Hermann Einstein: The Life of Einstein’s Father

• Hermann Einstein co-founded an electrical engineering firm specialized in direct current electrical systems.
• Later, it struggled and relocated to Italy.
• He strongly opposed Albert’s marriage to Mileva Maric.

German electrical engineer and successful Munich businessman, both Albert Einstein and Maja Einstein had him as a father. Hermann Einstein was born on August 30, 1847, in Buchau, Kingdom of Württemberg, and died on October 10, 1902, in Milan. The family he was born into was Jewish, just like his ancestors.

Hermann Einstein’s Early Years

As a child, Hermann Einstein lived among fellow Jews in the Upper Swabian town of Buchau. There, his father Abraham Einstein thrived as a retailer of finished women’s outerwear. Near the close of the 1860s, the family made the journey to Ulm. Hermann Einstein was sent to Stuttgart by his father while he was a youngster so he could graduate from secondary school. While there, he also served as an apprentice in the business world.

The Marriage to Helene

Hermann Einstein relocated from Ulm to Munich in June 1880, but before that, he became a partner in a Jewish bedspring manufacturer in about 1870. His initial residence was the first floor of the factory building (Weinhof 19), where he and his widowed mother Helene Moos resided. The partnership and the related share of the Weinhof 19 house may have been purchased with the bequest from the father’s money.

In the Israelite prayer place in Cannstatt, Hermann Einstein married Pauline Koch, the daughter of a businessman, on June 8, 1876. Pauline Einstein was 18 at the time. Hermann took up residence at her Ulm apartment, located in a historic half-timbered building at Münsterplatz 74.

The Birth of Albert Einstein

Together, they found a nice Wilhelminian-style home around the year’s end in 1878. It was at Bahnhofstrasse 20 that Albert Einstein was born to them on March 14, 1879, in Ulm. Before 1880, the Einsteins were good friends with the Jewish banker Gustav Maier, with whom they maintained a casino together with Helene’s brother Jakob Koch and his wife.

Hermann Einstein, together with his wife and little son, relocated to Munich in June 1880 from Ulm. There he joined his younger brother, Jakob Einstein, an engineer, as a business partner. They were in the business of installing utilities like water and gas, but electrical work was where their attention was being directed. Beginning in 1885, Hermann Einstein was a partner in the Munich electronics firm founded by his brother Jakob: Einstein & Cie.

The Einstein & Cie Company

The plant operated by Einstein & Cie specialized in the manufacture of direct current, which was used to illuminate streets and bars, a relatively new innovation at the time. Lindwurmstrabe 127 in Munich was the location of the Einsteins’ factory. World War II caused severe damage to the structure, which is now occupied by the Munich Adult Education Center.

Hermann Einstein’s father-in-law, Julius Koch (not to be confused with Julius Koch), a widower private citizen who resided in the Einstein brothers’ residence on Munich’s Adlzreiterstrasse 14 from 1885 to 1894, provided the bulk of the funding for the company.

During Oktoberfest (a beer festival and carnival), the Einsteins lit up Schwabing’s streets that ended at the Salvator brewery. The “Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaft” (AEG) supplied them with its light bulbs.

The company worked with another brewery and a hospital. However, Siemens & Halske, AEG, and other competitors who focused on the more advanced alternating current gradually took over the market. Transforming alternating voltage to higher or lower voltages was straightforward, and high voltages could be utilized to cross great distances with little material utilization and losses.

Americans referred to the competition between the two technologies as “the electricity war,” with proponents of DC voltage labeling AC voltage as harmful and even creating the electric chair to discourage its adoption.

As early as August 1891, a three-phase current transmission from Lauffen (a town) to Frankfurt demonstrated the benefits of transformable alternating voltages by powering over a thousand light bulbs and an artificial waterfall at the International Electrotechnical Exhibition in Frankfurt, 110 miles away.

In spite of this, the Einsteins kept using DC power and eventually started being disfavored. They moved their company to Italy in 1894 to avoid going bankrupt there.

A New Start in Italy

Pavia town in Italy was the site of the new electrical engineering plant of Hermann Einstein and his team. They established it with their Italian partner Garrone but it ultimately failed in 1896.

In the years that followed, Hermann Einstein was on his own in Milan, where he established another electrical engineering firm. Despite owing him a huge amount of 10,000 lire (equal to 8,100 Reichsmarks) when Pavia went bankrupt in 1896, he obtained cash from his cousin and brother-in-law Rudolf Einstein, who was a partner in the Baruch & Cie weaving mill in Hechingen, Germany.

Hermann Einstein’s attempts to remain financially independent despite his marriage to Rudolf’s sister mostly relied on his tense preoccupation with social status.

Hermann Einstein’s Death

When Albert Einstein proposed to Mileva Maric, his father was on his deathbed, and he refused to give his blessing, primarily because she was not Jewish, she was older, and Albert was unemployed. Hermann Einstein requested solitude in his last moments and asked visitors to go away. This haunted Albert Einstein for so many years to come.