Cologne, May 9. It seems that in the last days of its existence and of 
the existence of the Prussian state, the Government of Herr von 
Hohenzollern wants once again to justify to the full the ancient 
reputation of the Prussian and Hohenzollern name. 

Who does not know the description in Heine’s poem: 

A child with a head as large as a pumpkin, 

With the drooping moustache of a grey-haired bumpkin, 
With spider-like arms, lengthy but strong, 

With the paunch of a giant but guts not so long, 

A changeling....* 

Who does not know the treacheries, the perfidies, the legacy- 
hunting, by means of which that family of corporals which bears the 
name of Hohenzollern rose to greatness? 

It is well known that the so-called “Great Elector” ” (as though any 
“Elector” could ever be “great”!) perpetrated the first betrayal of 
Poland when he, Poland’s ally against Sweden, suddenly went over to 
the side of the Swedes in order to be able to plunder Poland more 
thoroughly by the Peace of Oliva.??’ 

People are well acquainted with the absurd figure of Frederick I 
and the brutal coarseness of Frederick William II. 

It is well known that Frederick II, inventor of patriarchal 
despotism, the friend of Enlightenment with the help of flogging, 
sold his country by auction to the highest bidders among French 
entrepreneurs; it is well known that he allied himself with Russia and 

Austria in order to carry out the rape of Poland,*” an act which still 
today, after the revolution of 1848, remains a permanent blot on 
German history. 

It is well known that Frederick William II helped to accomplish the 
rape of Poland and that he gave away the stolen Polish national and 
church estates to his courtiers. 

It is well known that in 1792 he entered into a coalition with 
Austria and England to suppress the glorious French Revolution and 
invaded France; it is likewise well known that his “glorious army” 
was most ignominiously driven out of France. 

It is well known that he then left his allies in the lurch and 
hastened to conclude a peace with the French Republic.*” 

It is well known that, while pretending to be enthusiastically in 
favour of the legitimate King of France and Navarre,’ he bought the 
crown jewels of this same king for a song from the French Republic 
and thus profited from the misfortune of his “dear brother”. 

It is well known that he, whose whole life was a typical 
Hohenzollern mixture of opulence and mysticism, senile lascivious- 
ness and infantile superstition, trampled on the free expression of 
opinions by means of the Bischoffswerder edicts.**° 

It is well known that his successor, Frederick William III, the 
“Just”, betrayed his old allies to Napoleon in exchange for Hanover, 
thrown to him as a bait. 

It is well known that immediately after this he betrayed Napoleon 
to these same former allies, when being in the pay of England and 
Russia he attacked the French Revolution embodied in the person of 
Napoleon. 

It is well known what the result of this attack was: the 
unprecedented defeat of the “glorious army” at Jena,**' the sudden 
outbreak of a moral sickness of the whole Prussian body politic, a 
series of acts of treachery, baseness and sycophancy on the part of 
Prussian officials from which Napoleon and his generals turned 
away in disgust. 

It is well known that in 1813 Frederick William III, by fine words 
and magnificent promises, actually induced the Prussian people to 
believe that they were fighting a “war of liberation” against the 
French, although it was solely a matter of suppressing the French 
Revolution and restoring the old rule by the grace of God.*”” 

It is well known that the fine promises were forgotten as soon as 
the Holy Alliance made its triumphant entry into Paris on March 30, 
1814. 

It is well known that at the time of Napoleon’s return from Elba, 
the enthusiasm of the German people had already cooled down 
again to such an extent that the Hohenzollern had to try to revive 
their flagging zeal by the promise of a Constitution (the Edict of May 
99, 1815—four weeks before the battle of Waterloo).>” 

People recall the promises contained in the Act of Federation and 
the Vienna concluding document: freedom of the press, a Constitu- 
tion etc.°** 

It is well known how the “just” Hohenzollern kept his word. The 
Holy Alliance and congresses for the suppression of nations, 
Carlsbad decisions, censorship, police despotism, rule of the nobility, 
arbitrary bureaucratic rule, high-handed administration of justice by 
ministerial orders, persecution of demagogues, mass sentences, 
squandering of financial resources, and—no Constitution at all.°* 

It is well known that in 1820 the people were given a guarantee 
that taxes and state debts would not be increased, and how the 
Hohenzollern kept his word: by transforming the Overseas Trading 
Company into a secret loan bank for the state.**° 

It is well known how the Hohenzollern responded to the appeal of 
the French people during the July revolution: by massing troops on 
the frontier, by suppressing his own people, by crushing the 
movement in the smaller German states, and by the final enslave- 
ment of these states under the knout of the Holy Alliance. 

