Kaspar Hauser and Karl König

Kaspar Hauser and Karl König

Kaspar Hauser was a young man who appeared on the streets of Nuremberg in Germany in the early nineteenth century. His innocence and mysterious background captured the hearts of many at the time.

The book’s publication in 2012 marked the 200th anniversary of Kaspar Hauser’s birth. This timely book gathers Karl König’s thoughts on the enigma of Kaspar Hauser and explores König’s deep connection to the young man and his brief life.

Kaspar Hauser and Karl König includes König’s essay “The Story of Kaspar Hauser,” as well as an essay by Peter Selg, “König, Wegman and Kaspar Hauser,” and by Richard Steel, on how König spoke of Kaspar Hauser in his diaries, notes, and letters.

About the Author

Karl König (1902–1966) was born in Vienna, in Austria-Hungary, the only son of a Jewish shoemaker. He studied medicine at the University of Vienna and graduated in 1927, with a special interest in embryology. After graduating, he was invited by Ita Wegman to work in her Klinisch-Therapeutisches Institute, a clinic in Arlesheim, Switzerland for people with special needs. He married Mathilde Maasberg in 1929. Dr. König was appointed pediatrician at the Rudolf Steiner-inspired Schloß Pilgrimshain institute in Strzegom, where he worked until 1936, when he returned to Vienna and established a successful medical practice. Owing to Hitler’s invasion of Austria, he was forced to flee Vienna to Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1938. Dr. König was interned briefly at the beginning of World War II, but on his release in 1940 he set up the first Camphill Community for Children in Need of Special Care at Camphill on the outskirts of Aberdeen. From the mid-1950s, König began more communities, including one in North Yorkshire, the first to care for those beyond school age with special needs. In 1964, König moved to Brachenreuthe near Überlingen on Lake Constance, Germany, where he set up another community, where he died in 1966.