Ferdinand Eberstadt (mayor)
Ferdinand Falk Eberstadt (14 January 1808 – 9 February 1888) was a businessman and liberal politician in Worms in the Grand Duchy of Hesse, who became the first Jewish mayor in Germany.
[1][2] He briefly held a seat in the Hessian parliament in 1850 and in the Worms district council in 1852, but was repeatedly prosecuted on charges of high treason and finally stripped of office by ministerial decree in 1852.
In 1857, Eberstadt and his family moved to Mannheim in the Grand Duchy of Baden, where he established a new textile company, patronised the arts, and was a member of the managing committee of the German Progress Party.
He held the Handlungsvollmacht (power of attorney) over the business from 1 March 1828 and, on 1 February 1839, he and his brothers inherited the company following their father's death.
In 1842, Passover was the first Jewish service held in the German language and - also for the first time - men and women were not separated in the Worms Synagogue.
After the dissolution of this committee, the Wormser Democratic Association was founded on 21 June 1848, with Eberstadt as a member of the board of directors.
He ran for election to the lower chamber of the Landstände (the parliament of the Grand Duchy of Hesse) as representative of Mainz on 30 November 1849, but was defeated by Heinrich von Gagern.
Eberstadt was accused in the Rhineland high treason trial of 8–10 July before the court of assizes in Mainz, as an "intellectual originator" with Bandel and Salomon Lohnstein of coercive blackmail.
On 28 November 1857, Eberstadt submitted a request for permission to emigrate for himself, his wife, and his ten children, which was granted on 1 December.
The Mannheim firm became "Ferd Eberstadt und Cie, Nachfahren" in 1897 and continued to trade, with subsidiary offices in Apolda and Chemnitz, until 1933.
Along with the lawyer Heinrich von Feder and the bookseller Siegmund Bensheimer, he formed a consortium to purchase the Johann Schneider publishing press, including the Neue Badische Landeszeitung [de], a newspaper whose circulation extended far beyond Mannheim.
They had ten children,[1] including: Ferdinand and Sara Eberstadt are buried in the Jewish cemetery [de] in Mannheim, in the grave 11 on Linker Mauerweg.
