Furstenberg, Eduard

Last name may also appear as Fuerstenberg. Deafened at age 4 from illness; attended the Konigliche Taubstummen-Institut in Berlin. There, he mastered five spoken languages as well as German Sign Language. This earned him further training in the Prussian civil service and then a job in the Royal Finance Ministry. He worked his entire life in the Prussian civil service, eventually attaining the title of Royal Privy Secretary. Co-founder and first president of the Deaf and Dumb Association of Berlin, founder of the Central Association for the Welfare of Deaf-Mutes in Berlin, organized several church festivals for the deaf, chairman of the German Deaf-Mute Conference, and moving force behind the establishment of several other deaf organizations throughout Germany. In 1872, he began the publication of Germany's first deaf newspaper, Taubstummenfreund (The Deaf-Mute's Friend). Honored by the erection in 1886 of a memorial in the Dorotheenstadischen Kirchhof in Berlin. His sister Susanne Furstenberg was also deaf.