Haller von Hallerstein

The Hallers made their fortune in the long-distance trade with Cologne, Lyon, Bologna and Venice, but also with Austria and Hungary, as well as in mining and banking.

With Ruprecht I († 1489), Martin III († 1617) and Johann Siegmund († 1805) they provided three major officials to the free imperial city.

In the second half of the 15th century, a branch split from the Nuremberg family and moved to Hungary and Transylvania, later to become Austrian counts.

In August 1796, Colonel Johann Georg Haller von Hallerstein succeeded in evacuating the Imperial Regalia, the crown jewels of the Holy Roman Empire, that had been preserved in Nuremberg ever since 1424, from French troops invading Germany during the War of the First Coalition, to Regensburg, and further on to Prague, from where they were brought to Vienna where they remain to this day.

The main seat and commercial center of the family was the Haller House in Nuremberg, Karl Street 13–15 (today a toy museum).

However, over the centuries the family acquired about four dozen estates, mostly with castles or manor houses, around their home town.

Peter's son Gábor Haller I (1558-1608) joined Stephen Bathory who was elected Prince of Transylvania in 1571.

After the turmoil connected with Michael the Brave, Stephen Bocskai (1557–1606) was elected prince in 1605, a passionate defender of the Reformation.

Under the subsequent prince Sigismund Rákóczi, Haller became city councilor, captain of the fortress Făgăraș and burgrave in the Kis-Küküllő County.

Stephen (István) Haller I (1591–1657) was a confidant of the anti-Habsburg Protestant princes Gabriel Bethlen and George I Rákóczi in the turmoil of the Thirty Years' War.

Stephen (István) Haller II (1657–1710), eldest son of János I, became chairman of the government council of Transsilvania in 1692 under the new Habsburg rule, remaining a Hungarian national, while the two other members were Transylvanian Saxons.

He was raised to baronial rank in 1699 and, posthumously, created a count in 1713, a title which passed to his sons Gábor, János II and László Haller.