It is well known that this same Hohenzollern violated neutrality 
during the Russo-Polish war**’ by allowing the Russians to pass 
through his territory and thus to attack the Poles from the rear, by 
putting the Prussian arsenals and depots at the disposal of the 
Russians, and by affording every defeated Russian corps a safe 
refuge in Prussia. 

It is well known that all the efforts of the Hohenzollern 
subordinate knyaz, in unison with the aims of the Holy Alliance, were 
directed towards strengthening the rule of the nobility, the 
bureaucracy and the army, and crushing by brute force all freedom 
of speech, all influence on the Government exerted by the “limited 
understanding of the subject” **? and moreover not only in Prussia 
but in the rest of Germany as well. 

It is well known that there seldom has been a reign in which such 
praiseworthy intentions were implemented by more brutal and 
violent means than that of Frederick William III, particularly in 
1815-40. Never and nowhere have there been so many arrests and 
sentences, never were the fortresses so filled with political prisoners, 
as under this “just” ruler. Moreover, it should be borne in mind 
what innocent simpletons these demagogues were. 

Ought we to speak also of the Hohenzollern’* who, according to the 
monk of Lehnin, “will be the last of his tribe”?**? Ought we to speak 
about the rebirth of Christian-Germanic grandeur, about the 
emergence of ghastly financial distress, about the Order of the Swan, 
and about the supreme court for censorship, about the United Diet 
and the General Synod, about the “scrap of paper”’,**° about the vain 
attempts to borrow money, and all the other achievements of the 
glorious epoch of 1840-48? Ought we to prove, by referring to 
Hegel, why precisely it will have to be a comedian who closes the 
series of Hohenzollerns?**! 

It will not be necessary. The data given suffice for a full 
characterisation of the Hohenzollern Prussian name. True, there 
was a moment when the splendour of this name was dimmed, but 
since the pleiad of Manteuffel and Co.” surrounds the crown, the old 
grandeur has been revived. Once again, as formerly, Prussia is a 
vice-regal province under Russian supremacy; once again the 
Hohenzollern is a subordinate knyaz of the autocrat of all the Russias, 
and superior knyaz over all the little boyars of Saxony, Bavaria, 
Hessen-Homburg, Waldeck etc., once again the limited understand- 
ing of the subject is reinstated in its old right, that of obeying orders. 
“My glorious army”, as long as the orthodox Tsar‘ himself is not 
making use of it, is allowed to establish in Saxony, Baden, Hessen, 
and the Palatinate. the order which has prevailed for eighteen years 
in Warsaw, and in its own country and in Austria it is permitted to 
glue together the pieces of the shattered crowns with the blood of the 
subjects. We care as little about the word given earlier in a moment 
of fear and distress as did our deceased forefathers, and as soon as 
we have set our house in order we shall march with bands playing 
and banners flying against France and we shall conquer the land 
where the vines of Champagne grow, and we shall destroy the great 
Babylon, the mother of all sin! 

Such are the plans of our august rulers; such is the safe harbour 
towards which our noble Hohenzollern is steering. Hence the ever 
more frequent dictates and coups d’état; hence the repeated kicks 
for the cowardly Frankfurt Assembly; hence the states of siege, 
arrests and persecutions; hence the intervention of the Prussian 
soldiery in Dresden and South Germany. 

But there exists another power, to which, it is true, the gentlemen 
from Sans-Souci pay little heed, but which will nevertheless interpose 

its word like a clap of thunder. That power is the people, the people 
who, in Paris and on the Rhine, in Silesia and in Austria, in furious 
anger await the moment for the uprising, and who—who knows 
how soon — will give their due deserts to all the Hohenzollerns, and 
all the superior and inferior knyazes.