London, 3 September 1852
(Excerpts)

Enclosed is the copy of a manuscript by Häfner in Paris (formerly editor of the only tolerable paper in Vienna, the *Constitution*). The man had once also allowed himself to be misused into blustering against me in the *Hamburger Nachrichten* in Kinkel’s interest. The manuscript is not addressed to me, but to an acquaintance of mine in Paris, through whose “indiscretion” it has come into my hands, and probably not entirely without the author’s foreboding. You may therefore, should the occasion present itself, make use of the document only in such a way that everything which might allow the source to be guessed, or rather that points directly to it, is omitted. Little Häfner, although he has a hunchback in front and one behind, writes and thinks better and is a more concentrated little fellow than many a straight-grown revolutionary philistine.

[...] The rumour had been spread here that Gebert, an alcoholic tailor journeyman and one of Willich’s myrmidons, had departed for America. This was not the case. Kinkel and Willich sent him to Germany as an emissary at the beginning of August.

Since these people, in their circular letter, the last to the guarantors, drivelled all sorts of nonsense about “organisations” and on the whole are without connections in Germany, the fragments of the Communist League in Germany which, for one reason or another, have no contact with Cologne, were to provide the semblance and the pretext of such “organisations”. Added to this was the fact that the gentlemen have to account for over £200. A definite sum of money therefore had to be spent on something, for which one could decently still speak of “revolutionary application”. With the remainder of the sum spent, they imagine they will then slip through more easily. Finally, Marx, Engels and Co. in particular were to be annihilated (verbatim) among the workers in Germany. Kinkel thought he could fob off on his bourgeois guarantors the begged and lied-for fragments of the Communist League as a bourgeois-democratic association. Willich, the representative of the German workers foisted by himself and by Kinkel, hoped at last really to create for himself a tail of workers in Germany.

Now, further. Gebert has convened a so-called communist community in Magdeburg. Deliberations were held on three consecutive days, in which 26–30 members took part; they were chaired by a certain Hammel (nomen omen). With great bitterness they debated against M. and E., and it was made the chief task to annihilate them, their influence, and their “doctrines” (the latter may not be all that easy for Brother Hammel). Besides several questions of administration and organisation, they came to the question: how and in what way a printing press could be procured. A poor printer, established in or around Magdeburg, was found, and a contract was concluded with him. He places his office at the disposal of the propaganda; the firm name is retained as it was. For this he would be paid 100 thalers at once, and a promissory note for 350 thalers, which he was to receive after a year.

Thus the revolution funds are to serve to make propaganda for Kinkel-Willich personally, and to split up the “organisations” in Germany through intrigues.

But the best part only comes now. The Prussian police was informed of everything, from the moment the harmless Gebert departed from London, while here everyone imagined him on his jaunt to America. The government had its reporter in the Magdeburg knot meeting, who took down the entire debate in shorthand for them. Gebert, who has now travelled to Berlin, had a Prussian policeman in his company. He is not lost sight of for a moment. The government intends first to let him fulfil his mission, and then dozens will have compromised themselves with him.

I have this information – Willich had already been bragging about his “agency” in Germany – from a Prussian police office where I have a silk-weaver sitting.

*Qu’en dis tu?* So these knaves give the Prussian government the possibility to complicate the Cologne trial anew, etc. – And to what end? To cover their foul accounts, to hush up the vacuity of their previous revolutionary committee-mongering, to titillate their little poison against their enemies, etc., etc. The matter must now still be kept secret. As soon as you see, however, that Gebert has been nabbed or “communist” arrests have been carried out, then break loose without waiting further.