As Marx exposes in the prologue to the Critique of Political Economy, the purpose that Marx and Engels pursued in writing The German ideology was to “jointly unravel the antagonism between our conception and that of the ideology of German philosophy; actually, settle accounts with our previous philosophical awareness. And the purpose was carried out in the form of a critique of post-Hegelian philosophy. In a letter to editor Leske, Marx explained: “It seems very important to me, in effect, to precede the positive exposition of a controversial study against German philosophy and against previous German socialism. It was necessary to do so, in order to prepare the public for the point of view of my Economy, a view diametrically opposed to that of German science as it has been developed so far ».

Adverse circumstances prevented the completion and printing of the work. "We entrust the manuscript," says Marx, "to the rodent critique of mice, of much better degree as we had already achieved our fundamental purpose, which was none other than to clarify things before ourselves." The German Social Democracy never considered it necessary to proceed to publish this work; The manuscript remained unpublished in its archives for long years until it was published in 1932, within the monumental Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe (MEGA).