Karl Heinrich Marx was born on May 5, 1818, in the city of Trier in Prussia, now, Germany. He was one of seven children of Jewish Parents. His father was fairly liberal, taking part in demonstrations for a constitution for Prussia and reading such authors as Voltaire and Kant, known for their social commentary. His mother, Henrietta, was originally from Holland and never became a German at heart, not even learning to speak the language properly. Shortly before Karl Marx was born, his father converted the family to the Evangelical Established Church, Karl being baptized at the age of six. Marx attended high school in his home town (1830-1835) where several teachers and pupils were under suspicion of harboring liberal ideals.

Marx himself seemed to be a devoted Christian with a “longing for self-sacrifice on behalf of humanity.” In October of 1835, he started attendance at the University of Bonn, enrolling in non-socialistic-related classes like Greek and Roman mythology and the history of art. During this time, he spent a day in jail for being “drunk and disorderly-the only imprisonment he suffered” in the course of his life. The student culture at Bonn included, as a major part, being politically rebellious and Marx was involved, presiding over the Tavern Club and joining a club for poets that included some politically active students. However, he left Bonn after a year and enrolled at the University of Berlin to study law and philosophy. Marx’s experience in Berlin was crucial to his introduction to Hegel’s philosophy and to his “adherence to the Young Hegelians.” Hegel’s philosophy was crucial to the development of his own ideas and theories. Upon his first introduction to Hegel’s beliefs, Marx felt a repugnance and wrote his father that when he felt sick, it was partially “from intense vexation at having to make an idol of a view
[he] detested.” The Hegelian doctrines exerted considerable pressure in the “revolutionary student culture” that Marx was immersed in, however, and Marx eventually joined a society called the Doctor Club, involved mainly in the “new literary and philosophical movement” who’s chief figure was Bruno Bauer, a lecturer in theology who thought that the Gospels were not a record of History but that they came from “human fantasies arising from man’s emotional needs” and he also hypothesized that Jesus had not existed as a person. Bauer was later dismissed from his position by the Prussian government.