I. Denunciation by Dr. Carl Marx of London against the Editor of the National-Zeitung, Dr. Zabel, of this city, for public, repeated libel perpetrated through the press. To the Royal Public Prosecutor attached to the Royal Municipal Court, His Excellency Count zur Lippe, of this city.

Following the conclusion of the well-known libel case of the former professor Carl Vogt, now of Geneva, against the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung, there appeared a pamphlet by the former entitled “Mein Prozeß gegen die Allgemeine Zeitung” [My Lawsuit against the Allgemeine Zeitung]. In connection with that lawsuit and this pamphlet, the leading article of the enclosed No. 37 of the National-Zeitung of January 22nd of this year makes a subject of discussion the political attitude of the “Allgemeine Zeitung” and, in so doing, indulges principally in a reasoning against the position and activities of individual correspondents of that paper. Embedded in this reasoning are a number of factual assertions taken from the aforementioned Vogt pamphlet. In this leading article it says, among other things, verbatim:

“Under the name of the Sulphur Gang or also the Bürstenheimer, a number of persons were known among the refugee community of 1849, who, initially scattered in Switzerland, France and England, gradually gathered in London and there revered Herr Marx as their visible chief. Political principle of these fellows was the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, and with this delusive pretence they deceived not only many of the better sort among the refugees, but also the workers from the free corps of Willich’s corps. Among the refugee community they continued the work of the ‘Rheinische Zeitung’, which in 1849 warned against any participation in the movement, just as it constantly attacked all members of Parliament, because the movement, after all, had only the Imperial Constitution as its content and not the principled dictatorship of the proletariat. A terrible discipline was exercised by the Sulphur Gang over its followers. Anyone of them who sought to secure a bourgeois livelihood in any way was, by the very fact that he strove to make himself independent, ipso facto a traitor to the revolution, whose renewed outbreak was expected at any moment and which then must have its soldiers ready to send them into the field. Discord, brawls, duels were engendered among this carefully preserved class of loafers by fabricated rumours, correspondence, etc.; one suspected the other as a spy and reactionary; there was mistrust of all towards all. One of the main occupations of the Sulphur Gang was to compromise people in the Fatherland in such a way that they had to pay money for the gang to keep the secret without further compromising them. Not one, but hundreds of letters were written to Germany to the effect that their involvement in this or that act of revolution would be denounced if a certain sum were not sent to a designated address by a specified time. According to the principle, ‘whoever is not unconditionally for us is against us’, everyone who opposed these doings was ‘ruined’, not only among the refugees, but also by means of the press. The ‘proletarians’ filled the columns of the reactionary press in Germany with their denunciations against those democrats who did not pay homage to them; they became the allies of the secret police in France and Germany.”

I. After the article has mentioned, as such a member of the Sulphur Gang, a certain Cherval, who was sentenced in the Paris Communist trial, as “a revolutionary seducer of the workers and at the same time as an ally of the secret police, as an instigator and betrayer of the secret society”, it further asserts that in a pamphlet published in 1853, I had “laid all blame for the discovery of the secret society upon the stupidity of the party of Willich-Schapper, which had been at loggerheads with my own party.” The article then designates a “notorious member of my party and one of my most servile followers”, Liebknecht, as a correspondent of the Allgemeine Zeitung, and then finally returns to the lawsuit of Vogt against that paper, mentioned at the outset. The reason for the lawsuit was, as is historically noted here, the publication in the Allgemeine Zeitung of an anonymous pamphlet “Zur Warnung” [A Warning], in which Vogt was accused of favouring Bonapartist interests and of acting for them in various ways, in particular also by attempted bribery. After Vogt — so the article continues — had filed a complaint against the Allgemeine Zeitung, “another London accomplice” (naturally of mine, or rather of my party), by the name of Biscamp, wrote to the Allgemeine Zeitung that, since the latter had first been informed of the incriminated pamphlet by the newspaper “Das Volk”, edited by him, he considered it his duty to do everything possible to furnish the editorial board with proofs of the truth of the alleged facts; and eight days later I myself offered the Allgemeine Zeitung a judicial document as proof against Vogt. This document, as the article expressly promises, was to be “spoken of another time”.

The National-Zeitung did not keep its readers waiting long for the fulfilment of this promise. The discussion announced here is to be found in the leading article “How Radical Pamphlets Are Made”, in the likewise enclosed No. 41 of January 25th of this year, which, from what has been said, presents itself as an elucidation and completion of the article in No. 37, and itself repeatedly refers back to the latter. This article, as it puts it, intends to “go through the history of the pamphlet ‘Zur Warnung’ with the aid of the documents and explanations communicated by Vogt”, after it has noted that the well-known Carl Blind is “being violently and despite his emphatic and persistent denial stamped as the author of the said pamphlet”; as to why and by whom this authorship has been wrongly foisted upon Blind is then insinuated in the following manner: There are among the refugees certain individuals who, in order to enhance their prestige, deck themselves out with the name of an association, a society, or a league. This applies especially to the party of the “proletarians” under my leadership. To this are linked the tactics and methods of these associations, or rather of these persons, and then it says verbatim:

