Background
The German photographer, Felix Alexander Oppenheim (1819-1898), began his career as a lawyer. The youngest son of Martin Wilhelm
Oppenheim, a banker,
and his wife Rosa (née Alexander), Oppenheim was born in Königsberg. After leaving the Königsberg Altstädtische Gymnasium
in 1836, Oppenheim studied
law. He was acting as legal counsel for Countess Sophie von Hatzfeld against her husband, Edmund Fürst von Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg
zu Trachenberg, when, in
the summer of 1846, he and Dr. Arnold Mendelssohn stole a box containing documents belonging to Baroness Meyendorf, the mistress
of Prince Edmund von
Hatzfeld-Wildenburg, which they thought might contain information pertinent to the Hatzfeld case. The men were discovered
and fled. Although Oppenheim
soon turned himself into the police and was subsequently acquitted of the theft, he he could no longer practice law.