In his evidence during the sitting on October 27 Police Inspector 
Junkermann of Crefeld said that 

“he confiscated a parcel containing copies of the Red Catechism”; it was addressed 
to the waiter in an inn in Crefeld and bore a Dusseldorf post mark. It contained also 
an accompanying letter which was unsigned. It has not been possible to identify the 
sender.” “As the prosecution has pointed out, the accompanying letter appeared to be 
written in Marx's hand.” 

In the sitting on October 28 the expert (???) Renard discovered 
that the letter was in fact in Marx’s handwriting. This accompanying 
letter said: 

“Citizen! As we have complete confidence in you, we herewith present you with 
50 copies of the Red. Your task is to push them under the doors of citizens— prefera- 
bly workers—who are known to sympathise with the Revolution, on Saturday, June 5, 
at eleven o'clock at night. We are definitely counting on your civic virtues and 
accordingly expect you to carry out this instruction. The Revolution is closer than 
many people think. Long live the Revolution! 

“Berlin, May 1852 
With Fraternal Greetings. 

The Revolutionary Committee” 

Witness Junkermann declared further that “the parcels in 
question had been sent to the witness Chianella”’. 

Chief Commissioner of Police Hinckeldey of Berlin was the 
Supreme Commander in charge of operations against the accused in 
Cologne during the preliminary investigations. The laurels won by 
Maupas prevented him from sleeping. 

The actors in the proceedings include two Chiefs of Police, one 
alive and one dead, one superintendent (only one, but that one a 
Stieber), two police lieutenants one of whom was constantly en route 
from London to Cologne, the other constantly journeying from 
Cologne to London, myriads of police agents and subagents, 
named, anonymous, heteronymous, pseudonymous, with tails and 
without. Lastly an Inspector of Police. 

No sooner had the Kélnische Zeitung arrived in London with the 
evidence heard on October 27 and 28 than Marx went to the 
magistrate in Marlborough Street, where he copied out from the 
newspaper the text of the accompanying letter and had the copy 
witnessed, and at the same time the following affidavit: 

1. That he had not written the letter in question; 

2. that he had only learnt of its existence from the Kolnische 
Zeitung; 

3. that he had never seen the so-called Red Catechism; 

4. that he had never helped in any way at all to distribute it. 

It may be pointed out in passing that if such a declaration made 
before a magistrate is found to be false, then it counts as perjury in 
England with all the consequences attendant thereupon. 

The above document was sent to Schneider II but it appeared 
simultaneously in the London Morning Advertiser* as the conviction 
had gained ground during the trial that as regards the observance of 

the secrecy of correspondence the Prussian post seems to have the 
strange notion that letters entrusted to its care must be kept secret 
from the addressee. The prosecution objected to the submission of 
the document, even for purposes of comparison. For the prosecution 
was aware that a single glance from the original accompanying letter 
to the officially attested copy by Marx would reveal the deception, 
the deliberate imitation of his handwriting could not remain hidden 
even from such a sharpsighted jury as this. Therefore, in order to 
defend the morality of the Prussian state, the prosecution de- 
nounced any attempt at comparison. 
Schneider II observed 

“that Chianella, the addressee who had freely given information to the police 
about the supposed identity of the sender and who had even offered to act as a spy, had 
not in the remotest degree thought of Marx in this connection.” 

No one who has ever read a single line by Marx could possibly 
attribute to him the authorship of this melodramatic accompanying 
letter. The midnight dream hour in summer on June 5,* and the 
officiously graphic procedure of pushing the Red under the doors of 
the revolutionary philistines—that could perhaps point to Kinkel’s 
turn of mind, just as the references to “civic virtues” and the way in 
which they are “definitely counting on” this military “instruction 
being carried out” seem to reflect the imagination of a Willich. But 
why should Kinkel-Willich write their prescriptions for revolution in 
Marx’s hand? 

If it is permissible to form a hypothesis about the “as yet somewhat 
obscure origins” of this accompanying letter written in an imitated 
hand: the police found the 50 Reds in Crefeld as well as the 
convenient, high sounding accompanying letter. In Cologne or in 
Berlin qu’importe? they had the text copied in Marx’s handwriting. 
For what purpose? “So as to increase the value of their commodity.” 

However, even the Chief Public Prosecutor did not dare to revert 
to the accompanying letter in his catilinarian speech.” He let it drop. 
Hence it did not assist in ascertaining the still missing “indictable 
offence”. 