“In this manner, in 1852, a conspiracy of the most infamous kind, involving the mass production of counterfeit paper money (see the details in Vogt), was hatched against the Swiss workers’ associations – a conspiracy which would have caused the Swiss authorities the utmost embarrassment if it had not been discovered in time. These manoeuvres began anew in 1859, and had indeed progressed so far that after the Peace of Villafranca, on the basis of an article in the Allgemeine Zeitung, a confidential inquiry was made by a South German envoy to the Federal Council, in which the recently celebrated Central Festival of the German Workers’ Educational Society was ‘given that significance which, according to the foiled intentions of the Sulphur Gang, it was meant to have’.”

It is further reported that in May of last year Biscamp founded the newspaper “Das Volk” in London, which straightway entered the lists with the well-known mockeries and denunciations of the “parliamentary democrats”, and it adds:

“Where the money came from for the freely distributed paper, the gods know; that Marx and Biscamp have no superfluous money, people know.”

I. It was in this paper, it is said, that the anonymous pamphlet “Zur Warnung” was printed and subsequently sent to the Allgemeine Zeitung. Three to 4 weeks after the appearance of the pamphlet, Blind is alleged to have contested his authorship of it in a letter to Julius Froebel; for the first time he was impudently designated as the author, as if it were a settled matter, in Biscamp’s letter to the Allgemeine Zeitung of October 20th. Then it says verbatim:

“In order to plead further for Blind’s authorship, Marx writes on October 29th to the Allgemeine Zeitung: ‘I have procured the enclosed document because Blind refused to stand by the statement which he made to me and to others.’ By the said document Marx means a testimonial by the compositor Voegele, whose signature, in a wondrous manner, is ‘certified’ by Marx and Liebknecht, and to which Liebknecht adds, just as wondrously: ‘We wanted to have our signatures attested by the magistrate (?), but were informed that it was entirely superfluous.’ The compositor Voegele states therein: that he is familiar with Blind’s handwriting from earlier manuscripts; that he himself set the first part of the pamphlet in Hollinger’s printing office, and Hollinger himself set the other. Hollinger thereupon declares on November 2nd: that it is a malicious fabrication to say that the pamphlet was printed in his printing office or that Blind is its author, and his typesetter Wiehe, who has been working for him for 11 months, concurs with this declaration. Marx, ever ready with a riposte, replies in the Allgemeine Zeitung on November 15th: ‘Hollinger’s declaration is simply ridiculous. Hollinger knows that he formally violated English law when he issued the pamphlet without stating the place of printing.’ Moreover, Marx repeatedly invokes the fact that Blind orally communicated to him the content of the pamphlet before its appearance, and that Blind, in an article in the Free Press of May 27th, wrote the same as what later stood in the pamphlet; Blind is therefore, owing to the correspondence in content and form, de prime abord, held to be the author.”

Now where does the truth lie? Blind has twice roundly declared in the Allgemeine Zeitung that he is not the author; he says this not to excuse Vogt, with whom he does not agree, but solely against the Marx-Liebknecht-Biscamp side. He declares at the same time that he has never in his life seen Biscamp; he is obviously not a member of the narrower party of Marx. It seems to us that it was not too hard for the latter to make him the scapegoat, and if the accusations against Vogt were to carry weight, they necessarily had to be traced back to a specific person who had to answer for them. The Marx party could now very easily shift the authorship of the pamphlet onto Blind, precisely because and after this Blind had expressed himself in a similar sense in conversation with Marx and in the article in the ‘Free Press’; by making use of these statements and turns of phrase of Blind, the pamphlet could be forged so that it looked like his fabrication.

By these two articles the National-Zeitung has rendered itself guilty of multiple libels against me within the meaning of § 156 of the Criminal Code. Apart from the general character of malice that manifests itself in both articles, and the clearly apparent striving to cast suspicion on my morality, my doings and dealings, and thereby to lower my honour in public opinion, the following specific facts are imputed to me as a reproach:

1. that I not only acquire, or have acquired, money in a dishonourable but even in a criminal manner.

According to the content of the article in No. 37, the party allegedly under my direction (Sulphur Gang, Bürstenheimer, proletarians, Marx party, Marx-Liebknecht-Biscamp sect, as it is named with variations in the two articles) busied itself mainly with compromising people in the Fatherland in such a way that they had to pay money in order that the gang would keep the secret without further compromising them.

"Hundreds of letters—so the article runs—were written to Germany, threatening to denounce participation in this or that act of the revolution unless a certain sum reached a specified address by a specified date."

While, therefore, actions are here imputed to the members of this party which, even if they do not constitute the offense of extortion, must still appear most reprehensible, the article in No. 41 goes further, in that it flatly asserts of this party of mine—which shortly before is specifically named as the one that in particular observed the “tactics” there described—that in 1852 it hatched a conspiracy of the most disgraceful kind, involving the massive manufacture of counterfeit paper money.

