The German socialist leader Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-1864) is considered the founder of the German Social Democratic party and a major theoretician of "scientific" socialism.

Ferdinand Lassalle, whose real name was Lasal, was born in Breslau on April 11, 1825, the only son of a wealthy Jewish silk merchant. While still a boy, he rejected both Judaism and a career in the family business for what he felt was the freedom of secular thought and demanded an academic career.

Lassalle changed his last name purportedly to give it a French (that is revolutionary) sound, an action that has been described as characteristic and symptomatic of his posturing personality. Virtually all commentators, including those most sympathetic to Lassalle and his program, agree that, while he was one of the most romantic and colorful figures in modern politics, he was also a rather foppish and quixotic person of colossal vanity and arrogance.

Lassalle...