Heinrich Marx

Heinrich Marx (born as Herschel HaLevi ; 15 April 1777 – 10 May 1838) was the father of the revolutionary leader and influential socialist thinker Karl Marx. He was a lawyer, and had eight children including Karl Marx and Louise Juta. Life Heinrich Marx was born in Saarlouis into an Ashkenazi Jewish family with the name Herschel Levi, the son of Rabbi Marx Levi Mordechai ben Samuel HaLevi of Rödelheim (1743–1804) and Eva Lwow (1753–1823). Heinrich Marx's father was the rabbi of Trier, a role which his older brother, the Rabbi Samuel Marx von Trier would later assume. Heinrich Marx qualified as a lawyer in 1814, but upon Napoleon's 1815 defeat at Waterloo, the Rhineland came into the conservative control of the Kingdom of Prussia, from its more detached French administration. An 1812 edict, unenforced by the French, asserted that Jews could not occupy legal positions or state offices, and Prussian enforcement of the law led to trouble for Heinrich Marx. Marx's colleagues, including the President of the Provincial Supreme court, defended him and sought an exception for him. The Prussian Minister of Justice rejected their appeals. In 1817 or 1818, he changed his name to Heinrich Marx and converted to Lutheran Christianity in the state Evangelical Church of Prussia to be allowed to practice law in Prussia. His wife and children were baptized in 1825 and 1824, respectively.