Karl Marx/Friedrich Engels

Gottfried Kinkel

"Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue",
Viertes Heft, April 1850.

The flabbiness in the allegedly revolutionary party in Germany is so great that things which in France or England would call forth a general storm pass over in Germany without anyone even being surprised that such things meet with general applause here. Mr. Waldeck produces detailed proof before the jury that he has always been a good constitutionalist, and is driven home in triumph by the Berlin democrats. Mr. Grün publicly disavows the revolution in the silliest manner in Trier during a court session, and the people turn their backs on the convicted proletarians in the court room to cheer the acquitted industrialist.

A new example of what is possible in Germany is provided by the defence speech that Mr. Gottfried Kinkel delivered on 4 August 1849 before the court martial in Rastatt and published in the Berlin "Abend-Post" of 6 and 7 April this year.

We know in advance that we shall arouse the general indignation of the sentimental swindlers and democratic declaimers by denouncing this speech of the "captive" Kinkel to our party. This is a matter of complete indifference to us. Our task is ruthless criticism, much more against the supposed friends than against the open enemies; and by upholding this our position we gladly renounce cheap democratic popularity. We are by no means worsening Mr. Kinkel's situation by our attack; we are denouncing him for amnesty, by confirming his confession that he is not the man he is purported to be, by declaring that he is worthy not only of being amnestied but of entering Prussian state service. Besides, the speech is published. We are denouncing the entire document to our party and here only give the most striking passages.

"I have also never held a command, so that I am not responsible for the actions of others. For I protest against any linking of my doings with the filth and the slime which, I know, unfortunately attached itself to this revolution in the end."

Since Mr. Kinkel "entered the Besançon company as a private" and here casts suspicion on all the commanders, was it not his duty to at least exempt his direct superior, Willich, in this?

"Never have I served in the army, thus I have broken no oath of allegiance, and I have not used against my fatherland any military knowledge which I had acquired in the service of my fatherland."

Was this not a direct denunciation of the captured former Prussian soldiers, of Jansen and Bernigau, who were shot shortly afterwards? Was it not a complete endorsement of the death sentence passed on Dortu, who had already been shot?

Thus Mr. Kinkel further denounces his own party to the court martial, by speaking of plans to cede the left bank of the Rhine to France and declaring himself to be untainted by these criminal projects. Mr. Kinkel knows very well that joining the Rhine Province to France was only mentioned in the sense that, in the decisive struggle between revolution and counter-revolution, the Rhine Province would unconditionally side with the revolutionary side, be it represented by Frenchmen or Chinese. He does not fail, either, to point out the difference between himself and the wild revolutionaries, and to emphasise his mild character, which had made it possible for him to be on good terms with an Arndt and other conservatives as a human being, even if not as a party man.

"My guilt is that in the summer I still wanted the same thing that all of you wanted in March, that the whole German people wanted in March!"

He passes himself off here as a pure fighter for the Imperial Constitution, who never wanted anything more than the Imperial Constitution. We place this declaration on record.

Mr. Kinkel goes on to speak of an article he wrote about a riot committed by Prussian soldiers in Mainz, and says:

"And what has happened to me for that? During this my absence from home, I was summoned to court a second time on this account, and since I could not appear for the defence, I have, as I was told recently, been deprived of the right to be elected for five years. Five years' electoral disqualification has been pronounced upon me: For a man who has already once had the honour of being a deputy, that is an extremely severe punishment" (!).

"How often have I had to hear the word that I am a 'bad Prussian'; that word stung me ... Well then! My party has at present lost the game in the fatherland. If the Prussian Crown now at last pursues a bold and strong policy, if his Royal Highness our heir to the throne, the Prince of Prussia, succeeds in forging Germany together with the sword, for it will not be done otherwise, and setting her great and respected among our neighbours, and in securing real and lasting internal freedom, raising trade and commerce again, distributing the military burden that now presses too heavily on Prussia equally over the whole of Germany and, above all, providing bread for the poor of my people, whose representative I feel myself to be – if your party succeeds in this, well, by my oath! The honour and greatness of my fatherland are dearer to me than my political ideals, and I know how to appreciate the French republicans of 1793" (Fouché and Talleyrand?) "who afterwards voluntarily bowed before Napoleon's greatness for the sake of France; should this happen, then should my people once more do me the honour of electing me their representative, I would be one of the first deputies with a joyful heart to cry: Long live the German Empire! Long live the Hohenzollern Empire! If one is a bad Prussian with such sentiments, yes! Then I certainly do not desire to be a good Prussian."

"Gentlemen, think a little too of my wife and child at home! when you pass sentence on a man who today, through the vicissitudes of human fortunes, stands before you so deep and unhappy."

Mr. Kinkel delivered this speech at a time when twenty-six of his comrades were condemned to death and shot by the same courts martial, people who knew how to face the bullet in a very different way from Mr. Kinkel facing his judges. If, moreover, he presents himself as a thoroughly harmless man, he is perfectly right. He has only got into his party by a misunderstanding, and it would be a quite senseless cruelty if the Prussian government were to detain him any longer in the penitentiary.