The Habsburg state owed Samuel Oppenheimer millions when he died in 1703; it declared his firm bankrupt and his estate was auctioned in 1763

Samuel Oppenheimer was born in 1630, probably in the Palatinate. He moved to Vienna in 1674 and became imperial war commissary in 1679, supplying the armies that fought the Ottomans and France. In 1701 he became chief war factor. The court paid him late. In 1683 a partner denounced him; he was arrested and paid 21,000 florins. In 1688 his son Emanuel was arrested to force faster army deliveries to Philippsburg. Later he was held nine months over an alleged murder plot and released against a credit of 500,000 florins to the treasury. About 1700 a crowd plundered his house; one man was hanged for it. He died on 3 May 1703. The state did not honour its debts to Emanuel and had the firm declared bankrupt. Emanuel claimed about 6 million florins. The state rejected the claim and demanded 4 million florins from him, a sum it said Samuel had obtained by fraud early in his career, with compound interest. Repayment dragged on for years, partly because business records were missing. The failure shook the Frankfurt exchange and threatened a state bankruptcy. Austria founded its first bank, the Banco del Giro, in 1703. Emanuel died in 1721. The Oppenheimer estate was auctioned in 1763.