 Maximilian Carl Emil “Max” Weber (1864–1920) was born in the Prussian city of Erfurt to a family of notable heritage. His father, Max Sr., came from a Westphalian family of merchants and industrialists in the textile business and went on to become a lawyer and National Liberal parliamentarian in Wilhelmine politics. His mother, Helene, came from the Fallenstein and Souchay families, both of the long illustrious Huguenot line, which had for generations produced public servants and academicians. His younger brother, Alfred, was an influential political economist and sociologist, too. Evidently, Max Weber was brought up in a prosperous, cosmopolitan, and cultivated family milieu that was well-plugged into the political, social, and cultural establishment of the German Bürgertum [Roth 2000]. Also, his parents represented two, often conflicting, poles of identity between which their eldest son would struggle throughout his life – worldly statesmanship and ascetic scholarship.