Thus the crime of coin counterfeiting is directly imputed to it.

This manoeuvre—the article continues—began anew in the year 1859. The earlier “manoeuvres” already recounted also included the massive manufacture of counterfeit paper money; thus, in 1859 as well, coin counterfeiting is alleged to have been committed, namely—as emerges from the conclusion of this sentence, which speaks of “the thwarted designs of the Schwefelbande”—once more by my party.

No impartial person can deny that everything imputed to the Schwefelbande, or whatever the party is otherwise called, is also asserted in direct relation to myself, that is, of my person. For I am from the outset presented as the “visible chief” of that band, who “in Napoleonic arrogance, brandishes the broadsword over it by virtue of his intellectual superiority”; and it goes without saying that everything emanating from the band or its members occurs under the aegis and sanction of the chief, especially of one so feared and superior; I am, in short, completely identified with the Schwefelbande, etc., so that it occasionally figures without further ado as the “Marx party.”

The acquisition of money by means of extortion and coin counterfeiting that is thereby laid at my door is then finally recalled to the reader once more in a pointed turn of phrase in article No. 41. I am suddenly linked with the paper *Volk*, edited by Biscamp, in the words:

“Whence the money for the freely distributed paper came, the gods know; that Marx and Biscamp had no surplus money, men know.”

Assuming the correctness of the latter fact, the reader is left with no alternative but the opinion that the capital necessary for the paper was procured by me and Biscamp—who is already mentioned in the first article as my accomplice—in the very same or a similar manner to that with which he has already become acquainted.

2. I and the “proletarians” supposedly under my supreme direction are accused of having denounced, in the reactionary press, those democrats who failed to pay homage to us, and of having become the allies of the secret police in France and Germany.

Finally, in article No. 41 the reproach is levelled against me: that my party, or what amounts to the same thing, I fabricated the anonymous leaflet “Zur Warnung”, but that subsequently, to the *Allgemeine Zeitung*, I not only gave out Blind as the author contrary to my better knowledge, but also attempted to prove this by a document of whose incorrect content I must therefore have been convinced.

This is the expressed view of the article, which, even by its ironical heading, betrays the intention of casting suspicion upon me in the manner indicated. Scarcely any remark is needed that all these facts, if they were true, would expose me to public hatred and contempt. For those mentioned under 1 are, at least in part, punishable acts, threatened with the loss of civic rights. A secret policeman, an ally of the secret police, is without question an object of hatred and contempt to every man, no matter what political party he belongs to; particularly when, as is supposed to apply to me in the present case, a knowledge of the democratic convictions and activities of others, obtained by chance, is exploited for extortions of money through an alliance with the secret police. As to the assertions under 2, the person who steps forward with groundless accusations against a third party (Vogt) would incur the hatred of his fellow-citizens just as much as their contempt would be certain if he lacked the courage to stand by those accusations and instead sought to shift the responsibility onto another.

But these facts are, as I hereby declare, untrue.

I might confine myself to this declaration and await from the denouncer proof of the truth of the assertions hurled against me. However difficult, by the nature of the case, the proof of a negative may be, I will nevertheless attempt to submit to the Royal State Prosecutor and to the judge hearing the case, in what follows, material which will not only be suited to convince them that all the statements concerning me in the incriminated articles are contrary to truth, but can also serve to place in the proper light the character of deliberate distortion they betray.

I. I came to London in 1849. London was the seat of the central authority of the German communist society then existing under the name “Bund der Communisten”. As early as September 1850, I, together with my friends, separated from this central authority, then led by Willich and Schapper, because it was indulging practically in revolutionism and conspiratorial machinations, while I and my friends only wished to propagate those political and social ideas which in our conviction were the correct ones. We transferred the seat of the central authority to Cologne, and carried on no further correspondence with any part of the Continent except Cologne. In the Cologne Communist Trial it was proved that this correspondence contained nothing punishable. In the spring of 1851 the arrest of individual members of the Cologne society began, and we thereupon broke off all and every connection with the Continent. I corresponded only with a friend of the prisoners, personally unknown to me, the deputy to the Frankfurt National Assembly, Bermbach, regarding their defence. In mid-November 1852, after the conclusion of the Cologne trial, I declared, with the consent of my friends, the dissolution of the “Bund der Communisten”.

In proof I submit a letter I wrote at that time to my friend Engels, dated 19 November 1852, with the postmarks of London and Manchester, which Engels has found again among his old papers.

Since that time I have belonged neither to a secret nor to a public society, and have generally kept aloof from every form of agitation.

The means for my existence have been furnished to me up to the present hour by my literary activity, which is partly of a scientific, partly of a publicist nature. As regards the latter in particular, since 1851 I have been a constant contributor to the leading English-American paper, the *New-York Tribune*, to which I supply both correspondence and leading articles. It has about 200,000 subscribers, and pays an honorarium accordingly. I have also been for several years a contributor to the *Cyclopaedia Americana*, edited by Mr.  Dana, one of the editors of the *New-York Tribune*.

