Greatest influences on Karl Marx – father? religion? education? colleagues?

Trier had originally been annexed by revolutionary France which lifted all the restrictions on Jews and gave them full and equal citizenship. With Napoleon’s fall in 1815, Prussia expanded to ab­sorb the Rhineland, but demoted its Jews. This policy meant that they could no longer serve as lawyers, judges, teachers, civil ser­vants or university lec­t­urers – unless they became Christians.

Her­schel Marx (1777–1838) was the first in the family to receive a secular education, even though his father had been a Trier rabbi. In 1815 Herschel worked as a lawyer with a comfortable in­come; and in addition, the family owned some Mosel­le vineyards.

  

Karl Marx was born here in 1818

Today the building is the Marx Museum, Trier

Largely non-observant, Herschel was an Enlightenment thinker, reading philosophers Immanuel Kant and Volt­aire. A classical liberal, he took part in agitation for a constitution and reforms in Prussia, at that time an absolute mon­ar­chy.

Herschel Marx was one of several thousand af­fected by Prussia’s discriminatory measures. He worked in a period of great alienation and subsequent radicalisation of the Jewish intel­l­ig­en­t­sia in the Rhineland. He fought discrimination for sev­eral years, dist­anc­ing himself from Jewishness, but eventually he gave into the Prussian state. NB he didn’t convert to the predominant Cathol­ic faith, but to Lutheran Protestantism because he equated Protest­antism with intellectual freedom. Yet he still cont­inued to be the legal represent­at­ive of Trier's Jewish community and his brother was its Chief Rabbi. Imagine what family dinners were like!

Karl Marx (1818-83) was born in Trier, in the Lower Rhine. His father was the above mentioned Herschel-Heinrich Marx & his mother was Hen­r­iette Press­burg (1788–1863), also the child of a rabbi. Hen­r­iette was a Dutch woman from a prosperous business fam­ily that later founded the Philips Electronics Co. Her sister Sophie Press­burg mar­ried Lion Philips, a wealthy Dut­ch tob­acco manuf­ac­t­urer, on whom Karl later relied for loans when living in London

Heinrich and Henriette’s home in Brücken­gasse eventually had 9 children, occupying 2 rooms on the ground floor and 3 on the first floor. Bought by state govern­ment in 1928, the building now houses a Marx Museum. Of the 9 child­ren, Karl and his surviving 6 siblings were bap­tised into the Luth­eran Church in Aug 1824. But his mother waited until 1825, after her own father died. Although as a youth Karl was in­fluenced less by religion than by the rad­ic­al social policies of the Enlightenment, his Jewish background exposed him to prejudice. That led him to question the role of religion in society and contributed to his desire for social change.

Karl was priv­ately educ­at­ed at home by his father when he ent­ered the Jesuit Friedrich-Wilhelm Gym­nasium in Trier for 5 years, 1830-5. The school principal, a friend of Karl’s father, was a liberal and a Kantian, and was respected by the city’s citizens but not by the Education Dept authorities. The school was raided in 1832.

The Gymnasium's programme was classical: history, mathematics, lit­er­ature, French and classical languages. Later Karl taught him­self to speak Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Swedish and Russian fluently. As his published articles showed, he spoke and wrote English very well, although he never lost his heavy German accent when speaking.

Karl and Jenny married in 1843 

Wikimedia Commons 

In Oct 1835 at 17, Karl travelled to Bonn Uni to study philosophy and literature, but his father insisted on law as a more practical field. Bonn had a lively and rebellious culture, and Karl eagerly took part in student life. He joined the Poets' Club (political radicals monitored by the police), and during that time he was gaoled for drunk­en­ness, disturbing the peace, debts and duelling. 

Karl was ex­cused from military duty at 18, on health grounds, and his father insisted he enrol in the ser­ious Berlin Uni. In Berlin a circle of brilliant think­ers was chal­lenging existing institutions: religion, phil­osophy, ethics and politics. Karl whole­heartedly join­ed this group of radical think­ers.

In Berlin, he studied law and philosophy. Karl was not initially enamoured with Hegel, but he soon be­came involved with the Young Hegelians, a radical group of students who criticised the political and religious establish­ments. Karl also joined the Trier Tavern Club drinking soc­iety. And was invol­ved in some serious disputes eg in Aug 1836 he duelled with a mem­ber of the university’s German Student Corps . Nonetheless he spent four happy years in Berlin.

  

In 1836, as he was becoming more committed to politics, Marx was eng­aged to Jenny von Westphalen, a lovely older woman from an upper class family in Trier. This, along with his increas­ing radicalism, caused his father angst. In letters, father Hein­rich admonished his son for not tak­ing marital responsib­il­­it­ies seriously enough. 

Karl received his doctorate from Jena Uni in 1841, but his radical politics prevented him from getting a lectureship. Instead he began to work as a journalist, and in 1842 he became the editor of the liberal Rhein­ische Zeitung news­paper in Cologne.. until the gov­­ern­ment ordered the news­pap­er’s suppression in April 1843. 3 mon­ths later Karl final­ly marr­ied Jenny, and they moved to Paris in Oct.

On the Jewish Question (1843) was Karl’s infamous essay in which he disparaged Jews for forging a connection with capital­ism. A year later Karl wrote ess­ays to The Holy Fam­ily (1844), where­ he revert­ed to a positive attitude towards Jews. But was the change an emot­ional reac­t­ion to his father’s treat­­ment? Was it the infl­ue­n­­ce of his friend, Moses Hess, the fut­ure father of socialist Zion­ism? Hard to tell since Karl Marx was, to some ex­tent, reinvented by those who came after him.

Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, Wiki

and the 3 Marx daughters: Caroline, Eleanor and Laura, c1865. 

 

In 1843, Karl and Jenny moved to Paris where he met German ém­igré Fried­rich Engels who became his lifelong friend. Of the three surviving Marx children, two mar­ried Frenchmen, and both of the sons-in-law became prominent French socialists and members of Par­­liament. Daughter Eleanor was active as a British labour organiser.

Karl and Jenny moved to London in mid-1849 and remained there for life. He spent most of his hours in the British Museum, doing res­earch for his hundreds of articles and brochures, and his few books.

Many thanks to World Biography and to infed.