Karl Marx

1818-1883. German philosopher, historian and revolutionary.

Youth:

Karl Marx was born on May 5 1818 as third of nine children in Trier, Germany. His parents were Heinrich Marx and Henrietta Marx, born Presborck. In 1830 Karl Marx attended the "Gymnasium zu Trier", which was later called Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium. The Gymnasium was famous, or better infamous, for its liberal tendencies, so that the school was [often? or only once?] raided by the local police. In 1835 Karl Marx started to attend the University of Bonn where he wanted to study philosophy and literature but his father insisted that he studied law. Because his grades where poor Karl Marx was later transferred to the University of Berlin.

Marriage and Family:

In 1836 he became engaged to Jenny von Westphalen, which was some sort of scandal because it broke several social taboos like the class difference between Karl (middle class) and Jenny (aristocracy) [this is only one taboo - which are the others of the "several"?]. They got married in 1843 in Bad Kreuznach. They had seven children but because of poor living conditions only three of them survived.

Cologne:

In 1842 he moved to Cologne where he began write for the newspaper Rheinische Zeitung in which he expressed his view on politics. Because the views expressed in the newspaper got more and more radical it attracted the attention of government censors. After an article caused a scandal because it criticised the monarchy of Russia, the Russian Tsar Nicholas I requested that the newspaper was to be banned. In the same year he published his work Contribution to Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, from which his famous quote about religion being "the opium of the people" comes from.

Paris:

He left Cologne for Paris to work for the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher. It was here that he met Friedrich Engels with whom he started to collaborate. Karl Marx published his books The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts and Theses on Feuerbach. In 1845 Marx was expelled from France [why??] so he moved to Brussels.

Brussels:

In Brussels Marx was joined by Engels and they both met with several other socialists from Europe. Both Marx and Engels visited members of the Chartist movement. Marx published The German Ideology and The Poverty of Philosophy which built the foundation of his most famous work The Communist Manifesto, which was published in 1848. In 1848 several revolutions and protests arose, which Marx supported with his inheritance but was forced to flee first to France and then to Cologne and then to London in 1849.

London:

In London Marx spent the rest of his life. His two main interests were understanding economics and capitalism and organising revolutionary thoughts. For example in 1864 he was involved in the "International Workingmen's Association", better known as the "First International" [what is it?]. He published several books, including his famous work the Capital, all concerned with either revolutions he had witnessed [oh? these are not mentioned in the article at all. Please revise] or political pamphlets. In his last years his health declined rapidly and in 1883 Karl Marx died of bronchitis and pleurisy.

Sources:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/

http://agso.uni-graz.at/lexikon/klassiker/marx/30bio.htm

Wheen, Francis. Karl Marx. München, Bertelsmann, 1999