I submit in proof a letter addressed to me by the editor Dana, dated New York, 8 March 1860 (with translation), from which the seriousness and truthfulness of my activity in this field simultaneously emerge.

The only German paper for which I wrote during my exile was the *Neue Oderzeitung*; the correspondence lasted roughly from January to July 1855.

But neither I, nor any person who has been in closer contact with me, has ever written a single line, privately or in the press, to Germany or anywhere else, which contained an extortion of money, a threat, or a denunciation; and although the democratic emigration for years systematically filled the German press with silly tittle-tattle against me, I never considered it worth the trouble to reply. That in particular the *Neue Oderzeitung* contained no threats and denunciations on my part, aye, that the democratic emigration was never even mentioned in it, will be proved by its issues from the period specified above, and will also be testified to by its editors at the time, Dr. Eisner and Dr. Stein of Breslau.

The denouncer will therefore be just as little able to prove the extortions allegedly originating from me and my “party”, as my and my party’s connections with the secret police.

The German Workers’ Educational Society still existing in London, on the occasion of the celebration of its anniversary on 6 February 1860, has unanimously declared that the exploitation of the German workers, and in particular of this society, imputed to me by Vogt (and reproduced by the *Nat. Zeit.*) is an unfounded lie.

Proof: the appended affidavit (affirmation before the justice of the peace) of the president of the society, Georg Müller.

I remark in this connection that this society is the only one to which, besides the “Bund der Communisten”, I have belonged since my arrival in London, and that I withdrew from it in mid-September 1850, giving public notice of my withdrawal in various German papers.

II. Still less have I ever stood, or do I stand, in connection with any society, or even any individual person, in Switzerland. Despite this, the *Nat. Zeit.* makes me the “visible chief” of the Geneva Schwefelbande or Bürstenheimer and completely identifies me with its members and their doings. What a gross calumny lies herein will be seen from what follows:

I. “Schwefelbande” was the name of a society of young German refugees who, after the conclusion of the revolutionary movements in southern Germany in 1848 and 1849, came together by chance in Geneva. It originally consisted of the following persons: Eduard Rosenblum, stud. med.; Max Cohnheim, commercial clerk; Korn, chemist and apothecary; Becker, engineer; Borkheim, student. It had neither political, nor social, nor any serious aims whatsoever; it was in the literal sense of the word a society of jolly fellows, who lodged in the Café de l’Europe in Geneva, spent their time exclusively in tippling bouts, and sought by all manner of wild and wanton pranks to forget the unwonted hardships of exile. In the middle of 1850 the members of this society, with the exception of Korn, were expelled from Geneva and scattered to the four winds.

I have never been either leader or member of this band; indeed, with the exception of Becker, whom I had once seen at the Democratic Congress in Cologne in 1848, I did not know a single one of its members, and I had until the latest date no knowledge at all of the existence of this society. The foregoing particulars I owe solely to the above-named Borkheim, who is at present the manager of a large business in the City of London (44, Mark Lane), and whose acquaintance I only made a short time ago.

With regard to the “Bürstenheimer”, the circumstances are as follows. At the same time that the “Sulphur Gang” flourished in Geneva, there existed there a workers’ educational association to which various refugees also belonged. In particular, a certain Abt, who is at present secretary to the Bishop of Fribourg, got into private quarrels with one of them, Dr Dronke — now a merchant in Liverpool. Abt was summoned before the association, and there was violently attacked, notably by a brush-maker, Kamm, and his worker Sauernheimer. Abt revenged himself for this by a lampoon in which he gave the association the derisive name “Bürstenheimer”, by putting together the first syllables of the trade of his enemy Kamm and the last syllables of the name Sauernheimer.

Neither with myself nor with the London communist society has this association ever been in any connection whatever, and of its former members the only person with whom I have been on closer acquaintance since my expulsion from Prussia (1849) is Dr Dronke, already mentioned above.

I. Consequently, it is untrue:

1. that the “Sulphur Gang” and the “Bürstenheimer” are identical amongst themselves;

2. that these societies are identical with the communist parties which existed in London, or that they have ever been in even the remotest connection with them;

3. that these societies were under my direction, or that I ever belonged to them, and that as their chief I participated in the criminal purposes indicated in the National-Zeitung — which purposes, by the way, according to the information given above, the said Geneva societies did not pursue.

III. The article in No. 37 of the National-Zeitung mentions Cherval, who was convicted in the communist trial, in a manner which plainly lets it be seen that this person was an ally of myself and “my party”.

