Jewish name bearers

The French occupation of Cologne (1794-1815) had a great influence on the Herstatt family. Jewish families were now also allowed to settle in Cologne and freely choose a profession. The only condition was that, in order to comply with the French bureaucracy, one had to have a fixed first name and surname, which was not common among Jewish families at the time. The many descriptive Jewish surnames, such as Goldstein, Veilchenfeld, etc., which families were free to choose, come from this period. One family, who lived near the old Herstatt bank and ran a paper business, chose the name Herstatt. Their own family always suspected that the Jewish family would not have survived the Third Reich. It was not until the advent of the Internet that it became apparent that some individuals with the name Herstatt still lived in the New England states. The family contacted them and learned that an ancestor left Cologne in time before 1933 and emigrated to the USA. The bearers of the name from the USA are not related to the Herstatt family with the ancestor Hubert Herstatt and are listed solely for the sake of completeness. We warmly welcome the bearers of the name to our family website.