Moriz von Kuffner

From the 1880s to the early 1910s he made a fortune in the brewery business, and became a significant sponsor of Vienna's social and cultural life as well as a mentor of astronomy.

He was also president of the sugar refinery in Diószeg in western Slovakia and of the Steinbruck brewery in Budapest; was among the largest owners of real estate in Vienna; owned significant collections of art, including many works by Albrecht Dürer; and was a founding member of the Musikverein.

Moreover, after the Anschluss of Austria to the Third Reich the Kuffner family was subjected to the full range of harassments and physical threats which the newly empowered National Socialists could mount against Jewish industrialists.

On 13 March 1938, Moriz averted a forceful attempt by a Sturmabteilung to take over the brewery only by placing his single non-Jewish executive - the laboratory director - formally in charge of the company.

In a desperate attempt to salvage whatever he could before the family had to leave Vienna, Moriz' son Stephan Kuffner negotiated the sale of the brewery to an "Aryan" industrialist for 14 million Schilling.

The government approved the transaction on 6 June 1938 and immediately fined the new owner, Gustav Harmer, a penalty tax of 3 million Reichsmark for "attempts to disguise Jewish property."

With the assistance of a fellow alpinist[5] Moriz von Kuffner - an already very old and very ill man - obtained an immigration permit for Switzerland.

The modalities of compensation which were negotiated with Kuffner's heirs after World War II have been cited as a positive example for the restitution of Jewish assets that were expropriated under the rule of National Socialism in Austria.