilt". Where metal is gilded, the metal below was trad ...

. Later, he cast off his Jewish faith, and in 1902 married a Catholic Viennese innkeeper's daughter. The marriage produced two children, daughter Adele (b. 1896) and son Jakob Jr. (b. 1902). In 1898, Altenberg opened his first store as a frame dealer and goldsmith at 37 . Within a few years he became a successful operator of a small framing workshop and a thriving chain of frame shops and art, in which frames were offered for sale, along with pictures and small art objects (characters, etc.). In addition to its headquarters in the Wiedner Hauptstraße, three other branches were later established, including a business on Vienna's largest shopping street, .

Relationship with Hitler

From 1909 to 1913, Altenberg was in business contact with the young

, who lived at that time as a painter in Vienna. Until his move to Germany in May 1913, Hitler supplied Altenberg's stores on a regular basis with his own paintings, mostly

watercolours Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to ...

, which Altenberg used as filler for the frames on display. The relationship between Hitler and Altenberg was good regardless of Altenberg's Jewish ancestry, and Altenberg is reported to have said that he never heard Hitler utter an anti-Semitic remark.Mommsen, Hans

''Hitler and Vienna: The Truth about his Formative Years", in ''The Third Reich Between Vision and Reality''.

Berg Publishers Berg Publishers was an academic publishing company based in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England and Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It was founded in the United Kingdom in 1983 by Marion Berghahn. Berg published monographs, textbooks, refere ...

, 2003. p.34.''

Later life

After the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the Nazi Germany, German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "Ger ...

in 1938, Altenberg's business was " Aryanized", his property was confiscated, and he was reduced to a minimum pension. He sold the remainder of Hitler's paintings, for a small sum, to the main archive of the

NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...

. He escaped deportation after 1942 because his wife was Aryan. He died in Vienna in 1944.

References

1875 births 1944 deaths People from Ternopil Oblast People from the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria Austro-Hungarian Jews Ukrainian Jews Jews from Galicia (Eastern Europe) Austrian people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent 19th-century Austrian businesspeople 20th-century Austrian businesspeople Austrian merchants Austrian businesspeople Secular Jews Businesspeople from Austria-Hungary {{Jewish-bio-stub