Reinhold Hanisch

Reinhold Hanisch (27 January 1884, Bohemia – February 1937, Vienna) was an Austrian migrant worker and occasional business partner of the young Adolf Hitler. Hanisch, who published numerous articles on Hitler and who had lived with him in 1910, is one of the few witnesses to Hitler's Vienna years alongside August Kubizek.

Hanisch attended elementary school in his homeland. He descended from a low nobility family but his parents became poor and decadent. Despite his aristocratic ancestors, he hired himself out as a casual laborer and house servant. Hanisch was imprisoned in Berlin three months in 1907 for theft, and in 1908, was sentenced to six months in prison. In the autumn of 1909, he came to Vienna, where he was employed as a servant. In the Vienna homeless shelter in Meidling, where he lived, he met Hitler on 21 December 1909. In 1910, Hanisch lived with Hitler, whom he took under his wing, in the Meldemannstraße men’s dormitory. The first months of 1910 constituted a kind of Hitler-Hanisch partnership: while Hitler painted postcards and pictures, mostly watercolors, Hanisch took over their sale. The men shared equally the sums received.

Finally, Hitler split with Hanisch, accusing Hanisch of selling one of Hitler’s paintings (a view of the Vienna Parliament) and keeping the entire proceeds of the sale for himself. Hanisch denied this charge. In order to secure a new revenue stream, Hanisch began painting and became Hitler’s competitor. Hanisch supplied, among others, the Jewish frame dealer Jakob Altenberg with pictures and postcards.

On 4 August 1910, Hanisch was reported to the police by another dormitory resident, Siegfried Löffner, who was acting as Hitler's seller. The Vienna police discovered that Hanisch was registered in Vienna under the false name of Fritz Walter. On 11 August 1910, a Viennese court sentenced Hanisch to seven days in prison.

In 1912, Hitler was reported to the police by an anonymous person on account of his unauthorized use of the title "academic painter," and warned not to use this title in the future. Probably the painter Karl Leidenroth, who also lived in the men’s dormitory and was Hanisch's friend, had reported Hitler at Hanisch's instigation.

On 5 August 1912, Hanisch left Vienna to return to Gablonz. From 1914 to 1917, he was a soldier in the First World War. On 4 July 1918, he came back to Vienna with his fiancée Franziska Bisurek; they married on 22 July 1918 and lived in Rauschergasse 19, XX District. The house belonged to the parents of a railroad conductor, Franz Feiler, a picture-collector, for whom Hanisch obtained various pictures.

On 20 July 1923, Hanisch was sentenced by the district court in Vienna to three months' imprisonment for theft. Hanisch was divorced on 17 April 1928. After 1930, Hanisch worked as a painter. He produced watercolors, which he sold as alleged works of Hitler from their years in Vienna. Hanisch often painted pictures of flowers in the style of the painter Olga Wisinger-Florian, which he sold as Hitler originals. To cover up the fraud, he had his friend Karl Leidenroth authenticate the forgeries. Nevertheless, on 7 May 1932, Hanisch was sentenced to three days in jail.

With Hitler's appointment as Chancellor in the spring of 1933, Hanisch became an object of interest. The Bavarian journalist and anti-Nazi Konrad Heiden, who was writing the first authoritative biography of Hitler, turned to Hanisch, then the only known witness of Hitler's Vienna period. Hanisch readily supplied information and was paid well. In the following years Hanisch made money from numerous interviews with national and international newspapers. Hanisch's memoir of Hitler posthumously appeared in 1939 in The New Republic.