VI 

THE WILLICH-SCHAPPER GROUP 
With the defeat of the revolution of 1848-49 the party of the 

proletariat on the Continent lost use of the press, freedom of speech 
and the right to associate, i.e. the legal instruments of party 

organisation, which it had enjoyed for once during that short 
interval. The social status of the classes they represented enabled 
both the bourgeois-liberal and the petty-bourgeois democratic 
parties to remain united in one form or another and to assert their 
common interests more or less effectively despite the reaction. After 
1849 just as before 1848, only one path was open to the proletarian 
party—that of secret association. Consequently after 1849 a whole 
series of clandestine proletarian societies sprang up on _ the 
Continent, were discovered by the police, condemned by the courts, 
broken up by the gaols and continually resuscitated by the force of 
circumstances. 

Some of these secret societies aimed directly at the overthrow of 
the existing state. This was fully justified in France where the 
proletariat had been defeated by the bourgeoisie and hence 
attacking the existing government and attacking the bourgeoisie 
were one and the same thing. Other secret societies aimed at 
organising the proletariat into a party, without concerning them- 
selves with the existing governments. This was necessary in countries 
like Germany where both bourgeoisie and proletariat had suc- 
cumbed to their semi-feudal governments and where in consequence 
a victorious assault on the existing governments, instead of breaking 
the power of the bourgeoisie or in any case of the so-called middle 
classes, would at first help them to gain power. There is no doubt 
that here too the members of the proletarian party would take part 
once again in a revolution against the status quo, but it was no part of 
their task to prepare this revolution, to agitate, conspire or to plot for 
it. They could leave this preparation to circumstances in general and 
to the classes directly involved. They had to leave it to them if they 
were not to abandon the position of their own party and the historic 
tasks that follow of themselves from the conditions governing the 
existence of the proletariat. For them the contemporary govern- 
ments were but ephemeral phenomena, the status quo a brief 
stopping place and the task of toiling away at it could be left to the 
petty narrow-minded democrats. 

The “Communist League’’, therefore, was no conspiratorial society, 
but a society which secretly strove to create an organised proletarian 
party because the German proletariat is publicly debarred, igni et 
aqua," from writing, speaking and meeting. Such a society can only be 
said to conspire against the status quo in the sense that steam and 
electricity conspire against it. 

It is self-evident that a secret society of this kind which aims at 
forming not the government party of the future but the opposition party of 
the future could have but few attractions for individuals who on the 
one hand concealed their personal insignificance by strutting around 
in the theatrical cloak of the conspirator, and on the other wished to 
satisfy their narrow-minded ambition on the day of the next 
revolution, and who wished above all to seem important at the 
moment, to snatch their share of the proceeds of demagogy and to 
find a welcome among the quacks and charlatans of democracy. 

Thus a group broke off from the Communist League, or if you 
like it was broken off, a group that demanded, if not real 
conspiracies, at any rate the appearance of conspiracies, and 
accordingly called for a direct alliance with the democratic heroes of 
the hour: this was the Willich-Schapper group. It was typical of them 
that Willich was, together with Kinkel, one of the entrepreneurs in 
the business of the German-American revolutionary loan.’ 

Such in short is the relation of this party to the majority of the 
Communist League, to which the Cologne defendants belonged. 
Burgers and Roser defined it succinctly and exhaustively in the 
proceedings of the Cologne Assizes. 

Let us pause before finally bringing our narrative to a close in 
order to take a glance at the behaviour of the Willich-Schapper 
group during the Cologne trial. 

As was pointed out above, the data contained in the documents 
purloined from the group by Stieber make it plain that their 
documents contrived to find their way to the police even after 
Reuter’s theft. To this day the group has failed to give an 
explanation of this phenomenon. 

Schapper knew the facts about Cherval’s past better than anyone. 
He knew that Cherval had entered the League on his nomination in 
1846 and not on that of Marx in 1848, etc. By his silence he gives 
confirmation to Stieber’s lies. 

The group knew that Haacke, who was their member, had written 
the threatening letter to the witness, Haupt; but it allows the 
suspicion to remain on the heads of the party of the accused. 

