Henriette Pressburg (20 September 1788 – 30 November 1863) later on marriage, Henriette Marx, was the mother of the communist philosopher and economist Karl Marx.
Life
Henriette Pressburg, was born on 20 September 1788 in Nijmegen in the Netherlands. She was the second of the five children of Isaac Heymans Pressburg (1747–1832) and Nanette Salomons Cohen (1754–1833). The Pressburgs were a prosperous family, with Isaac working as a textile merchant. They were prominent members of Nijmegen's growing Jewish community, living first in Nonnenstraat then, when Henriette was 19, in Grotestraat. Isaac was the cantor of the synagogue in Nonnenstraat where his father, Hirschl (or Chaim) Pressburg, had been the rabbi. There had been rabbis in the family for at least a century.
Henriette Pressburg married Hirschel (later Heinrich) Marx (1777–1838) on 22 November 1814 in the Nijmegen Synagogue, she receiving a twenty thousand guilder dowry. The couple moved to Heinrich's home town of Trier in the Prussian Rhineland, where Heinrich worked successfully as a lawyer. Here they had nine children, four sons and five daughters, two sons dying when children. Karl, their third child, was born on 5 May 1818. In 1819 the family moved to a ten-room property opposite the ancient Roman Porta Nigra gateway, where Henriette lived with her family for the next 23 years.
In about 1817 Henriette's husband changed his name from Hirschel to Heinrich and was baptised into the Lutheran Church, followed by their children in August 1824. Henriette was baptised in November 1825. These conversions resulted in a complete break with Heinrich's family – his father was the rabbi of Trier – although Henriette continued to maintain close contact with her family in the Netherlands, her fourth child Hermann being born during a return visit to Nijmegen in August 1819.
Heinrich contracted tuberculosis and died in May 1838, when Henriette still had six of their children living at home. Although quite wealthy due to her inheritance, the family lived quite frugally.
Relationship with Karl Marx
Karl was the third child and second son of Heinrich and Henriette Marx. Graduating from the Trier Gymnasium in 1835 at the age of seventeen, Karl enrolled in the University of Bonn, before 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. Her regular letters to Karl emphasised the importance of healthy living, she advised:
"you must never regard cleanliness and order as something secondary, for health and cheerfulness depend upon them. Insist strictly that your rooms are scrubbed frequently and fix a definite time for it – and you, my dear Karl, have 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 make 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 any tobacco, not stay up too late in the evening and always rise early. Be careful, also not to catch cold and, dear Karl, do not dance until you are quite well 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 most disagreeable of family controversies. My family has put difficulties in my way which, despite their own prosperity, subject me to the most straitened circumstances.” Disagreements led to Karl moving mid-stay from the family home to a guest house nearby. The following year Karl married Jenny von Westphalen, neither Henriette, nor any other member of the Marx family, attending.