If you search the internet for Karlmax Berlin, results will show – apart from a former chairman of the Charité – that deal with the life and work of a well-known Karl Marx. A question on the tip of some customer’s tongues: Is this a planned parallel, carelessness, or a highly SEO-unsuitable attempt at a free ride?

What does Karlmax Berlin actually have to do with Karl Marx?

Is there a connection at all? Karl Szwillus and Max Julian Dreißig founded their company 10 years ago. They used sophisticated, creative techniques to find a name, in keeping with the spirit of the start of the decade: Derivations of the term app (appstatic, appetiser or appical), abstract neologisms made up of syllable fragments full of aesthetics, elegance and competence in varying doses (korngolden, Alpenglow or mobilminister) and variations of the founders’ names were discussed.

They decided to combine Karl, Max and the location Berlin. Any other brainstorm results seemed too unclear or arbitrary, too zeitgeisty and impersonal. However, the obvious association with the communist forefather would conflate the company name, born of personal data, with large thematic complexes. And such associations are always particularly individual. In addition to valuable philosophical and theoretical insights, it would perhaps also remind people of the problematic developments and victims of current socialist governments and regimes. For this reason, making a joke out of this for a business start-up is out of the question. To devalue quotes or symbols of the political or historical environment for promotional purposes would have been respectless and misleading.

Karlmax Berlin as a company with a “social streak”

And that is why the only obvious parallel lies most likely in some aspects of everyday working life. Karlmax Berlin defines itself as an employer with a “social streak” and a focus on the needs and expectations of its employees.

The team of permanently employed professionals works together on a long-term basis – regularly in Berlin until before the pandemic. Since then we are also more flexibly distributed, but no less firmly connected. It is part of the strategy that there is no outsourcing to supposed or real low-wage countries or that entire orders are resold. As a result, the team has a strong sense of cohesion, processes are lean, and clients benefit from the proximity and direct approachability of everyone involved.

However, this orientation arises much more from the Managing Directors’ ideas and dreams of building a company with heart and hands so that appeals to heart and mind. This doesn’t run contrary to Karl Marx’s thoughts, but it shouldn’t lead to the hasty conclusion that the company is aligned with the founder of communism. It was just started, after all, first and foremost simply by Karl and Max from Berlin.

( Interview with: Karl Szwillus, Managing Director of Karlmax Berlin)