The Karl Marx House museum (Karl-Marx-Haus) is a biographical and writer's house museum in Trier. In 1818, Karl Marx, the father of Marxism, which influenced both modern socialism and communism, was born in the house. It is now a museum about Karl Marx's life and writings as well as the history of communism.
The house was built in 1727 as a two-story baroque building. Karl Marx was born there on 5 May 1818. In October 1819, the Marx family moved to a smaller building near the Porta Nigra. The significance of the house went unnoticed until 1904, at which point the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) attempted to acquire the home, succeeding in 1928. After the Nazi Party came to power in 1933, the building was confiscated and turned into a printing house.
On 5 May 1947 the building was opened as a museum of the life and works of Karl Marx. In 1968 it was integrated into the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a political party foundation closely aligned with the SPD. On 14 March 1983, the 100th anniversary of Marx's death, the museum was re-opened after a year-long renovation that expanded it to three floors.
On the occasion of the bicentennial of Karl Marx's birth on 5 May 2018, the exhibition was completely reworked with a new concept entitled 'From Trier to the World. Karl Marx, his ideas and their impact until today'. The exhibition consists of three major units and features a further unit on the history of the house itself. The first area deals with the biography of Karl Marx, addressing his origins in Trier and his life in exile. The second is devoted to his work, where Marx appears as a philosopher, as a journalist, as a sociologist and as an economist, and the third shows the global impact of Marx up to the present day.
Amongst the exhibits are Marx's reading chair, a first edition of Das Kapital and a bust of Marx which was sculpted by his great-grandson.
References:Rosenborg Palace was built in the period 1606-34 as Christian IV’s summerhouse just outside the ramparts of Copenhagen. Christian IV was very fond of the palace and often stayed at the castle when he resided in Copenhagen, and it was here that he died in 1648. After his death, the palace passed to his son King Frederik III, who together with his queen, Sophie Amalie, carried out several types of modernisation.
The last king who used the place as a residence was Frederik IV, and around 1720, Rosenborg was abandoned in favor of Frederiksborg Palace.Through the 1700s, considerable art treasures were collected at Rosenborg Castle, among other things items from the estates of deceased royalty and from Christiansborg after the fire there in 1794.
Soon the idea of a museum arose, and that was realised in 1833, which is The Royal Danish Collection’s official year of establishment.