Hermann Einstein is famously known as the father of one of the greatest thinkers of all time, Albert Einstein. It is not surprising that he had a fascination with mathematics, a trait which he may well have passed on to his son.

On the 30th of August 1847, Hermann was born in Wuerttemberg, Germany, to Abraham Einstein and Helene Moos. Herman came from a Jewish family and had five siblings: Heinrich, August Ignaz, Jakob, Jette, and Friederike. As an adult, Hermann enjoyed a decently prosperous career as a businessman.

Hermann received his secondary education in the regional capital, Stuttgart. He liked mathematics and planned to take more studies in the field of numbers, but the financial state of his family thwarted his goals. This forced him to take his chances in Stuttgart as a merchant.

In 1876, Hermann married an eighteen-year-old woman named Pauline Koch in Cannstatt, Wuerttemberg. The couple moved to the city of Ulm shortly after their wedding. In Ulm, Hermann found employment as a co-worker in a bed-feather shop run by his cousins, Hermann Levi and Moses. It was also during this time that Hermann and Pauline welcomed their son, Albert, on the 14th of March, 1879. The following year, Hermann’s brother, Jakob, suggested that the couple moves to Munich, along with their son. Hermann followed his brother’s advice, and in Munich, the two started an electrical engineering business. Jakob worked as the technician, while Hermann helped out as the merchant. The business was in its early years when Hermann’s wife gave birth to their second child, whom they named Maria.

In 1894, Hermann and Jakob moved their business to Pavia. Hermann took his wife and daughter to Milan but later had to resettle in Pavia. Meanwhile, the young Albert stayed behind in Munich to finish his studies there.

Unfortunately for Hermann and Jakob, financial troubles drove their business to the ground, and they had to close down their firm in 1896. Hermann lost most of the profits, but through the financial help of relatives, he was able to open another electrical engineering firm in Milan. Here, Hermann’s business went smoother than the previous one he managed with his brother. However, Hermann kept worrying about money, and he eventually died of heart failure on the 10th of October, 1902.