1000 words

Karl Marx is arguably the world’s most famous Jew and it would be near-impossible to find somebody who has a more Jewish genealogy than him. So, it’s quite perplexing that he’s continually accused of being an “anti-Semite.” What’s even more perplexing is his reputation as a penniless middle-class rogue who was at war with the “bourgeois” elite of society. We often hear tales of Marx living in squalor, surviving on scraps and handouts from his industrial capitalist friend, Friedrich Engels.

Even the most rudimentary investigation into Marx’s ancestry and personal political connections is enough to refute this flimsy narrative. It may sound unbelievable at first but Karl Marx, the anti-Capitalist hobo, was descended from an elite Jewish lineage and comfortably in bed with both the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy — figuratively and literally.

This article provides a brief rundown of Marx’s genealogy, featuring a few of his most prominent paternal and maternal ancestors. Although an entire book could be dedicated to the subject, the following evidence should be sufficient in demonstrating that Marx was not a scruffy rebel against “the bourgeois system” but fully immersed within it.

The first of Marx’s many suspicious connections is his highly unconventional marriage to Jenny von Westphalen, a member of the Prussian nobility. It was frowned upon for women to marry younger men in 1800s Prussia and almost unheard of for a noblewoman to marry below her social class — let alone for a Prussian noblewoman to marry into a lower-class family of full-blooded Jews via a younger man. At this point in history, Anti-Semitism was extremely widespread, not just in Prussia but throughout the entirety of Europe.

The von Westphalen family was deeply embedded in the international European aristocracy. Jenny’s paternal grandmother was a Scottish noblewoman who descended paternally from King James I of the House of Stuart and maternally from the Dukes of Argyll, who were Scotland’s most powerful family for centuries. Jenny’s father, Ludwig von Westphalen, was the son of the chief of staff of the Prince of Brunswick, a renowned Prussian field marshal and Master Mason who was asked by the British to lead their forces during the American War of Independence.

So, why did Prussian Jenny the aristocrat marry Karl “Penniless Jewish Hobo” Marx? For starters, Marx’s family was by no means impoverished. His father, Hirschel Levi, was a wealthy lawyer who owned numerous Moselle vineyards, while his mother, Henriette Pressburg, was the daughter of a wealthy and influential Jewish merchant family from Holland. They were both descended from long lineages of world-leading rabbis, merchants, and international financiers.

Karl Marx’s maternal grandfather, Isaac Heijmans Pressburg, was a wealthy financier, merchant, and rabbi, whose great-grandfather was the leader of the Jewish community in Hungary. Isaac’s wife, Nanette, came from the wealthy and powerful Barent-Cohen family, many of whom were rabbis, international financiers, and merchants. Her uncle was the influential banker and rabbi, Levy Barent-Cohen, a leading merchant of the City of London. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, “nearly all the leading Jewish families in England are connected with him [via] distinguished marriages which his children contracted.” This included Karl Marx’s cousin, Nathan Mayer Rothschild, the wealthiest man on earth and richest of the Rothschilds. Nathan’s great-great-grandson, Lionel Rothschild, led the campaign to establish the new state of Israel via the Balfour Declaration.

Marx’s maternal aunt, Sophia, married into the Philips family, who were powerful Jewish industrialists and merchants, renowned today for founding the Philips electronics company. Her husband, Lion, a rich tobacco merchant, financially supported Marx and Jenny throughout their lives. Lion’s merchant banker son, Frederik Philips, also funded Marx via “loans” (handouts), while his daughter, Antoinette, was involved with the Communist First International. Jenny’s brother, Edgar von Westphalen, co-founded Marx’s Communist League.

Marx’s paternal ancestry consists of an unbroken chain of leading rabbis, dating back at least eight centuries. His paternal great-great-grandfather, rabbi Joshue Heschel Lwow, was so influential that “no important decision was taken in the Jewish world without his having first been consulted” [See: Karl Marx: His Life and Thought by David McLellan]. Marx’s great-(x9)-grandfather, Judah ben Eliezer ha-Levi Minz, was the leading rabbi of Italy and the author of multiple ‘takanot’ (major modifications to Jewish religious laws). Most importantly, Marx’s paternal great-(x8)-grandfather, rabbi Meir ben Isaac Katzenellenbogen, was the direct ancestor of Europe’s leading rabbis, Talmudists, and heads of rabbinic courts, and a direct descendant of the House of David [See: The Unbroken Chain by Neil Rosenstein and this article]. Thus, Marx himself was paternally descended from the House of David, which is very significant in Jewish culture, as they believe that their messiah will be a direct patrilineal descendant of the Davidic line.

So, in brief: Marx married into well-connected Prussian aristocracy that was descended from European kings, he was personally descended from a huge lineage of incredibly influential bankers and rabbis, was a cousin of the Rothschilds, and a descendant of the House of David. There was no hyperbole in this article’s opening claim that it would be near-impossible to find somebody who has a more Jewish genealogy than Marx.

Unfortunately, this genealogical investigation leaves us with more questions than answers: Why was Marx, the “arch-nemesis of capitalism,” bankrolled by leading industrialists and big capitalists, and why did they allow their children to join Marx’s Communist organizations? Moreover, all of this information is out in the open and relatively easy to find. So, why does the mainstream media, academics, historians, etc., always paint Marx out to be a starving plebian hobo who was “rebelling against the bourgeois system,” when he was a direct product of said system and entirely dependent upon it?

Was Communism a scam from the start? After all, “Real Communism” (the stateless society) is an unimplementable utopian fantasy. Every “Communist” society in human history has devolved into a soulless, totalitarian, and genocidal oligarchy.