In 914 he assumed the office of a Franconian margrave; nevertheless, unable to assert his claims, he had to witness Henry's conquest of the Thuringian lands of late Duke Burchard.
According to the medieval chronicler Widukind of Corvey, he persuaded Eberhard to forgo any ambition for the German crown and to urge the Prince-electors of the Empire to choose his former rival, the Ottonian duke Henry the Fowler, as his successor.
Conrad considered this to be the only way to end the long-standing feud between Saxons and Franks and to prevent the dissolution of the Empire into smaller states based on the German stem duchies.
King Otto called the feuding parties to a royal court at Magdeburg, where Eberhard was ordered to pay a fine and his lieutenants were sentenced to carry dead dogs in public, a particularly dishonouring punishment.
Eberhard of Franconia was killed, allegedly by his Conradine relative Count Odo of Wetterau, whereafter his duchy was seized and remained a direct Imperial possession until its dissolution in 1039.