Karl Friedrich Köppen

Karl Friedrich Köppen was a German teacher and political journalist. He was one of the Young Hegelians.

Life

Köppen was born in a pastor's family in Nieder-Görne, a small municipality in the Altmark. He studied theology at the University of Berlin from 1827 to 1831, but later turned to religio-critical Hegelianism. After his studies and military service in 1833, he taught at the secondary school Dorotheenstädtischer. In 1837, he met Karl Marx, with whom he developed a close friendship.
In 1840 he became one of the most active associates of Arnold Ruge, the founder of the Hallischen Jahrbücher. He wrote many reviews on political and scientific literature. Contemporary journalistic practice has been strongly influenced by his opinions reviews. He thus began a renewal of the Enlightenment as Köppen's criticism of classical literature, idealist philosophy and Romanticism. Köppen's views were deeply indebted to Karl Marx and he dedicated his book Frederick the Great and his Opponents to Marx.
He died in Berlin.

Works

Literarische Einleitung in die nordische Mythologie. Berlin: Bechtold und Hartje, 1837
. Leipzig: Verlag Otto Wigand, 1840
Die Religion des Buddha. 2 vol., Berlin: F. Schneider 1857–1859.,
Hexen und Hexenprozesse. Zur Geschichte des Aberglaubens und des inquisitorischen Prozesses. 2. Aufl., Leipzig: O. Wigand, 1858
Ausgewählte Schriften. edited by Heinz Pepperle. 2 vol., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2003