The surprising birthplace of one of history’s most radical thinkers

Along the Moselle River in southern Germany, grapevines cling to the steep slopes of the riverbanks, the fruit still picked by hand since the first vine was cultivated more than 2000 years ago. Hike up the hills past the vines and it’s easy to see why picking and hauling the grapes is back-breaking work. Back in the 19th century, the dire conditions of the vineyard farmers was a situation that didn’t go unnoticed by a young Karl Marx.

Marx was born in the heart of the Moselle region in Trier, Germany’s oldest city, in 1818 and lived there with his family until he was 17, when he left for university. While he spent most of his adult life in London, his birthplace still claims him as one of its own: The house where he was born became a museum in 1947.

Marx’s is a name anyone interested in politics and history will know. A philosopher, journalist, political and economic theorist and revolutionary socialist, Marx was best known for The Communist Manifesto (written with German socialist Friedrich Engels) and the three-volume Capital (Das Kapital), an analysis of the mechanisms of capitalism.

In a pretty cobbled street in Trier’s old town, rich in medieval architecture and UNESCO-listed Roman ruins, the 18th-century house where Marx was born has been beautifully transformed into a contemporary museum thanks to the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, an organisation created in 1925 by the Social Democratic Party as a legacy to Ebert, Germany’s first president. The foundation’s goal is to promote democracy and political education.

Wandering through the light-filled rooms of the three-storey house and its large garden, it’s hard to imagine that this solid, bourgeois home was the birthplace of one of the West’s most radical thinkers. Despite his comfortable beginnings — Marx’s father was a lawyer — by the time Marx was in his late teens he was already well aware of inequality and exploitation.

One of his early newspaper articles was inspired by the working and living conditions of the Moselle wine growers, and although his lifelong interest was in the industrial working class, museum director Dr Juergen Schmidt concedes his writing about the Moselle farmers indicates “his open-mindedness for social injustice at a very early stage of his life”.

Wandering through the museum I can see why Schmidt doesn’t give too much credit to Marx’s early interest in wine growers. According to the captions in the museum, he spent much of his early student years drinking and getting into trouble, much to the frustration of his father.

Despite those boisterous early years, Marx was eventually awarded a PhD in philosophy, but his later work as a journalist gravitated towards the social and political grievances of the day. He started working for and on political newspapers and journals, building on and consolidating the ideas that would make his name.

As well as his life story, a major part of the museum’s content focuses on how his ideas were used — and misused — but his writings on wealth inequality, exploitation of workers and ruthless competition still resonate.

Karl-Marx-Haus hasn’t always been a universally welcomed addition to the city and the museum has been a site of anti-communist and human rights protests. I get a sense of the negative feeling towards Marx in a brief conversation before I head to the museum. I’m in Trier on an excursion as part of my cruise along the Rhine and Moselle rivers. A visit to the museum isn’t on our itinerary and when I let our guide know I’m leaving the tour early to visit the Haus, he’s not impressed. “Only Chinese tourists go there,” he says. One of my fellow passengers overhears and asks me who Karl Marx is. He’s never heard of him.

Hardly a representative sample, but these encounters make me feel like I’m plotting to overthrow the government rather than expressing an interest in learning more about someone whose ideas have fundamentally shaped 175 years of world history.

Schmidt says attitudes towards the museum have slowly changed. “During the East-West confrontation [the Cold War, when Germany was divided] the attitude was very distant. Afterwards relations became ‘neutral’, but since the 200th anniversary of his birth in 2018, Marx is now recognised as one of the ‘great sons’ of Trier.”

The small museum attracts around 42,000 visitors a year, making it one of the city’s most popular attractions, even if my fellow river cruise passengers aren’t included in that number.

Back on board, sipping a glass of riesling as our luxury ship slowly sails past the vineyards that inspired Marx’s early articles, my local wine made from hand-picked grapes takes on a new significance. I can’t help but wonder what Marx would have made of it all.

THE DETAILS

VISIT
Karl-Marx-Haus is open daily from 10am-6pm (closed 1-1.30pm), excepting key public holidays. Entry costs €5 ($9) adults and €3.50 ($6.25) concession. Brückenstrasse 10, Trier, Germany. See fes.de/en/museum-karl-marx-haus

FLY
Emirates, Etihad, Qatar, Qantas and Cathay Pacific all fly to Frankfurt from Australia, with train connections to Trier.

STAY
The Hotel Zur Glocke is part of the Romantik Hotels group. Located in a 450-year-old half-timbered house in Trier’s old town, the hotel has 16 luxury rooms and a cellar restaurant – the oldest pub in the city – offering classic German cuisine. Rooms from €160 ($285) a night for two people. See romantikhotels.com/en

MORE
trier-info.de/en

The writer visited the Karl-Marx-Haus at her own expense and travelled to Germany as a guest of Scenic. See scenic.com.au