Many historians point to Hitler’s years in Vienna as having shaped him. Between 1908 and 1913 the young Hitler unsuccessfully tried to set himself up as an artist there. The city had a large Jewish community just before the First World War (1914-1918) – nearly 9% of the two million residents were Jewish – but the social climate was openly antisemitic. With an outspoken anti-Jewish mayor (Karl Lueger) and many anti-Jewish newspapers and magazines there was no restriction on antisemitism, and Hitler was strongly influenced by this.