Maximilian Karl Emil Weber was born on 21 April 1864 in Erfurt, Province of Saxony, Prussia.[3] He would be the oldest of eight children to Max Weber Sr. and his wife Helene Fallenstein.[23] Over the course of his life, Weber Sr. held posts as a lawyer,[3] a civil servant, and a parliamentarian for the National Liberal Party in the Prussian Landtag and German Reichstag.[23] Fallenstein partly descended from French Huguenot immigrants[3] and came from a wealthy background.[23] Over time, Weber Jr. would be affected by the marital and personality tensions between his father, "a man who enjoyed earthly pleasures"[24][23] while overlooking religious and philanthropic causes,[23] and his mother, a devout Calvinist "who sought to lead an ascetic life"[24][23] and held moral absolutist ideas.[25]