Ernst Moriz Kronfeld was a doctor of botany and worked, after his habilitation had been refused three times by the University of Vienna, as a culture journalist and editor for various Viennese newspapers, such as the Fremdenblatt and Neues Wiener Tagblatt. For four years he was a member of the board of Concordia Journalisten- und Schriftstellerverband and from 1931 to 1938 an employee and consultant for RAVAG (Österreichische Radio-Verkehrs-Aktiengesellschaft), also a member of the Gartenbaugesellschaft and the Verein der Gärtner und Gartenfreunde. He gave talks on theatre, Schönbrunn and botanical subjects at the Vienna Handelsakademie, the Urania and the Vienna Volksbildungsverein, whose activities he coordinated as secretary, and also actively supported the removal of the ban on women studying medicine. He received numerous awards during the monarchy and First Republic for his services, including appointment to the Kaiserlicher Rat (Imperial Council), the Silbernes Ehrenzeichen der Republik Österreich (Silver Medal of Honour of the Republic of Austria) and the Ritterkreuz I. Klasse des österreichischen Verdienstordens (Knight's Cross First Class of the Austrian Order of Merit), and also an honorary diploma from the first Austrian Reich Horticultural Exhibition and a diploma from the International Botanical Exhibition. Through his professional and private activities he accumulated a large collection of theatre items, botanical objects and biographical information about cultural and scientific personalities. His Schönbrunn collection consisting of books, pictures, documents and plans was particularly important, and he referred to them often in his publications on Schönbrunn Palace, the Schlosspark and Menagerie, which are still appreciated today. Kronfeld was married for almost fifty years to Rosalie, née Lanzer (1874–1942). Their son Curt (1897–1928) was first director of the Vienna Fremdenverkehrskommission (Tourist Commission) and founder member of the Festwochen Wien-Salzburg (Vienna-Salzburg Festival). Kronfeld's brothers were also well known: Adolf (1861–1938) was editor-in-chief of the Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift and co-founder of the Wiener Ärzteorchester (Vienna Doctors' Orchestra), Robert (1874–1946) was a dentist and journalist, and his son Robert jun. (1904–1948) an internationally renowned glider pilot, after whom a street in Vienna-Liesing is named. After the annexation of Austria in March 1938, Ernst Moriz Kronfeld, who had converted to Protestantism in 1902, was considered Jewish under the Nuremberg Laws and was subject to the systematic persecution of the Nazi regime. Unlike his two brothers, he was unable to escape abroad with his family. He died in March 1942 in Vienna at the age of seventy-seven. His wife Rosalie and her sister Hedwig Prüwer were deported in August 1942 to Theresienstadt and from there to Treblinka. His daughter-in-law Marianne was deported in October 1942 to Maly Trostinec, where she perished. It is no longer possible to determine the precise ownership situation with regard to Kronfeld's Schönbrunn collection, but there are records from 1940 indicating that Kronfeld attempted to sell some items in order to feed his family. In 2009 and 2011, the Art Restitution Advisory Board therefore recommended the restitution of those parts of the collection that had been acquired by the National Library in 1942 and the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, Bundesgärten Schönbrunn and Schloss-Schönbrunn-Ges.m.b.H. in the late 1980s.