DROOG
HOME   
UITGEVERIJ   
UTRECHT 
FONDS   

versie: 16 februari 2018 - NIOD-begin | beginpagina Droog




Jacob Altenberg

A short history

The frame maker Jacob Altenberg (name also spelled as 'Jakob Altenberg', 1875-1944) was one of the buyers of Hitlers paintings in 1910-1913.

He was named by Hitler's former youth friend and Hitler forger Reinhold Hanisch in ca. 1935 as one of the customers of the young Hitlers. Hanisch named four; Altenberg was the first of them.

Altenbergs shops were located at:
Wiednerhauptstrasse 35, IV (workshop), tel. 1066 (1912)
Favoritenstrasse 4-6, IV (selling shop), tel. 10.987 (1912)

In 1936, as Austrian police investigated a case of forged Hitlers, they consulted Jacob Altenberg as a specialist on authentic Hitler paintings.

 
Jakob Altenberg, who had purchased some twenty-five works from Hitler. Shown a number of paintings that Hanisch had passed off as genuine, the dealer declared 'with absolute certainty' that the signature, size, style and subject demonstrated they were bogus. 'Hitler never painted still lifes (of fruit) [and] these still lifes are not in the style of Hitler's paintings; they are primitive concoctions. Such smearings would have been impossible to sell.'

Frederic Spotts. Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics, 2002. Page 142. The source for this is the orginal police memorandam, Bundespolizei-direktion in Wien, 19-11-1936. After the Anschluss this document was seized by the NSDAP Hauptarchiv. In 1945 it was taken over by the Americans and filmed. Reel 86, folder 1741. copy

 

The other frame makers named by Hanisch were the jewish Isidor or Josef Landsberger (both had a 'Vergolder'-store at the Favoritenstrasse), and Samuel Morgenstern (Liechtensteinstrasse 4) and the christian Johann Schiefer (Schönbrunnerstrasse 14a, V. Wien).


Almost no 'Hitlers' in Price with Altenberg origins.

Considering all information from contemporary sources from Hitler's Viennese years as active watercolors painter (1910-1913), one can only conclude that Altenberg was Hitler's main customer.

Altenberg himself stated that he had bought 25 Hitler paintings. Yet, in the Price book his name as origional owner is only mentioned twice. With these two works, Price-263 'Penzing - St. Rochus Kapelle 1912' and 'Price-264, 'Wien 1912 I. B(ez.) Ruprechtskirche 1912'.




The question remains: why did the forgers emphasize on Samuel Morgenstern as main costumer of Hitler? Our theory is that they did so because Morgenstern and his family were exterminated. Altenberg had a surviving wife, daughter and son. Forgers don't like survivors: they are witnessses who could testify and spoil the forgers' businesses.


Telephone numbers of Jacob Altenberg

1911: 1066
1912: 1066 and 10.987.
1913: 6477 and 10.987.
1920: 10.987 and 59.384.


Source on adresses and telephone numbers

Adolph Lehmann's Allgemeiner Wohnungs-Anzeiger 1859-1922 [-1942].
https://www.digital.wienbibliothek.at/wbr/nav/classification/2609

back up

DROOG- tijdschrift voor diepgravende onderzoeks-journalistiek. Droog, onafhankelijk en ter zake. Over zaken uit heden en verleden die er toe doen of deden. Zaken die meer aandacht vragen dan in een artikel van een of twee papieren pagina’s gegeven kan worden. 

Steun ons op Facebook: Droog - Slow jounalism

Doneer! Hoe? Mail: droog@epibreren.com

| naar boven