Samuel Oppenheimer

Born in an old and respected Frankfurt family, Samuel became a famous financier, court diplomat and military supplier of the Holy Roman Emperor. Due to his financial services to Emperor Leopold I during the Great Turkish War, Oppenheimer was the first Jew allowed to settle in Vienna with his entourage after the expulsion of Jews in 1670.

In the years that followed, Samuel became the court factor or the court Jew of the Holy Roman Emperor lending large sums of money to ruler and nobility. As a person of trust he was also employed in delicate political missions in the service of the Emperor.

Although Samuel enjoyed a great influence and social prestige, he became an object of envy of many nobles, especially those who were in debt and tried to find a way to avoid their payments. In 1700 the mob had ravaged his house, but the leaders were punished by the authorities.

Samuel was known as philanthropist who financed many social and cultural activities. The Bodleian library at Oxford, for example, partially owes its material to Samuel, and it is known that he used his fortune to ransom Jewish prisoners in the Ottoman captivity, and to support many scholars.

Samuel died in 1703 in Vienna. After his death the emperor refused to pay the debts that he owed to his son. However, the Oppenheimer banking house managed to survive in other cities like Hanover, and some years later the young Mayer Amschel Rothschild, the founder of the Rothschild banking empire, came there as apprentice to learn the banking business.