Moses Hess, a member of the group and the author of the Red 
Catechism*™—that unfortunate parody of the Manifesto of the 
Communist Party—Moses Hess, who not only writes but also 
distributes his own works, knew exactly to whom he had delivered 
parcels of his Red. He knew that Marx had not deprived him of his 
profusion of Reds to the extent of even a single copy. But Moses 

calmly let suspicion fall on the accused, as if it were their party that 
had hawked his Red, together with its melodramatic accompanying 
letter, in the Rhine Province. 

That the group made common cause with the Prussian police is 
apparent not only in their silence but also in their utterances: 
whenever they entered the trial it was not in the dock with the 
accused, but as “witnesses for the Crown’. 

Hentze, Willich’s friend and benefactor, who admitted that he 
knew about the activities of the League, spent a few weeks in London 
with Willich and then journeyed to Cologne where he falsely testified 
that Becker (against whom there was far less evidence than against 
himself) had been a member of the League in 1848. 

Hatzel, as the Dietz archive reveals, was a member of the group and 
received financial support from it. He had already been put on trial 
in Berlin for his association with the League and now he appeared as 
a witness for the prosecution. His testimony was false for he invented 
a wholly fictitious connection between the Rules of the League and 
the exceptional arming of the Berlin proletariat during the 
revolution. 

Steingens, whose own letters proved (in the sitting on October 18) 
that he was the group’s chief agent in Brussels, appeared in Cologne 
not as a defendant, but as a witness. 

Not long before the court action in Cologne Willich and Kinkel 
sent a journeyman tailor* as emissary to Germany. Kinkel is not 
indeed a member of the group but Willich was co-director of the 
German-American revolutionary loan. 

Kinkel was at that time already threatened by the danger, which 
was later to become a reality, of seeing himself and Willich removed 
by the London guarantors from control of the loan moneys and 
seeing the money itself drift back to America despite the indignant 
protests of Willich and himself. Kinkel was just then in need of the 
pseudo-mission to Germany and a pseudo-correspondence with 
Germany, partly in order to demonstrate that an area still existed 
there for his revolutionary activities and the American dollars, and 
partly to provide a pretext for the enormous costs of the 
correspondence, postal expenses, etc., that he and Willich managed 
to charge to the account (see Count O. Reichenbach’s lithographed 
circular). Kinkel knew he had no contacts either with the bourgeois 
liberals or with the petty-bourgeois democrats in Germany. As he 
could not afford to be particular he used an emissary of the group as 
the emissary of the German-American Revolutionary League.? 

This emissary’s sole function was to promote antagonism among the 
workers towards the party of the accused in Cologne. It must be 
admitted that the moment was well chosen and it offered a new 
pretext in the nick of time to reopen the investigation. The Prussian 
police had been fully apprised of the emissary’s identity, of the day of 
his departure and of his route. Who thus apprised them? We shall 
see. Their spies were present at the secret meetings he held in 
Magdeburg and they reported on the debates. The friends of the 
Cologne accused in Germany and in London trembled. 

We have already narrated how on November 6 Hirsch went before 
the magistrate at Bow Street and admitted to having forged the 
original minute-book under the guidance of Greif and Fleury. It was 
Willich who induced him to take this step, and it was Willich and 
Scharttner the innkeeper who accompanied him to the magistrate. 
Three copies were made of Hirsch’s confession and these were sent 
through the post to various addresses in Cologne. 

It was of supreme importance to arrest Hirsch as soon as he left 
the court. With the aid of the officially witnessed statement in his 
possession it would have been possible for the case lost in Cologne to 
be won in London. If not for the accused, at any rate against the 
government. However, Willich did everything in his power to make 
such a step impossible. He observed the strictest silence not only 
towards the “Marx party”, which was directly involved, but also 
towards his own people and even towards Schapper. Scharttner 
alone was taken into his confidence. Scharttner declared that he and 
Willich had accompanied Hirsch to the ship, for according to 
Willich’s scheme Hirsch was to give evidence against himself in 
Cologne. 

Willich informed Hirsch of the route by which the documents had 
been sent, Hirsch informed the Prussian Embassy, and the Prussian 
Embassy informed the post. The documents did not arrive at their 
destination; they disappeared. Some time after this, Hirsch, who had 
also vanished, re-appeared in London and declared at a public 
meeting of democrats that Willich was his accomplice. 

Although it had been on a motion from Willich that Hirsch had 
been expelled as a spy from the Great Windmill Street Society in 
1851, Willich admitted, when questioned, that he had resumed 
relations with Hirsch at the beginning of August 1852. For Hirsch 
had revealed to him that Fleury was a Prussian spy and had apprised 
him of all of Fleury’s incoming and outgoing correspondence. He, 
Willich, made use of this to keep himself informed of the activities of 
the Prussian police. 

