From 1905, Hitler lived a bohemian life in Vienna, financed by orphan's benefits and support from his mother. He worked as a casual labourer and eventually as a painter, selling watercolours of Vienna's sights. The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna rejected him in 1907 and again in 1908, citing "unfitness for painting". The director recommended that Hitler study architecture, which was also an interest, but he lacked academic credentials as he had not finished secondary school.On 21 December 1907, his mother died of breast cancer at the age of 47. Hitler ran out of money and was forced to live in homeless shelters and men's hostels.
At the time Hitler lived there, Vienna was a hotbed of religious prejudice and racism. Fears of being overrun by immigrants from the East were widespread, and the populist mayor Karl Lueger exploited the rhetoric of virulent anti-Semitism for political effect. German nationalism had a widespread following in the Mariahilf district, where Hitler lived. German nationalist Georg Ritter von Schönerer, who advocated Pan-Germanism, anti-Semitism, anti-Slavism, and anti-Catholicism, was one influence on Hitler. Hitler read local newspapers such as the Deutsches Volksblatt that fanned prejudice and played on Christian fears of being swamped by an influx of eastern Jews. Hostile to what he saw as "Catholic Germanophobia", he developed an admiration for Martin Luther
