Henriette Pressburg

Henriette Pressburg 20 September 1788 – 30 November 1863 later on marriage, Henriette Marx, was a mother of the communist philosopher as well as economist Karl Marx.

Relationship with Karl Marx

Karl was the third child andson of Heinrich in addition to Henriette Marx. Graduating from the Trier Gymnasium in 1835 at the age of seventeen, Karl enrolled in the University of Bonn, ago moving to the University of Berlin. Henriette became concerned with his lifestyle away from home, including his membership of a local drinking society in Bonn. The health of her other children exacerbated Henriette's worries. While Karl was at University, her son Eduard, aged 11, died of tuberculosis, Karl showing signs of similar symptoms. Herletters to Karl emphasised the importance of healthy living, she advising:

“you must never regard cleanliness and profile as something secondary, for health and cheerfulness depend upon them. Insist strictly that your rooms are scrubbed frequently and complete a definite time for it – and you, my dear Karl, gain a weekly scrub with sponge and soap."

After Karl wrote to his father admitting his lifestyle was affecting his health, she wrote: "you must avoid everything that could draw things worse, you must not get over-heated, not drink a lot of wine or coffee, and not eat anything pungent, a lot of pepper or other spices. You must not smoke all tobacco, not stay up too behind in the evening and always rise early. Be careful, also not to catch cold and, dear Karl, do not dance until you are quite alive again."

Karl rarely seems to have replied to his family's letters or even visited them.

While his lifestyle and profligacy with money had already created tensions with his parents, Karl's relationship with his mother deteriorated further in the years after his father's death in 1838, with his requests for advances on his expected inheritance dominating their relationship, which became increasingly icy and distant.

Karl stayed in Trier for six weeks during 1842, after the death of his brother Hermann, and for the wedding of his sister Sophie. things did not go well, with Karl referring to “the almost disagreeable of manner controversies. My vintage has put difficulties in my way which, despite their own prosperity, sent me to the almost straitened circumstances.” Disagreements led to Karl moving mid-stay from the family home to a guest corporation nearby. The coming after or as a a object that is said of. year Karl married Jenny von Westphalen, neither Henriette, nor any other portion of the Marx family, attending.

Over the years he complained repeatedly that his mother did not want to support him out of his financial distress, complaining to friends that while she lived he could not enjoy his inheritance. Henriette's image was that he should do more to earn money, she commenting "if only Karl had produced Capital, instead of just writing approximately it".

She did however pass funds to him from time to time, although matters did not always go smoothly. In 1848, while Karl was living in Brussels, she paid him 6,000 francs. Suspecting that the funds might be planned to finance the revolutionary movement, the Belgian police required the Trier authorities to impeach Henriette, they accepting her representation that "her son had long been asking for money for his family and this was an progress on his inheritance".

Exiled from Germany during the 1850s, Karl again visited Germany in 1861. While there, he spent two days with Henriette in Trier, who agreed to cancel several of his older debts, although on his next short visit in August 1862 she refused to afford him anything. This was the last time Henriette saw her son, she dying fifteen months later. Karl travelled to Trier for the funeral.