Nicolaus Ferdinand Haller

Nicolaus Ferdinand Haller (21 January 1805 in Hamburg – 10 October 1876 in Hamburg) was a jurist, a senator and the First Mayor of Hamburg, and the head of state from 1863 to 1864; 1866 to 1867; 1870 to 1873. Family The Haller family was one of the 50 Jewish families expelled from Vienna, whom the Great Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg (reign 1640–1688) had granted asylum in his realm. The family first settled in Frederick William's Duchy of Magdeburg in the city of Halle upon Saale, whence it adopted its surname. Ferdinand Haller's grandfather Joseph Benjamin Haller died in Halle in 1772. Ferdinand Haller's father later moved to Hamburg. Ferdinand Haller's parents were Blümchen Gottschalk from Hanover and Mendel Joseph Haller (1770–1852), who was technically a Schutzjude under the more liberal Danish rule in Holsteinian Altona, allowing them to practically work and live in the adjacent, but more restrictive Hamburg. In 1794, Mendel Joseph Haller founded a banking and trading company in Hamburg, from which in 1797, the Bank Haller, Söhle & Co. developed. Ferdinand's elder sister Auguste (1799–1883) married (1801–1871), the son of their father's partner in the bank. Blümchen Gottschalk's sister Amalie (1777–1838) was married to Baron Ludwig von Stieglitz, court banker of Alexander I of Russia. Mendel Joseph Haller's niece Philippine Haller (1822–1892) was married to the wealthy cotton merchant Louis Liebermann, parents of the painter Max Liebermann.