Yet everyone could and must have known the direct opposite from my pamphlet “Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne”, cited by him, as well as from the detailed reports which the most important German newspapers contained at that time about this trial — namely, that it was I who, during the trial, through the intermediary of the acting defence counsel, denounced Cherval as an ally of the police; that he was unmasked as such also in the trial; and that, according to the testimony of Police Director Stieber, Cherval belonged as early as 1851 to a society hostile to me. The facts are as follows:

Cherval’s real name is Kraemer. In the year 1847 he was introduced by a worker into the German workers’ society “League” in London. Hence his acquaintance with Carl Schapper. Subsequently he went to Germany, where, without Schapper or the society knowing it, he acted as an agent of the Prussian secret police. In 1851 he is found in Paris, corresponded as before with the “League” in London, but was at the same time in the service of the French secret police. At that time he was convicted in the Paris communist trial. However, he escaped very soon from prison, went back to London in autumn 1852, visited the “workers’ educational association” existing there under Willich and Schapper, but was publicly expelled from it. From there he went to Geneva, and there played the Englishman under the once again false name “Nugent”. There he sought to found a secret league with the declared aim: to destroy the credit of states through the reproduction of government bonds and with the money gained thereby to set a European revolution in motion. However, he was discovered and disappeared before the Geneva police could lay hands on him.

I have, as I hardly need to assure, never been in contact with this wretched subject, nor has he ever belonged to any party to which I counted myself. But the merit is due to me of having first recognised and unmasked him. His double character as a Prussian and Bonapartist police spy was fully proven in the proceedings of the Cologne communist trial. This succeeded in particular through the communications which I caused to be sent to the lawyers there, especially to the lawyer Schneider II. The latter will be able to testify that in a letter which I wrote already on 28th October 1852 to Friedrich Engels in Manchester, I designated Cherval as a police spy. This conviction of mine rested on his miraculous flight from the Paris prison immediately after his condemnation, on his undisturbed residence in London, although he was a common criminal, and on a note communicated to me by the former minister or deputy under Louis-Philippe, M. de Rémusat, that Cherval had offered himself to him as an agent for the Princes of Orléans.

In my “Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial” I have accordingly also dealt with Cherval as he deserved.

My statements regarding his relationship to the Workers’ Association and my acquaintance with him are confirmed by the enclosed affidavit of Carl Schapper. About his doings in Geneva as the Englishman Nugent, the merchant Johann Philipp Becker of Paris, 22 rue Tessaint à la Chapelle, would be able to give sufficient information.

Thus the insinuation of the National-Zeitung concerning my connection with Cherval, with the massive manufacture of counterfeit paper money in Switzerland and with the secret police is characterised as deliberate, or at least as extremely negligent, slander.

The same applies, however,

Writ against the editor of the “National-Zeitung”

IV. Of my alleged relations with Biscamp and the “Volk” edited by him.

In 1859 Bonapartist intrigues, especially also against Germany, gained the upper hand among the refugees. I and many others, who otherwise did not agree with my views, deemed it appropriate to counteract these intrigues. For this purpose Biscamp founded the “Volk” in the spring of 1859 — a paper from which I, by the way, originally stood as aloof as from the publisher himself.

Vogt himself cites in his book (page 41 of the documents which form the appendix) the following editorial note from “Das Volk” of 11th June 1859: “We have the satisfaction of being able to communicate to our readers that K. Marx, Fr. Engels, Ferd. Freiligrath, W. Wolff, H. Heise are resolved to lend their support to the ‘Volk’.”

Thus, until the middle of June I had given no support at all to the paper, and its affairs up to that time do not concern me. Biscamp himself declared in the supplement to No. 46 of the Allgemeine Zeitung of 15th February 1860:

“My entire political connection with Mr Marx is limited to a few journalistic contributions which he supplied for the ‘Volk’ founded by me.”

As regards in particular the financial side of the undertaking, the following is to be noted: Biscamp, who at that time lived from giving lessons in London, always edited the paper free of charge. Likewise all contributors gave their contributions free of charge from the first appearance of the paper until its demise. The only expenses were the printing and dispatch costs — which, to be sure, always considerably exceeded the yield of the paper. Before I collaborated on it, the deficits were covered by public collections among the Germans in London. Later I procured £25 sterling, which were made up exclusively partly from my own means, partly from contributions of the medical practitioners, Dr Borchardt, Dr Gumpert, Dr Heckscher, the teacher Wilhelm Wolff and the merchant Friedrich Engels, all of Manchester.

I have substantiated the correctness of these statements in my enclosed affidavit dated Manchester, 29th February 1860.

At the winding-up of the paper there was, I believe, a debt of £8 sterling, for which Biscamp is responsible, and for which he issued a promissory note to the printer Hollinger.

Thus the “Volk” stands outside any connection with the secret police and with extortion and coin counterfeiting by “me and my party”, and not only the gods but also human beings know where the money for the paper came from, after they have learned that I and other people did after all have some “superfluous” and even “honestly acquired” money, which they gladly sacrificed to the anti-Bonapartist purpose of the paper.

As for finally

V. The leaflet “A Warning” and my correspondence with the Allgemeine Zeitung in this matter, the following remarks may find a place here:

On 9th May 1859, on the occasion of a public meeting held by David Urquhart, Carl Blind told me all the accusations against Vogt which were later repeated in the leaflet “A Warning” (— it appeared only in the following June —) and assured me that the proofs for them were in his hands.

