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Friedrich Karl Biedermann (25 September 1812 in Leipzig, Kingdom of Saxony – 5 March 1901) was a German professor, politician, and publisher who greatly aided the Liberal movement in Germany during the process of German Unification.
Early life and education
Friedrich Karl Biedermann was born in Leipzig on September 25, 1812. He lived with his mother and his father is the source of much speculation. Biedermann was an avid scholar at a young age and at the age of nine he entered a school in Dresden that was run by Free Masons. Bierdermann's stay was so traumatizing for him later wrote that he never fully recovered. Richard Bazillion suggests that his hatred of tyranny and oppression stems from this early abuse. Biedermann attended the University of Leipzig in 1830 and in 1833 attended the university in Heidelberg where he began to aspire towards a career in academics. He received his doctorate in May 1835 back in Leipzig and began to teach philosophy, becoming professor in 1838.
The Social Question
During the 1830s and 1840s, Biedermann and many other liberals saw the divide between the working and the upper classes rapidly expand because of industrialization and rapid urbanization. His native Saxony was one of the most severely affected by this and was the most overpopulated German kingdom. Standards of living in urban areas and quality of life were overwhelmingly on the decline. The traditional guilds that protected pre-industrial workers were being dismantled as factories needed less skilled labor to produce a cheaper product. Karl Biedermann and other urban intellectuals saw the need to modernize quickly to improve living conditions and ensure that the emerging working class had decent standards of living. As social unrest developed and cities began to riot, Biedermann became more and more convinced "the social peace depended on social justice for the working class."