Oppenheimer, Samuel

(1630–1703)

   Austrian financier. A member of an old and respected Frankfurt family, Oppenheimer rose to prominence in Heidelberg as a financial agent and army contractor to Karl Ludwig, elector of the Palatinate. From 1673 he was a major supplier to the imperial Austrian troops in successive wars, though he had constant difficulty in getting his claims paid. When Bishop Kollonitsch was appointed finance minister in 1692, he had Oppenheimer arrested on the false charge of trying to murder Samson WERTHEIMER. The imperial treasury already owed him millions, yet he had to spend 500,000 florins to buy his release. The mob stormed his house in 1700, but on that occasion the authorities punished the ring-leaders. On his death the state refused to pay his son the vast sums still owing to his father. Samuel Oppenheimer, the first Jew allowed to settle in Vienna after the 1670 expulsion, was the real founder of the new Jewish community there. Although the Jews were forbidden to build a synagogue in the city, he opened a prayer room in his home and built synagogues and academies elsewhere. He also used his diminishing fortune to ransom Jewish prisoners captured by the Turks.