I note here that I and my friends were indeed imbued with the necessity of a free and independent Italy — for which I had already fought in the “Neue Rheinische Zeitung” edited by me in 1848. On the other hand, we regarded the Italian [war] then begun by Napoleon, in secret understanding with Russia, as a pretext to ruin Germany. It has already been said above that this was precisely the chief purpose which brought into life the “Volk” founded by Biscamp.

I attached no great weight then to Blind’s communications, because I had anyway long ago from other reasons gained the conviction that Vogt was a Bonapartist agent.

A few days later Biscamp, with whom until then I had stood in no personal or political connection at all, was introduced to me by Liebknecht. He requested literary and pecuniary support for the “Volk”. I declined this for the time being. During the conversation I told Liebknecht, in Biscamp’s presence, Blind’s communications about Vogt — without any intention, by the way. Biscamp used these communications for an article contained in No. 2 of his “Volk” of 14th May 1859, and supplied with additions belonging to him alone, under the heading “The Imperial Regent (Vogt) as Traitor”.

Later, around the middle of June, at a time when I was in Manchester, Liebknecht received from Hollinger himself in his printing works the proof sheet of the leaflet “A Warning”, the manuscript of which, as he learned from the compositor Voegele, Blind had given to Hollinger for printing. Liebknecht immediately recognised it as the reproduction of the communications about Vogt made to me orally by Blind. Under these circumstances he, like any other impartial person, was fully justified in holding Blind to be its author. Liebknecht, who had long been a correspondent of the Allgemeine Zeitung, therefore sent the proof sheet to the latter; the Allgemeine Zeitung printed it, and thereby incurred Vogt’s libel suit.

Of this step (of which I, by the way, since during my absence from London

happened, knew nothing) Liebknecht was all the more justified, as he knew that Blind, Vogt’s accuser, had been invited by Vogt himself to take part in the projected Bonapartist propaganda, and it appeared to be an imperative duty to warn, in public papers as widely circulated as the Allgemeine Zeitung, against a man who had undertaken to pay a premium for all articles favourable to Bonapartist plans in the German press. That these charges against Vogt were well-founded is shown by his own admission in his book (“Letter to Dr. Löning, Dokumente p. 36”), and likewise the National-Zeitung, in the incriminated article in No. 41, admits this in essence, albeit in a very tortuous way. Similarly, Blind’s own statements reproduced in the same article, hedged about as they are, as well as the reasoning which the National-Zeitung itself attaches to Blind’s conduct, clearly show that Blind really only made such communications about Vogt as are reproduced in the leaflet “Zur Warnung”.

After Vogt had instituted his action against the Allgemeine Zeitung, its editorial board turned to Liebknecht and asked him for proofs. Liebknecht naturally turned to me, and I referred him to Blind, even accompanying him, at his wish, to Blind’s lodgings. We did not find him there, and he left two letters addressed to him by Liebknecht unanswered for weeks. At last he replied in the accompanying letter of 8 September, stating that he did not wish to meddle in this “matter entirely alien to him, in which he had no part whatever,” and that he “would speak orally on some later occasional about remarks that had occurred in private conversation.”

On the basis of my communications, Liebknecht had arranged for the reprint of the leaflet “Zur Warnung” in the Allgemeine Zeitung; I was therefore morally obliged to procure for him also the proofs of the correctness of its contents. The proof lay in Blind’s testimony; but Blind would not speak. I now recalled having read in the London Free Press of 27 May an anonymous article “The Grand Duke Constantine to be King of Hungary”, which contained the essential content of the leaflet “Zur Warnung” and of the statements made orally by Blind against me, and which I had already at that time recognised by its style and content as originating from Blind. I therefore went with Liebknecht to the responsible editor of the Free Press, Mr Collet, who thereupon also identified Blind as the author of that article.

Besides this, the compositor Voegele, employed in Hollinger’s printing office, gave me the testimony subsequently published in the Allgemeine Zeitung, reading as follows: “I hereby declare in the presence of Dr. Carl Marx and Wilhelm Liebknecht that the leaflet published anonymously and without indication of the place of printing under the title ‘Zur Warnung’, which was reprinted in No. 7 of Der Volk: 1, was set and printed in the printing office of Fidelio Hollinger, I myself setting one part of the manuscript, Hollinger the other; 2, that it was written in the handwriting of Carl Blind, which is known to me from manuscripts of Carl Blind for the Hermann and from anonymous leaflets written by Carl Blind, which bear the pretended place of printing Frankfurt am Main but were in fact set and printed at F. Hollinger’s; 3, that F. Hollinger himself indicated Carl Blind to me as the author of the leaflet ‘Zur Warnung’ directed against Prof. Vogt. August Voegele, compositor.”

Liebknecht now informed Blind that he had these proofs in his hands and called upon him to give the information at his disposal. But neither before nor during the court proceedings in Augsburg did Blind break his silence, which was obviously systematic.

