Karl Marx

The New Ministry

From the English.

_New-York Daily Tribune_, No. 5492, November 27, 1858

Berlin, November 9, 1858

“And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.” Herr von Auerswald, the vice-president of the new cabinet, was, as I have already stated in a previous article, the nominal head of the first regular ministry of the revolutionary epoch. At that time his appointment was as much regarded as a symptom of reaction as, now, after a lapse of ten years, it is seen as a symptom of progress. He was the successor of the grain merchant Camphausen, whom the revolutionary storm had thrown from his counting-house in Cologne to Berlin, onto the steps of the Prussian throne. The Auerswald ministry lasted from the end of June to September 7, 1848. Independently of what he could or could not do, in June 1848 his name alone at the head of the cabinet list had a particular significance. His predecessor Camphausen was born in Rhenish Prussia, Auerswald in East Prussia; the former is a private merchant, the latter a state official; the former is a bourgeois, the latter a nobleman; the former is rich, the latter poor. Thus it was clear that already by the end of June 1848, only three months after the March days, the pendulum of the Prussian revolution had swung from West to East—from proximity to France to proximity to Russia, from ordinary mortals to mandarins, from the bourgeoisie to the nobility, from the purse to rank and titles. Apart from this significance which Auerswald’s name possessed, it cannot be said that he performed anything of importance during the three months in which his cabinet existed. If you ask a Prussian about the character of that Auerswald cabinet, he will certainly put his forefinger to his forehead, rub it with a grave expression, quite in the manner of Hudibras, and finally, as if waking from a state of twilight, exclaim: “Ah, you mean the Hansemann cabinet!” In fact the soul of the Auerswald cabinet was the Finance Minister Hansemann, whom he had taken over from the Camphausen cabinet. Thus, in order to characterise Auerswald as prime minister, we must speak about Hansemann. This man, a merchant of Aachen, summed up his political creed in 1847, in the United Diet, in the retort to the address of the Prussian monarchy which later became famous: “In money matters, all good fellowship ceases.” <This phrase in the “N.-Y. D. T.” in English and German> This remark was, if it is permitted, _parva componere magnis_ <to compare small things with great>, under the circumstances of that time, a counterpart to Sieyès’ famous words: “_Le tiers état est tout_” <“The third estate is everything”>. Under Frederick William III, when no one except the licenced servants of the Prussian universities dared to write about politics, Hansemann published a book that compared Prussia with France and strongly tended to the side of the latter, but so skilfully and in so moderate a tone that it was impossible for even the Prussian censorship to suppress its offensive comparison. In those days, when a joint-stock company was still a _rara avis_ <rarity> in Germany, he had the ambition to become a German Hudson, and showed himself to be a perfect expert in that stock-exchange jobbing which today flourishes in all civilised countries and has been raised to a system even by the Crédit Mobilier. In those days, when old-fashioned Germany was still of the opinion that a bankruptcy disgraced a man’s honest name, Hansemann tried to demonstrate that the succession of bankruptcies in commerce was almost as productive as the rotation of crops in agriculture. The official activity of this man, who lent his name to Auerswald, proceeded from the false conception that the few weeks of revolution had sufficiently shaken the pillars of the old state, sufficiently humbled dynasty, aristocracy and bureaucracy, and had secured the political predominance of the bourgeoisie for ever, so that nothing remained but to break the constantly rising waves of the revolution. The ministry proved so successful a breakwater that three months after its appointment it was itself broken; these liberal toadies were themselves thrown aside with utter lack of ceremony by the courtiers behind them, for whom they had merely pulled the chestnuts out of the fire. Auerswald and Hansemann stood there in the sad role of deceived deceivers.

Moreover, Auerswald found himself in the by no means enviable position of a man who was responsible for Prussian foreign policy; for he united in his person the offices of prime minister and minister of foreign affairs. If at least the domestic policy of the ministry was dictated by the manifest interests of the bourgeoisie, terrified at the progress of the revolution, foreign policy was exclusively directed by the Camarilla, in whose hands Auerswald was a mere tool. In June 1850 he was appointed Chief President of the Rhine Province, but very soon dismissed from this post by Herr von Westphalen, who cleansed the Prussian bureaucracy of liberals with the same _sang-froid_ with which a Scottish nobleman clears his estates of people. As a member of the House of Deputies <House of Deputies: in the “N.-Y. D. T.” in English and German> Auerswald contented himself with an opposition so watered-down that it could only be noticed by the eye of a political homoeopathist. Auerswald is one of the aristocratic representatives of East Prussian liberalism. The elements of this liberalism are: the memories of the wars against Napoleon and the hopes of that time entertained by the more educated patriots; some general ideas which Königsberg, as the centre of Kantian philosophy, considers almost as its local property; the community of interests between the noble grain-producers and the inhabitants of the coastal towns who export the grain; free-trade doctrines of various kinds, for the province of Prussia is no industrial region, but lives chiefly by the sale of its agricultural produce to England. Herr von Schleinitz, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, had already once, in 1849, held the same office, and during his short term had closely associated himself with the Gotha party, which, if successful, would divide Germany into two parts: a northern part which would unite with Prussia, and a southern part which would unite with Austria. In fact, the swallowing up of Germany by these two great antagonistic monarchies is the openly avowed goal of the Gotha party. If they succeeded in creating two Germanies, a deadly conflict would arise, a new Thirty Years’ War would threaten, and the duel between the two hostile Germanies would finally be ended by Russia pocketing the one Germany and France pocketing the other.

Herr von Bonin, the War Minister, I have already mentioned in my previous article. Here I merely add that during his command in the war over Schleswig-Holstein he distinguished himself not so much by pursuing the Danes as by pursuing the democratic volunteers who fought under the German flag. This war was, as everyone knows, one of the bloody farces of modern diplomacy. Herr von Patow, the Finance Minister, was a member of the Camphausen cabinet. In the House of Deputies, some years ago, the _Krautjunker_ <_Krautjunker_: in the “N.-Y. D. T.” in German> branded him as a revolutionary. Some personal insult was added, and a duel with Count Pfeil followed, which for a time made him the darling of the Berlin public. Patow could be a member of the Liverpool Financial Reform Association. Of Count Pückler, the Minister of Agriculture, it can only be said that he is a nephew of the blasé author of the “Letters of a Dead Man.” Bethmann-Hollweg was formerly curator of Bonn University; these curators are in reality the Grand Inquisitors with whom the Prussian government plagues the official centres of learning. Under Frederick William III they busied themselves with sniffing out demagogues, under Frederick William IV with the persecution of heretics. Bethmann devoted himself to the latter business. Before the revolution he belonged in fact to the king’s Camarilla, and distanced himself from it only when it went “too far.” Simons, the Minister of Justice, and von der Heydt, the Minister of Commerce, are the only members of the Manteuffel cabinet who have survived the fall of their chief. Both come from Rhenish Prussia, but from the Protestant part which lies on the right bank of the Rhine. Since, according to the plan, some native Rhenish Prussians, but to the exclusion of the Rhenish liberals, were to belong to the cabinet, these two men were taken over. Simons can boast of having reduced the courts to a lower level than ever attained in the worst times of the Prussian monarchy. Von der Heydt, a rich merchant from Elberfeld, had said of the king in 1847: “This fellow has lied to us so often that we can no longer trust him.” <this phrase in the “N.-Y. D. T.” in English and German> In December 1848 he entered the _coup d’état_ ministry. At present he is the only Prussian minister who is suspected of exploiting his official position for his private advantage. The rumour is quite widespread that he willingly makes state secrets subservient to the commercial transactions of the Elberfeld firm Heydt & Co.