It was notorious that Williich had been on terms of intimate 

friendship with Fleury for about a year, and he had received 
assistance from him. But if Willich knew since August 1852 that he 
was a Prussian spy and if he was likewise familiar with his activities 
how was it possible that he should have remained ignorant of the 
original minute-book? 

That he did not intervene until the Prussian government itself 
disclosed that Fleury was a spy? 

That he intervened in a way which at best caused the removal of 
his ally Hirsch from England and of the officially witnessed proofs of | 
Fleury’s guilt from the hands of the “Marx party”? : 

That he continued to receive assistance from Fleury, who boasts 
that he has in his possession Willich’s receipt for £15 sterling? 

That Fleury continued to be actively engaged in the German- 
American revolutionary loan? 

That he informed Fleury of the meeting place of his own secret 
society so that Prussian agents in the next room could make records 
of the debates? 

That he revealed to Fleury the route of the above-mentioned 
emissary, the journeyman tailor, and that he even received money 
from Fleury towards the costs of this mission? 

That, lastly, he told Fleury that he had instructed Hentze, who 
lived with him, how he should testify against Becker at the trial in 
Cologne? * It must be admitted — que tout cela n’est pas bien clair. 

VII 
JUDGMENT? 

As the police mysteries were gradually explained, public opinion 
declared itself increasingly in favour of the defendants. When it 
became apparent that the original minute-book was a fraud an 
acquittal was generally expected. The Kolnische Zeitung felt induced 
to defer to public opinion and to dissociate itself from the 

* As to relations between Willich and Becker: 

“Willich writes me the funniest letters; I do not reply, but this does not prevent him 
from describing his latest plans for a revolution. He has appointed me to revolutionise 
the Cologne garrison!!! The other day we laughed till the tears came. His idiocy will 
spell disaster for countless people yet; for a single letter would suffice to guarantee the 
salaries of a hundred Demagogue judges for three years. As soon as I have 
completed the revolution in Cologne he would have no objection to assuming the 
leadership for all subsequent operations. Very kind of him!” (From a letter by Becker 
to Marx, January 27, 1851.) [Note by Marx.”] 

government. Little items favourable to the defendants and casting 
suspicion on Stieber suddenly found their way into columns that had 
earlier contained nothing but police insinuations. Even the Prussian 
government threw in the sponge. Its correspondents in The Times 
and The Morning Chronicle suddenly began to prepare public opinion 
abroad for an unfavourable outcome. Monstrous and destructive as 
the teachings of the defendants were, horrifying as were the 
documents found in their possession, conclusive evidence of a 
conspiracy was nevertheless wanting and a conviction was therefore 
unlikely. So low-spirited and discouraged did the Berlin correspon- 
dent of The Times* write, who obsequiously echoed the fears that 
were circulating in the upper circles of the city on the Spree. All the 
more extravagant then was the rejoicing of the Byzantine court and 
its eunuchs when the electric telegraph flashed its message of the 
jury’s verdict of “Guilty” from Cologne to Berlin. 

With the unmasking of the minute-book the case had advanced to 
a new stage. The jury was no longer free merely to find the 
defendants guilty or not guilty; they must either find the defendants 
guilty—or the government. To acquit the accused would mean 
condemning the government. 

Replying to the summing-up for the defence, Public Prosecutor 
Saedt abandoned the original minute-book. He was unwilling to 
make use of a document on which such a slur had been cast, he 
himself thought that it was ““unauthentic”, it was an “unfortunate” 
book, it had resulted in much time being wasted, it added nothing 
factual to the case, Stieber’s praiseworthy zeal had led in this instance 
to his being deceived, etc. 

But the prosecution itself had maintained in its indictment that 
there was ‘much that was true” in the book. Far from declaring it 
spurious the prosecution had regretted only that it could not prove it 
to be authentic. But if the original minute-book was not authentic 
though Stieber had sworn to its authenticity, Cherval’s statement in 
Paris was invalidated despite Stieber’s sworn testimony, and to this 
statement Saedt had returned in his summing-up; indeed all the 
material evidence accumulated” by the most strenuous efforts of all 
the authorities of the Prussian state for 1'/, years was invalidated at 
one stroke. The court sitting set down for July 28 was postponed for 
three months. Why? Because Chief of Police Schulz had been taken 
ill. And who was Schulz? The original discoverer of the original 

minute-book. Let us go back even further. In January and February 
1852, Frau Dr. Daniels’ house had been searched. On what grounds? 
On the grounds discovered in the first few pages of the original 
minute-book that Fleury had sent to Schulz, that Schulz had sent to 
the police authorities in Cologne, that the police authorities in 
Cologne had sent to the examining magistrate, that led the 
examining magistrate to the house of Frau Dr. Daniels. 