Under these circumstances I declared to Liebknecht that I was ready, if the Allgemeine Zeitung asked me in writing, to forward to it the declaration of the compositor Voegele which was in my possession. The written request was made in the two accompanying letters from the Editor Orges to me, and I complied with it by means of the following letter, which was also published by the Allgemeine Zeitung – with which, moreover, I have otherwise never had the slightest connection:

“Dear Sir! As long as I had a hand in the German press I attacked the Allgemeine Zeitung, and the Allgemeine Zeitung attacked me. This naturally does not in the least prevent me from being of assistance to the Allgemeine Zeitung, in so far as I can, in a case where, in my conviction, it has fulfilled the first duty of the press, that of denouncing humbugs. The enclosed document would be a judicial document here in London. I do not know whether it is so in Augsburg. I procured the said document because Blind refused to stand by statements which he had made to me and to others, which I repeated to Liebknecht, and which allowed him no doubts as to the denunciation contained in the anonymous pamphlet.”

The reasons for my conduct emerge from what has been said, and I may expect that it will appear to anyone as honourable and in accordance with duty. The main thing for me in this, however, was to confront Vogt and his accusers with one another upon a terrain where the matter had to come to a decision, and for this it was essential to draw the real author and the publisher of the leaflet out of their hiding-place.

This also succeeded perfectly, as the further history of this dispute proves.

For in response to the statement made by the compositor Voegele, cited above, there appeared in No. 313 of the Allgemeine Zeitung and in the Kölnische Zeitung the following letter from Blind of 3 November 1859:

“In refutation of the assertion that I am the author of the leaflet ‘Zur Warnung’ I publish the following documents. This only as a defence, not as a justification of Vogt, whose conduct I and my friends of the republican party, after all that has become known to us for half a year, are bound to condemn unconditionally. I can testify to the correctness of the communication made by Herr Julius Froebel that offers of money did indeed arrive here from Vogt to persuade local Germans to influence the native press in the well-known direction.”

The documents appended to this letter read:

a, “I hereby declare the assertion of the compositor Voegele contained in No. 300 of the Allgemeine Zeitung, that the leaflet ‘Zur Warnung’ mentioned there was printed in my printing office, or that Herr Carl Blind is its originator, to be a wicked fabrication. Fidelio Hollinger, 3 Litchfield Street, Soho, London, 2 Nov. 59.”

b, “The undersigned, who has been living and working at No. 3 Litchfield Street for 11 months, for his part gives witness to the correctness of the statement of Herr Hollinger. London, 2 Nov. 1859. J. F. Wiehe, compositor.”

Against this I published in the Allgemeine Zeitung the declaration printed in the enclosure (cutting from the supplement to the Allgemeine Zeitung of 21 Nov. 59).

Blind made a rejoinder to this declaration of mine in the Allgemeine Zeitung of 11 Dec. 1859, which the editorial board essentially summed up as follows: “While repeatedly referring to the documents signed by the printing-office proprietor Herr Hollinger and the compositor Wiehe, I declare for the last time that the insinuation—now appearing only as an innuendo—that I am the author of the oft-mentioned leaflet is a bald untruth. In the more recent statements about me there occur the crudest distortions. Once more: this only as a defence against the Marx-Biscamp-Liebknecht side, not as a justification of Vogt, against whom I have already spoken out earlier.”

At the same time the editorial board declared the matter closed in its columns.

Thereupon appeared Vogt’s book and the National-Zeitung, which aped it, in which the authorship of the leaflet was imputed to me, or to my party respectively.

In consequence, I published the English circular to the Editor of the Free Press, appended here with a translation. My purpose in this was to provoke Blind to bring an action for libel against me, and thus to gain the opportunity to procure in London the legal proofs as to the printing and authorship of the leaflet, and to compel its real author to lay before an English court his convicting pieces against Vogt.

This indeed did not happen; on the contrary, Blind repeated in a declaration in the supplement to No. 44 of the Allgemeine Zeitung of 13 February 1860 that he was not the author of the leaflet. But at the same time he came out in this declaration with some arguments to the effect that Vogt was an agent of Bonapartist propaganda in London.

In the meantime I had procured the two affidavits of Voegele and of Wiehe, appended here in the original (with translation). By these sworn statutory declarations it is proved:

1, that my assertion, that the leaflet was printed in Hollinger’s composing room and in Blind’s handwriting, was true.

2, that the testimonies of Hollinger and Wiehe brought forward by Blind were false.

3, that Blind and Hollinger had entered into a conspiracy, criminally punishable according to English law, to procure false testimonies against me and to defame me in public opinion as a liar and slanderer.

I spared both out of consideration for Blind’s family. However, I sent copies of these two affidavits to several émigrés who were in contact with Blind. The immediate consequence was the declaration published in the attached issue of the Daily Telegraph of 15 February 1860 under the title “The Vogt Pamphlet” by a Dr. med. Charles Schaible of London, in which the same avows himself to be the author of the leaflet, and takes upon himself the responsibility for the accusations contained in it against Vogt.

From the foregoing truthful representation of the facts and the proofs brought forward for it, it follows:

1, that I, or my party, or anyone else who was in contact with me, was not the author of the leaflet.

