Declaration. 4 October 1851 Kölnische Zeitung.

Karl Marx

Declaration. 4 October 1851

Kölnische Zeitung.  
No. 242, 9 October 1851

Declaration.

A profundity-laden item of correspondence from the *Allgemeine Augsburger Zeitung*, dated Cologne, 26 September, places me, the Baroness von Beck and the Cologne arrests in an absurd connection. Namely, I am supposed to have confided political secrets to the Baroness von Beck, which later in one way or another found their way to the governments. I saw the Baroness von Beck only twice, and that in the presence of witnesses. On both occasions it was exclusively a matter of literary importunities which I had to reject, since they proceeded from the utterly false presumption that I was in any way connected with German newspapers. This matter settled, I never heard from the Baroness again until I learned of her sudden death. The German refugees, however, who daily associated with Mrs. von Beck, I have always counted as little among my friends as the Cologne correspondent of the *Allgemeine Augsburger Zeitung* or the “great” German men who in London turn emigration into a business and an office. I have never considered it worth the trouble to answer the mass of perfidious-silly, tastelessly-lying gossip of German newspapers, which either emanates directly from London or is inspired from there. If I make an exception this time, it is only because the Cologne correspondent of the *Allgemeine Augsburger Zeitung* tries to present the arrests in Cologne, Dresden, etc., as founded upon my alleged indiscretions to the Baroness von Beck.

Karl Marx.

London, 4 October 1851.