Michael Lazar Biedermann

Financier
Michael Lazar Biedermann was an Austrian financier, entrepreneur, and communal leader. He started his career as an engraver, then moved to the wool industry and made Vienna the centre of it in the Habsburg Empire. He also founded one of the first banks in Austria and was the court jeweler.

Michael Lazar Biedermann was born in Pressburg, modern Bratislava, Slovakia. In his youth he moved to Vienna where he worked as an engraver. In 1798 he was commissioned to engrave the imperial seal. Two years later he opened a store for jewelry and antiques. Subsequently Biedermann turned to the wool industry into which he introduced modern production methods and succeeded in transferring the center of the wool trade in the Habsburg Empire from Budapest to Vienna. By 1816, Biedermann was wealthy enough to open his bank and to give the emperor an interest-free loan of 300,000 florins to combat famine in Vienna. In 1830 he was supplier of jewels to the court.

Biedermann took great interest in the welfare of the Jewish community of Vienna, of which he became a representative in 1806. He was instrumental in building a Jewish school, the first synagogue in Vienna, and a hospital.