Overview

A knowledge of and an understanding for the biography of Karl König is of course all-important for the process of editing his works, but also for studying any of the subject areas of his work. The Karl König Archive houses a large amount of material related to his biography – including autobiographic notes and essays, and many accounts written by his coworkers and other contemporaries. Indeed, the home of the Archive is itself biographically relevant, as it uses the rooms in Camphill House in Aberdeen which served Karl König for many years as apartment and study. His desk, his furniture, but above all, his library can be visited there. Furhermore, it is also an important task of the Karl König Institute to continue research into the biography, also the historic background of König and his family, studying the biographic connotations of his ideals, his work and interactions with other personalities. Particularly the plentitude of diaries, notebooks and letters are a special source for this work, complemented by a large collection of photographs and by diaries and notes of his coworkers as well as of his mother.

The volumes of the New Edition are prepared particularly to demonstrate the work-immanent and biographic aspects. For this reason many documents, original notes in facsimile, handwriting and other biographic elements are included with each subject. Our continued research into Karl König‘s biography and its historic background is documented regularly as an important part of our Newsletter which is published twice a year. These contributions can be easily accessed through a table of contents. Resulting from this biographic research, we are working on related publications. The first volume in English will be about König‘s special childhood friend, Alfred Bergel, which will include extensive new material about König‘s own youth years.