[London, 3 September 1852] 

It has been put about here that Gebert, a bottle-loving 
journeyman tailor and a myrmidon of Willich’s, had left for 
America. That is not so. At the beginning of August Kinkel and 
Willich sent him to Germany as their emissary. 

As these people harp on ‘organisations’ in their circular—the 
last one to the guarantors—and on the whole have no connections 
in Germany, the remnants of the Communist League there who 
for one reason or another have no contact with Cologne were to 
provide a semblance of, ‘and pretext for, such ‘organisations’.* And 
then the gentlemen also had to account for the sum of £200. 
Hence a certain sum of money had to be spent in one quarter or 
another in such a manner that it could decently be described as 
‘revolutionary expenditure’. They hoped the remainder of what 
had been spent could then be more easily passed off. Finally, 
Marx, Engels and co. were to be destroyed (sic) in the eyes of 
working men in Germany. Kinkel thought that, having begged 

4 See this volume, p. 169. 

and lied his way into the esteem of the remnants of the 
Communist League, he could palm off the latter on to his 
bourgeois guarantors as a bourgeots-democratic connection. Willich, 
the representative imposed upon the German workers by himself 
and Kinkel, at last saw a chance of creating for himself a real 
following of workers in Germany. 

To continue. In Magdeburg, Gebert assembled a so-called 
communist community; for 3 consecutive days discussions were 
held, 26-30 members taking part; in the chair was one Hammel 
(nomen omen*); during the debates Marx and Engels were attacked 
with much acrimony, the main task laid down being to destroy 
them, their influence and their ‘doctrines’. (Brother Hammel may 
not find this last so easy.) In addition to various administrative and 
organisational questions, there arose the question of how and in 
what manner a printing-house might be set up. They succeeded in 
finding an impoverished printer of books with a business in or 
near Magdeburg and concluded an agreement with him. He 
placed his office at their disposal for propaganda, the name of the 
firm being retained as it was. In return he was paid 100 talers 
down and given a bill of exchange for 350 talers, which he is to 
receive after one year. 

Thus the revolutionary funds are to serve the purpose of 
propaganda for that creature, Kinkel-Willich, and of promoting 
intrigue to split up the ‘organisations’ in Germany. 

But the best is still to come. The Prussian police were informed of 
everything from the moment the innocuous Gebert left London, 
whereas everyone here imagined he had slipped off to America. 
The government had its informant at the loutish assembly at 
Magdeburg; he took down the entire debate in shorthand. Gebert, 
who has now gone to Berlin, had a Prussian policeman in train. 
He is not allowed out of sight for an instant. The government 
intend to allow him to fulfil his mission, by which time he will 
have compromised dozens of others besides himself. 

I have this intelligence—Willich, too, has been bragging about 
his ‘agents’ in Germany—from a Prussian police headquarters in 
which I have planted a séid?*” 

Qu’en dis-tu?’ So these knaves are providing the Prussian 
government with an opportunity to introduce fresh complications 
into the Cologne trial, etc. 

@ The name is significant (Hammel means sheep). - » a devoted follower - © What 
do you say to that? 

And to what purpose? To cover up their shady accounts, to 
disguise the pointlessness of all their revolutionary committee 
doings hitherto, to excite their feeble spirits against their foes, etc., 
etc. Just now the thing must still be kept secret. But as soon as you 
see that Gebert has been pulled in, or that arrests of ‘communists’ 
have begun, let fire without waiting to hear anything more....