"The Neue Rheinische Zeitung"

German Professorial Vileness

German Professorial Vileness

["Neue Rheinische Zeitung" No. 156, November 30, 1848]

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Cologne, November 29. The lackey nature of German professors is surpassed in its ideal by the learned gentlemen in Berlin and Halle. Before this servile spirit, the Russian serf stands ashamed. The devout Buddhist, who faithfully swallows the excrements of his Dalai Lama, hears with astonishment the legend of the Berlin-Halle Buddhists, whose prostitution before the monarchy “by the grace of God” appears to him as a fable. He believes in the reality only when he is shown the addresses of the Berlin and Halle professors to the King of Prussia, of the 24th and 21st November respectively, together with the signatures in their own hand.

“The freedom of deliberation was suspended, the lives of the deputies threatened, the dignity of the assembly, the honour of the nation violated, and the most well-meaning and just proposals to put an end to this reign of terror foundered on the resistance of those whom it served.”

With these and similar impudent lies and with the most dog-like assurances of their ancestral loyalty, 80 Berlin professors – among them Hengstenberg, Schönlein, Ehrenberg, Böckh, the two Grimms etc. – fabricate an address to the King, in which they shout their learned applause for the violent steps of the Brandenburg Ministry.

The address of 19 Halle professors is similar, but they carry the comedy so far that they also speak, by the by, of the “gravity of their profession.”

The poodle’s core of both addresses is an indescribable fury over the
refusal of taxes
. Very understandable! No more taxes – and privileged scholarship goes bankrupt. The moneybag of this money-grubbing professorial breed has only to be threatened in the remotest way, and

all of scholarship goes up in flames. Their monopoly is rooted in the monarchy “by the grace of God.” They write addresses of devotion to it, i.e., they are devoted unto death to their own monopoly. If the people win the final victory, the gentlemen, despite all the “gravity of their scholarly profession,” will quickly know how to place themselves on the side of popular sovereignty, which they now so mightily condemn. But the people will then call out to them “Too late!” and put a swift end to the whole miserable business of privileged scholarship.