KARL MARX

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36 KARL MARX: A BIOGRAPHY
imperial glory. In the Middle Ages the city had been the seat of a Prince-
Archbishop whose lands stretched as far as Metz, Toul and Verdun; it was
said that it contained more churches than any other German city of
comparable size. Marx did not only get his lifelong Rhineland accent
from Trier: more importantly, his absorbing passion for history originated
in the very environment of his adolescence. But it was not just the city
of Roman times that influenced him: during the Napoleonic wars,
together with the rest of the Rhineland, it had been annexed by France
and governed long enough in accordance with the principles of the French
Revolution to be imbued by a taste for freedom of speech and constitutional
liberty uncharacteristic of the rest of Germany. There was considerable
discontent following incorporation of the Rhineland into Prussia
in 1814. Trier had very little industry and its inhabitants were mainly
officials, traders and artisans. Their activities were largely bound up with
the vineyards whose prosperity, owing to customs unions and outside
competition, was on the decline. The consequent unemployment and
high prices caused increases in beggary, prostitution and emigration; more
than a quarter of the city's population subsisted entirely on public charity.
Thus it is not surprising that Trier was one of the first cities in
Germany where French doctrines of Utopian socialism appeared. The
Archbishop felt himself compelled to condemn from the pulpit the doctrines
of Saint Simon; and the teachings of Fourier were actively propagated
by Ludwig Gall, Secretary to the City Council, who constantly
emphasised the growing disparity and hence opposition between the rich
and the poor.
Marx was all the more predisposed to take a critical look at society as
he came from a milieu that was necessarily excluded from complete social
participation. For it would be difficult to find anyone who had a more
Jewish ancestry than Karl Marx. 2 The name Marx is a shortened form of
Mordechai, later changed to Markus. His father, Heinrich Marx, was born
in 1782, the third son of Meier Halevi Marx who had become rabbi of
Trier on the death of his father-in-law and was followed in this office by
his eldest son Samuel (Karl's uncle) who died in 1827. Meier Halevi Marx
numbered many rabbis among his ancestors, who came originally from
Bohemia, and his wife, Chage, had an even more illustrious ancestry: she
was the daughter of Moses Lwow, rabbi in Trier, whose father and
grandfather were also rabbis in the same city. The father of Moses, Joshue
Heschel Lwow, had been chosen rabbi of Trier in 1723, corresponded
with the leading Jewish personalities of his time and had been widely
known as a fearless fighter in the cause of truth. It was said of him that
no important decision was taken in the Jewish world without his having
first been consulted. The father of Joshue Heschel, Aron Lwow, was also