In October 1851, despite the Cherval conspiracy, the Indictment 
Board was still unable to discover the missing indictable offence and 
on instructions from the Ministry it therefore ordered a new 
investigation. Who was in charge of this investigation? Chief of Police 
Schulz. It was therefore Schulz’s task to discover the offence. What 
did Schulz discover? The original minute-book. The only new 
material he provided was limited to the loose leaves of the 
minute-book which on Stieber’s orders were later completed and 
bound. Twelve months’ solitary confinement for the accused simply 
to give the original minute-book the time necessary to be born and to 
grow. “Bagatelles!” Saedt exclaims and finds evidence of the guilt of 
the accused in the mere fact that it took them and their counsel eight 
days to clean out an Augean stable that all the authorities of the 
Prussian state had needed 1'/s years to fill while the accused had to 
remain 1!/) years in gaol. The original minute-book was no mere 
single item of evidence; it was the focal point where all the threads 
spun by the various Prussian governmental authorities met—embas- 
sy and police, ministry and magistracy, prosecution and postal 
authorities, London, Berlin and Cologne. The original minute-book 
meant so much to the case that it was invented in order that a case 
might be made out. Couriers, telegrams, the intercepting of letters, 
arrests, perjuries to support the original minute-book, forgeries to 
bring it into existence, attempted bribery to authenticate it. When 
the mystery of the original minute-book was revealed the mystery of 
the whole monster trial was revealed with it. 

The miracles performed by the police were originally necessary to 
conceal the completely political nature of the trial. ““The revelations 
you are about to witness, Gentlemen of the Jury,” said Saedt when 
opening for the prosecution, “will prove to you that this trial is not a 
political trial.”” But now he emphasises its political character so that 
the police revelations should be forgotten. After the 1'/s-year 
preliminary investigation the jury needed objective evidence in 
order to justify itself before public opinion. After the five-week-long 
police comedy they needed “politics pure and simple” to extricate 
themselves from the sheer mess. Saedt therefore did not only 
confine himself to the material that had led the Indictment Board to 

the conclusion that “there was no factual evidence of an indictable 
offence”. He went even further. He attempted to prove that the law 
against conspiracy does not require any indictable action, but is 
simply a law with a political purpose, and the category of conspiracy 
is therefore merely a pretext for burning political heretics in a legal 
way. The success of his attempt promised to be all the greater 
because of the decision to apply the new Prussian Penal Code that 
had been promulgated after the accused had been arrested. On the 
pretext that this code contained extenuating provisions the servile 
court was able to permit its retroactive application. 

But if it was simply a political trial why a preliminary investigation 
lasting 1’/, years? For political reasons. 

As it is therefore a question of politics are we to engage in a 
fundamental discussion of politics with a Saedt-Stieber-Seckendorf, 
with a Gobel, with a Prussian government, with the 300 most highly 
taxed people in the district of Cologne, with the Royal Chamberlain 
von Munch-Bellinghausen and with the Freiherr von Furstenberg? 
Pas si béte.* 

Saedt admits (in the sitting on November 8) that 
“when some few months ago, the Chief Public Prosecutor commissioned him to join 
him in representing the prosecution in this affair, and when, as a result, he began to 
read through the files he first hit upon the idea of making a somewhat more thorough 
study of communism and socialism. He felt impelled to impart the results of his 
studies to the jury, especially since he thought he might proceed on the assumption 

that many of them like himself may have not greatly concerned themselves with the 
subject hitherto.” 

So Saedt bought the well-known compendium by Stein.” 

