Karl König

Karl König (25 September 1902 – 27 March 1966) was an Austrian paediatrician who founded the Camphill Movement, an international movement of therapeutic intentional communities for those with special needs or disabilities.

König was born in Vienna, in Austria-Hungary, on 25 September 1902, 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 Institut, an institute for people with special needs in Arlesheim, Switzerland.

He married Mathilde Maasberg in 1929.

König was appointed paediatrician at the Rudolf Steiner-inspired Schloß Pilgrimshain institute in Strzegom, where he worked until 1936 when he returned to Vienna and set up a successful medical practice.

In 1938 he was forced to flee Vienna due to Hitler's invasion of Austria and relocated, at Dr. Wegman's suggestion, to Aberdeen, Scotland, where she had friends who could help recommence his work.

He was briefly interned due to the outbreak 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, by Milltimber, on the outskirts of Aberdeen.

At this time, he was supported also by George MacLeod, founder of the Iona Community.

From the mid-1950s, König set up more communities, including the first to care for those with special needs beyond school age in North Yorkshire.

During this time, he worked with pioneering music therapist Maria Schüppel.

In 1964, König moved to Brachenreuthe, near Überlingen on Lake Constance, Germany, where he set up a community.

He died there in 1966.

An archive of his writings is held by the Karl König Institute, a non-profit organisation in Berlin.

Jackson, Robin (2022) "Karl and Tilla König and the creation of the Camphill Movement".

British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 50(2), 188-198.