Salomon Weitzmann from Mostyska, Galicia, brother of the Viennese photographer Jakob Weitzmann, worked from the mid-1880s as a photographer in Vienna and in 1892 joined the Verein photographischer Mitarbeiter (Association of Photography Employees). From 1894 he was also a member of the Photographische Gesellschaft in Vienna. From 1894 he lived with his family at Kalvarienberggasse 37 in the 17th district, where he also established a studio in 1909. In 1912 he was awarded the title k. k. Hofphotograph and Kammerphotograph der Erzherzogin Maria Josefa. After his death in 1922, his wife Anna Chane, née Thurmann, born in Lemberg (Lviv) in 1867, continued to run the studio. Of her eight children, four were photographers: Leo (later Winston Romney), Berta (married Adler), Friederike (married Willer) and Alfred Weitzmann. From 1926, Leo Weitzmann and Friederike Willer each had a 25 per cent holding as general partners in the company. Leo left the company but Friederike remained as a shareholder until 1938.

The Weitzmanns were of Jewish origins and exposed to persecution by the Nazis after Austria's annexation to the German Reich. After being evicted from her home, Anna Weitzmann lived in a collective apartment in the Jewish old people's home at Seegasse 9 in the 9th district, where she died on 26 September 1942. Her children managed to escape. The property at Kalvarienberggasse 37 was Aryanized by Oswald Kögler on 12 November 1938, while Johann Poppovic, who had been managing director of the studio since 1927, took over the studio, which, according to Weitzmann's asset declaration in 1938, had a large photographic plate archive and photographic equipment. In November 1938, Poppovic concluded a partnership agreement with the photographer and Vienna photographers' guild official Gustav Nohynek, making Nohynek a silent partner with a 50 per cent share in the studio, which the two now ran together under the name Photokeramische Anstalt Johann Poppovic und Gustav Nohynek. Weitzmann's studio was deleted from the commercial register on 6 December 1938. After Poppovic relinquished his share in August 1941, Nohynek became sole proprietor.

After the war, the studio was put into public administration and until May 1948 managed on a trustee basis by Poppovic, after Nohynek's assets were forfeited by order of the Volksgericht in 1946. Poppovic was acquitted for lack of evidence in a Volksgericht trial of 1949 of the charge of taking over the studio with malice according to § 6 (illegal enrichment) of the Kriegsverbrechergesetz (War Criminals Act). In 1948 Anna Weitzmann's daughter Friderike Willer, now living in San Francisco, applied for restitution of the studio under the Second Restitution Act. The Finanzlandesdirektion für Wien, Niederösterreich and Burgenland agreed on 13 November 1950 on restitution to Viktor and Alfred Weitzmann and Berta Bessi Adler and Friederike Willer. Oswald Kögler, the former Aryanizer successfully opposed the restitution and in July 1951 he was awarded title (tenancy). Weitzmann's legal successors then applied to the Restitution Commission at the Landesgericht für Zivilrechtssachen (provincial court for civil law matters) in Vienna, which ordered Kögler to return the property but limited the heirs to public administration of the property under private law. It was not until 1957 that the case was concluded with a settlement between the heirs and Kögler ordering him to pay 10,000 schillings in return for tenancy and employment as janitor on the property. The photo archive was not included in the settlement, and its whereabouts are unknown today.

From the project Durch das NS-Regime aus Österreich vertriebene und ermordete Fotografinnen und Fotografen und der Verbleib ihrer fotografischen Sammlungen (Subsidized by the National Fund of the Republic of Austria. Conducted by Walter Mentzel).