Karl König

Karl König (1902-1966) was an Austrian pediatrician who founded the Camphill Movement, an international network of therapeutic communities caring for children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Born in Vienna, he studied medicine at the University of Vienna, graduating in 1927. After fleeing Austria following Hitler's 1938 invasion, he settled in Scotland, where in 1940 he established the first Camphill Community for Children in Need of Special Care at Camphill, near Milltimber on the outskirts of Aberdeen. The model combined medical and educational care with shared residential life and meaningful work between people with and without disabilities, and it expanded into a worldwide network of Camphill communities during his lifetime. He relocated to Germany in 1964 and died there in 1966 at age 63; his writings are preserved by the Karl König Institute in Berlin.