Places

Karl Marx was born in this house, number 10 Brückenstrasse on 5th May 1818, the third child of his Jewish parents, the lawyer Heinrich Marx (1777-1838) and his wife Henriette Marx, born Presburg (1788-1863).

On 1st October 1819 the lawyer, Heinrich Marx, father of Karl Marx, purchased the small baroque mansard roofed building at 1070 Simeonsgasse (now number 8 Simeonsgasse), not far from the Porta Nigra of a professional colleague, the legal counsel Peter Schwarz.

The Jesuit college, which later became the Friedrich-Wilhelm Grammar School, was founded in 1561, and until the Second World War took place in the building of what is now the Episcopal Seminary on Jesuitenstrasse.

The classical building at Kornmarkt, one of the most important large buildings from the Prussian era, was built in 1824/1825 by the master builder Johann Georg Wolff as a club house for the “Literary Casino Society” which was founded in 1817.

In honour of the 200th birthday of Karl Marx, in 2015 the People's Republic of China offered the city of his birth the gift of a Karl Marx sculpture as a symbol of friendship and appreciation.

After his appointment to the Government cabinet, Ludwig von Westphalen moved to Trier in 1816 with his second wife Caroline, born Heubel, both sons from his first marriage and their daughter Jenny who had been born in 1815 in Salzwedel.

In the middle ages, Jewish overseas goods traders, money lenders and livestock dealers were important members of the economic life within the diocese of Trier.

In ancient times the street was part of the Roman road network and connected the imperial saunas to the area where the double basilica was later built (today the Cathedral, and the Basilica of Our Lady).

In 1797, Johann Nicolaus Müller opened a dye-works and a textile business which used the Indian indigo plant in the dying process for the first time.

The Rheinisches Landesmuseum in Trier examined Karl Marx and his century with the exhibition “Life. Works. Time”. On around 1000m² of exhibition space, the intellectual as well as the political career of Marx was retraced.

With the exhibition “Stations of a Life”, the City Museum Simeonstift in Trier retraced the eventful life of Karl Marx which had its beginnings in Trier in 1818.

Special Exhibition in 2018: "LebensWert Arbeit": In the first half of the 19th Century, Trier was one of the poorest areas in Germany. In 1831 almost a third of the population were reliant on assistance.