Jacob Einstein

The origin of Elektrotechnische Fabrik Jakob Einstein & Cie was the water and gas installation company founded in 1876 by Jakob Einstein in the same year he moved from Stuttgart to Munich. In 1879/1880, his brother Hermann Einstein (father of Albert Einstein) joined the company as a partner, and in the next five years turned it into Elektrotechnische Fabrik Jakob Einstein & Cie " a factory for electrical equipment, specializing in the generation of direct current and its use for the then new electric lighting of streets, taverns and beer tents. In the following 10 years the company was doing very well, but could not succeed in the increasingly fierce competition against the big companies like Siemens and AEG and Schuckert from Nuremberg. In the competition for the lighting of Munich's city center, the Nuremberg company Schuckert was awarded the contract. Jakob and Hermann Einstein founded a new company in Italy in 1894, as they expected to be successful there on the Italian market, but just two years later they were forced to give up the business there as well.