2, that I therefore did not “forge” it on the basis of Blind’s statements and did not pass it off as his fabrication against better knowledge.

3, that the content of the document sent by me to the Allgemeine Zeitung—according to which it was printed in Hollinger’s printing office on Blind’s instigation, and according to which the manuscript was in Blind’s handwriting—was absolutely true, whereas Blind’s contrary documents were absolutely false.

The circumstance that a third party is the actual author naturally cannot alter the truth of these facts.

At this point, therefore, the fact of libel against the National-Zeitung is objectively proved to the full.

How very directly it also intended to slander me is shown by the fact that from my reply to Blind’s first declaration in the Allgemeine Zeitung it only takes up: “Hollinger’s declaration is simply laughable; Hollinger knows that he formally violated English law when he issued the leaflet without indication of the place of printing.”

On the other hand, it entirely omits the passage immediately following, which contains a striking fact, namely:

“By chance the reprint in Der Volk was pulled from the very typesetting of the leaflet, still standing in Hollinger’s printing office. Thus, even without witness testimony, by simple comparison between the leaflet and its reprint in Der Volk the proof could be furnished in court that the former had come forth from the printing office of F. Hollinger.”

Having, in the foregoing, I believe, demonstrated the premises of the libels perpetrated against me by the National-Zeitung, I cannot refrain from also drawing attention to the particular occasion I have for lodging a criminal complaint against this paper.

In the London daily paper the *Daily Telegraph* of 6 February 1860, there appeared an article two columns long under the heading: “The Journalistic Auxiliaries of Austria” (“Die journalistischen Helfershelfer Oesterreichs”). I enclose the relevant issue.

This article is formally dated Frankfurt am Main, but, as even the most superficial comparison shows, it is in part a mere paraphrase, in part a literal translation of the two incriminated articles of the National-Zeitung. It makes me and my friends, just like the National-Zeitung, “allies of the secret police”; and the whole passage about the Schwefelbande, the threatening and blackmailing letters, my connection with Cherval’s coinage forgery in Switzerland, etc., is translated word for word from the National-Zeitung.

I immediately wrote to the editor of the *Daily Telegraph* and demanded, under threat of an action for libel (Verleumdungsklage), retraction and a declaration of honour. He replied: he had sent my letter to his correspondent in Germany, and would await his answer. This answer appeared in the enclosed issue of the *Daily Telegraph* of 13 February 1860 (under the rubric Germany), and reads, in literal translation, as follows:

> Frankfurt am Main, 8 February.
>
> I shall be brief in my dispatch of the remarks which Dr. Marx has addressed to you in reply to one of my reports. He has simply misaddressed his letter. Had the learned gentleman addressed his remarks to Dr. Vogt himself, or to one of the hundred German editors who cited Dr. Vogt’s book, his conduct would have corresponded to what the case seems to require. But as it is, Dr. Marx leaves unrefuted the numerous charges raised against him in his own fatherland, and prefers to vent his anger by an attack on the only English paper that gave space in its columns to a statement which has been printed and reprinted in almost every German town of any size. The learned gentleman seems entirely to forget the fact that he has not the slightest right to complain of the publication of a piece of unpleasant news in an English paper, so long as he does not deem it fitting to call to account the originators and disseminators of the mischief in his own fatherland. I close these lines by declaring my readiness to admit that the statements contained in the communication in question are untrue, as soon as Dr. Marx shall have convinced the world of their falsehood. If he is in possession of the proofs required for such a purpose, nothing could be easier for him than to achieve so desirable a thing. There are at least 50 towns at his disposal where he can institute legal proceedings and bring the editors to due punishment. If he does not choose to take this course, it is not the duty of an English correspondent to retract what he has not vouched for, but merely repeated on the unquestioned authority of the most respectable sources.

This letter needs no comment. It is the definitive answer of the *Daily Telegraph*, which refuses me any satisfaction until I have called to account the sources of its correspondent, his “most respectable”—which, as cannot be doubted after the above statements—sole source, the National-Zeitung.

The article in the *Daily Telegraph* has caused an immense scandal in London; I owe it to the National-Zeitung. I owe it to my honour, my civil existence, my family to cast off the burden and disgrace of immorality, which has been heaped upon me mendaciously and maliciously, by the judicial punishment of my libellers, and I therefore move, on the basis of §§ 156, 163 of the Criminal Code and Article 537 of the Press Law of 22nd 1851:

That the accused Dr. Zabel, as the responsible editor of the National-Zeitung, be brought to investigation and punishment for the repeated libels perpetrated against me in the two leading articles of No. 37 of 22nd and No. 41 of 25 January 1860, and that I be granted the right to publish the resulting judgement through the National-Zeitung and the *Daily Telegraph* appearing in London at the expense of the accused. I have empowered the undersigned attorney, by the enclosed power of attorney, to lodge the criminal information and formulate the criminal complaint, and he will also be ready to furnish any further information that may be required on the basis of the information given him by me.

Berlin, 15 April 1860

Dr. Carl Marx