Today’s Jewish Birthday: Ferdinand Lassalle

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Ferdinand Lassalle

Ferdinand Lassalle (April  11, 1825 – August 31, 1864) was born as  Ferdinand Johann Gottlieb Lassal in Breslau, Silesia (now Wrocław, Poland). His father Heyman Lassal was a Jewish silk merchant and intended his son for a business career, sending him to the commercial school at Leipzig.

Eventually,  Ferdinand  became a Prussian-German jurist, philosopher, socialist and politician who is best remembered as the initiator of the social-democratic movement in Germany.

“Lassalle was the first man in Germany, the first in Europe, who succeeded in organizing a party of socialist action”, according to Élie Halévy. Or, as Rosa Luxemburg put it: “Lassalle managed to wrestle from history in two years of flaming agitation that needed decades to come about.”

Link to Wikipedia for the rest of his biography.

Tomorrow, April 12: Ilana Glazer