And what he has learnt today, 
he’ll teach to others tomorrow.‘ 

But the prosecution was afflicted by a singular misfortune. It 
sought objective evidence for a case against Marx and found 
objective evidence for the case Cherval. It went in search of the 
communism propagated by the defendants and found the commu- 
nism they combated. Various sorts of communism can indeed be 
found in Stein’s compendium, but not the sort Saedt was seeking. 
Stein had not yet recorded German, critical communism. It is true 
that Saedt has in his possession a copy of the Manifesto of the 
Communist Party that the defendants recognise as the manifesto of 
their party. This Manifesto contains a chapter devoted to a criticism 
of the whole previous literature of socialism and communism, i.e. of 

the whole of the wisdom recorded in Stein. From this chapter the 
distinction between the kind of communism propounded by the 
defendants and all previous kinds must become apparent; that is to 
say the specific content and the specific political tendency of the theory 
against which Saedt seeks to act. But no Stein will help him over this 
stumbling-block.* Here understanding was essential, if only in order 
to prosecute. How did Saedt manage when Stein left him in the 
lurch? He claimed: 

“The Manifesto consists of three sections. The first section contains a historical 
account of the social status of the various citizens (!) from the communist point of 
view” (very fine Py. “...The second section expounds the communist point of view 
vis-a-vis the proletariat.... Lastly, the final section treats of the position of the 
Communists in different countries....” (!) (Sitting of November 6.) 

Now in fact the Manifestoconsists of four sections, not of three, but 
what the eye does not see the heart does not grieve over. Saedt claims 
therefore that there are three sections and not four. The section 
which for him does not exist is that same accursed section with the 
critique of communism as recorded by Stein, that is to say the section 
that contains the specific brand of communism advocated by the 
defendants. Poor Saedt! First he cannot find an indictable offence, and 
now he cannot find indictable political views. 

But “grey, dear friend, is every theory”. 

, 

“In recent times,” as Saedt observed, “competent and incompetent people have 
been concerned with the so-called social question and its solution.” 

Saedt at any rate belongs to the competent," for three months ago 
the Chief Public Prosecutor, Seckendorf, officially authorised him to 
study socialism and communism. The Saedts of all times and all 
places have from time immemorial unanimously declared that 
Galileo was “incompetent” to explore the movements of the 
heavenly bodies, but that the inquisitor who accused him of heresy 
was “competent” to do so. E pur st muove.** 

* Saedt was not only “competent”. He was moreover—as a reward for his 
performance in this trial— appointed Chief Public Prosecutor for the Rhine Province 
and remained in this post until he was pensioned, and afterwards, provided with the 
holy sacraments, he passed on. [Note by Engels to the edition of 1885.] 

The defendants, who represented the revolutionary proletariat, 
stood defenceless before the ruling classes who were represented by 
the jury; the defendants therefore were condemned because they 
stood before this jury. What could, for a moment, move the 
bourgeois conscience of the jury, just as it had deeply disturbed 
public opinion, was the unmasking of the intrigues of the 
government, the corruption of the Prussian government that had 
been laid bare before their eyes. But, the members of the jury 
reasoned, if the Prussian government could risk using such infamous 
and at the same time such foolhardy methods against the accused, if 
it could, as it were, stake its European reputation, then the accused 
must be damnably dangerous, however small their party, and their 
theories in any case must be a real power. The government has 
violated every law in the penal code in order to protect us from these 
monstrous criminals. Let us for our part sacrifice our little point 
d’honneur to save the government’s honour. Let us be thankful and 
let us condemn. 

With their verdict of Guilty the Rhenish nobility and the Rhenish 
bourgeoisie joined in the cry uttered by the French bourgeoisie after 
December 2: “Property can be saved only by theft, religion only by 
perjury, the family only by bastardy, order only by disorder!” 

In France the whole political edifice has prostituted itself. And yet 
no institution prostituted itself so deeply as French courts of law and 
French juries. Let us surpass the French judges and jurymen, the 
judge and jury exclaimed in Cologne. In the Cherval case 
immediately after the coup d’état the Paris jury acquitted Nette 
though there was more evidence against him than against any one of 
the accused [in Cologne]. Let us surpass the jury of the coup d’état of 
December 2. Let us, in condemning Roser, Burgers, etc., also 
condemn Nette retrospectively. 

Thus the superstitious faith in the jury, still rampant in Rhenish 
Prussia, was broken. People realised that the jury was a court-martial 
of the privileged classes; it was created to bridge the gaps in the law 
with the broad bourgeois conscience. 

Jena!°*? ... That is the final outcome of a government that requires 
such methods in order to survive and of a society that needs such a 
government for its protection. The word that should stand at the end 
of the communist trial in Cologne is ... Jena! 

Karl Marx