Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a great German philosopher, economist, and political journalist. His scientific works and publications laid the foundations in philosophy for dialectical and historical materialism, in economics for the theory of surplus value, and in politics for the theory of class struggle. These currents became the basis of the communist and socialist movement and came to be known as “Marxism.”

Youth: Karl Marx was born as the third child in the family of a Trier lawyer of Jewish origin. The house of his birth (now a museum) was located in Trier at Brückergasse, 664 (now Brückenstraße, 10). On 15 October 1819, the family moved to a new house at Simeonstraße, 8 (today a memorial plaque stands on the site). His father, Heinrich Marx (born Hirschel Mordechai Marx), came from a rabbinical family (his father, Levi Marx, son of Shmuel of Postelberg, was a rabbi in Trier; Heinrich Marx’s brother, Samuel Marx, also became Trier’s rabbi). His mother, Henriette Marx, née Pressburg, came from the Netherlands.

In 1824, his father, together with the whole family, converted to Protestantism in order not to lose the post of judicial counselor. From 1830 to 1835, Karl attended the gymnasium in Trier, which he graduated from with distinction at the age of 17. In 1836 he became engaged to Jenny von Westphalen, who later became his wife. After graduating from the Trier gymnasium, he entered university, first in Bonn and then in Berlin, where he studied law, but later became interested in history and philosophy.

Period up to 1849: In 1841, Karl Marx graduated from the university by submitting an external doctoral dissertation entitled “The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature.”[4] At that time, Marx’s views were those of a Hegelian idealist. In Berlin he was associated with the circle of Young Hegelians (Bruno Bauer and others), who tended to draw atheistic and revolutionary conclusions from Hegel’s philosophy. After completing university, Marx moved to Bonn, hoping to become a professor. But the reactionary policy of the