"Neue Rheinische Zeitung" – Lassalle

[The Division of Labour at the “Kölnische Zeitung”]
Contents
Democratic Panslavism

Page numbers refer to: Karl Marx – Friedrich Engels – Werke, Volume 6, pp. 267-269

Lassalle

[“Neue Rheinische Zeitung” No. 219, 11 February 1849]

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Cologne, 10 February. We promised yesterday <see “The Trial of the Refusal to Pay Taxes”, p. 259> to come back to Lassalle. Lassalle has now been sitting in Düsseldorf prison for 11 weeks, and only now has the investigation into simple, entirely undisputed facts been concluded; only now does the examining board decide. They have happily managed to drag the matter beyond the forthcoming Düsseldorf assizes—if the examining board and the indictment senate merely keep to the maximum statutory period—and to gladden the prisoner with a further three months of remand detention.

And what remand detention!

It is known that a deputation of the various democratic societies of Cologne recently presented to the General Procurator Nicolovius an address signed by a few thousand citizens, in which request was made 1. for the speeding up of the investigation against the Düsseldorf political prisoners, 2. for decent treatment of the same during remand detention. Herr Nicolovius promised to give these reasonable demands the greatest possible consideration.

But how little they care in Düsseldorf prison for the Herr General Procurator, for the laws and for the most ordinary decencies is shown by the following example:

A prison warder permitted himself on 5 January a few brutalities against Lassalle and crowned them by going to the director and denouncing Lassalle for having brutalised him.

An hour later the director, accompanied by the examining magistrate, enters Lassalle’s room without greeting him and calls him to account for this.

Lassalle interrupts him with the remark that among educated people it is customary to greet one another on entering a person’s room, and that he is entitled to demand this courtesy from the director.

That was too much for the Herr Director. In a rage he goes up to Lassalle, forces him back to the window and shouts at the top of his voice and with gesticulations of all his limbs:

“Listen, here you are my prisoner and nothing more, you have to submit to the house rules, and if you don’t like it I’ll have you thrown into the cachot, and something worse can happen to you!”

At this Lassalle likewise became heated and declared to the director: he had no right to punish him according to the house rules, since he was a remand prisoner; loud shouting was no use and proved nothing; even if this building was a prison, this was his room, and when the director (pointing with his finger) entered here in his place, he had to greet him.

Now the director lost all self-control. He pressed close up to Lassalle, drew back his arm wide and shouted:

“Don’t gesticulate with your finger, or I’ll smack you in the face with my own hand, so that …”

Lassalle immediately called upon the examining magistrate as witness to this unheard-of maltreatment and placed himself under his protection. The examining magistrate now tried to calm the director, but only succeeded after many repeated offers of slaps in the face.

After this edifying scene, Lassalle applied to the State Procurator v. Ammon with the request that proceedings be instituted against the director, Herr Morret. For the director’s acts of violence constitute not merely maltreatment and a grave insult, but also an exceeding of his official powers.

Herr v. Ammon replied that investigations into the exceeding of official powers on the part of prison officers could not be initiated without the prior authorisation of the administrative authority, and referred Lassalle to the government. In this he relied on some old cabinet order of 1844.

Article 95 of the octroyed so-called constitution declares:

“No prior authorisation of the authorities is necessary to take legal proceedings against public civil or military officials for infringements of the law committed through the exceeding of their official powers.”

Article 108 of the same charter expressly abrogates all laws conflicting with it. But in vain did Lassalle invoke Article 95 before the State Procurator; Herr v. Ammon insisted on his conflict of competence and dismissed him with the pleasant remark: “You seem to forget that you are a remand prisoner!”

Were we not right to say that the so-called constitution was octroyed only against us, not against the gentlemen officials?

So offers of slaps in the face, the cachot and corporal punishment—for what was the “worse thing” that Herr Morret reserved for himself—that is the “decent treatment” that was promised to the deputation for the political prisoners!

We note in passing that, according to the law, remand prisons are to be kept entirely separate from convict prisons and the prisoners of the former are to be under a completely different regime from the convicts. But in Düsseldorf there is no special remand prison, and the remand prisoners, after being illegally locked up in the convict prison, are in addition to be subjected to the house rules for convicts, to be thrown into the cachot and treated to floggings! So that this praiseworthy object may be achieved with Lassalle, the P. P. Morret has convened a disciplinary commission which is to make Herr Lassalle partake of the above-mentioned pleasantries. And the gentlemen examining magistrates and procurators seem to let all this pass calmly or entrench themselves behind a conflict of competence!

Lassalle has addressed himself to the General Procurator. For our part, we publish the whole affair so that public opinion may support the prisoner’s complaint.

We hear, by the way, that Lassalle has at last been released from solitary confinement and at least locked up together with Cantador in the same prison.