Karl Marx to Julius Weber in Berlin
Manchester, Friday, 24 February 1860

11)24 Feb. 1860.

6. Thorncliffe Grove,
Oxfordroad, Manchester.

Highly esteemed Sir,

I am surprised that even yesterday no acknowledgement of receipt had yet arrived from Berlin of the registered letter sent to you on 13 February.

Yesterday I sent you from here – Manchester – a second registered letter, a power of attorney together with seven enclosures, and today, with reference to the enclosures mentioned and numbered, I permit myself to add a few further marginal glosses on the main points which, in my view, are to be emphasised in the libel suit against the Berlin National-Zeitung. I enclose at the same time a letter of 19 November 1852 and a copy of my Revelations published in 1853.

I) a) The anonymous pamphlet “Zur Warnung”.

In No. 41 of the Berlin National-Zeitung, leading article, “How radical pamphlets are made”, page 1, column 3, it says literally:

“The Marx party could now very easily shift the authorship of the pamphlet onto Blind, precisely because and after the latter had expressed himself in a similar sense in conversation with Marx and in the article in the Free Press; by making use of these Blind statements and phrases the pamphlet could be forged so that it looked like his (sc. Blind’s) fabrication.” In general, the whole animus of this column is to present me as the forger of the said pamphlet and at the same time to saddle me with the infamy of having given it the appearance of being fabricated by Blind.

Now, before I come to the proof contained in the enclosures sent yesterday, I consider it necessary to set out for you briefly the history of this controversy.

The Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung, during its lawsuit with Vogt, published among other documents the following letter from me:

“19 October, 1859, 9, Grafton Terrace, Maitland Park, Haverstock Hill,
London.

My 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 by no means prevents me, of course, from being of assistance, as far as I can, to the Allgemeine Zeitung in a case where, in my conviction, it has fulfilled the first duty of the press, that of denouncing humbug. The enclosed document would be a legal 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 he had made to me and others, which I repeated to Liebknecht, and which left him no scruple about the denunciation contained in the anonymous pamphlet. Your wholly devoted Dr. K. Marx.”

The document attached to this letter to the Allgemeine Zeitung and also published by it reads as follows:

“I hereby declare in the presence of Dr. Carl Marx and Wilhelm Liebknecht that the pamphlet issued anonymously and without indication of the place of printing under the title ‘Zur Warnung’, which was reprinted in No. 7 of the Volk, 1) was set and printed in the printing office of Fidelio Hollinger, 3 Litchfield Street, Soho, I myself setting part of the manuscript, F. Hollinger the other part; [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 pamphlets written by Carl Blind which were set and printed at the alleged place of printing ‘Frankfurt am Main’, but in fact at F. Hollinger’s, 3 Litchfield Street, Soho; 3) that Fidelio Hollinger himself named Carl Blind to me as the author of the pamphlet ‘Zur Warnung’ directed against Prof. Vogt. August Vögele, compositor. The correctness of the above signature is witnessed by W. Liebknecht, Dr. K. Marx. London, 17 Sept. 1859.” (See Vogt’s work: My Lawsuit against the Allgemeine Zeitung, Documents, p. 30, 31)

In reply to this there appeared in No. 313 of the Allgemeine Zeitung and in the Kölnische Zeitung the following letter from Karl Blind, together with attached testimonies from Hollinger and Wiehe:

“London, 23 Townshend Road, St. John’s Wood, 3 Nov. 1859. To refute the allegation that I am the author of the pamphlet ‘Zur Warnung’, I am only publishing the following document. This merely as a defence – not as a justification of Karl Vogt, whose conduct I and my friends of the republican party, after all that has become known to us in the last six months, must unconditionally condemn. I can testify to the correctness of the communication made by Herr Julius Fröbel that offers of money did indeed come from Vogt’s side, in order to induce Germans here to influence the native press in the well-known sense. Karl Blind.” a) “I hereby declare the assertion of compositor Vögele contained in No. 300 of the Allg. Z. | that the pamphlet ‘Zur Warnung’ mentioned there was printed in my printing works, or that Herr Karl Blind is its originator, to be a malicious fabrication. Fidelio Hollinger. 3, Litchfield Street, Soho, London, 2 Nov. 1859.” b) “The undersigned, who has lived and worked at No. 3 Litchfield Street for 11 months, for his part testifies to the correctness of Herr Hollinger’s statement. London. 2 Nov. 1859. J. F. Wiehe, compositor.” (Compare Vogt’s book, Documents, pp. 37 and 38.)

Thereupon I replied in No. 325 of the Allgemeine Zeitung and I have enclosed the relevant cutting from the Allg. Z. in my first letter from London.

Karl Blind, for his part, gave a new rejoinder in the supplement of the Allgemeine Zeitung of 11 December, in which the editors declare: “Herr Karl Blind explains essentially: 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 only appearing as an insinuation, that I am the author of the often-mentioned pamphlet, is a flat untruth. The most gross distortions are contained in the more recent statements about me. Once again: 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.” To this statement the editors of the Allgemeine Zeitung remarked: “Since further elucidations of these matters or their back-and-forth in these columns have long ceased to be of any interest to the wider public, we request the gentlemen concerned to refrain from any further rejoinders.” (cf. Vogt’s book, Documents, pp. 41, 42.)

Thus the files were closed for the time being. As soon as I saw the articles of the National-Zeitung with the extract from Vogt’s pamphlet and the commentary on them, I first of all published the English circular (Enclosure III), addressed to the editor of the London Free Press. Its purpose was to induce K. Blind to bring an action for libel against me, and thus to give me the opportunity, first, to produce the judicial proofs in London regarding the printing and authorship of the pamphlet “Zur Warnung”, and second, to force the real author to present his incriminating evidence against Vogt to an English court of law.

The immediate consequence of this circular (Enclosure III), which I sent to Karl Blind immediately upon its being printed, was K. Blind’s declaration, which appeared in the Allgemeine Zeitung of 13 February, in the supplement to No. 44. In this declaration, headed “Against Karl Vogt”, Blind repeats that he is not the “author” of the pamphlet “Zur Warnung” directed against Vogt, but, compelled by my circular, he does advance a few arguments that Vogt is an agent of Bonapartist propaganda in London. This was the direct consequence of the first step I took by publishing the circular (Enclosure III).

Meanwhile I had procured the two affidavits of the compositors Vögele and Wiehe (Enclosures I and II). These affidavits proved: Firstly: that my assertion that the pamphlet “Zur Warnung” was printed in Hollinger’s printing-office and written in Blind’s handwriting was true. Secondly: that the testimonies from Hollinger and Wiehe, adduced by Blind in No. 313 of the Allgemeine Zeitung and likewise in the Kölnische Zeitung, and again referred to by Blind in the supplement of the Allgemeine Zeitung of 11 December, were false. Thirdly: That Blind and Hollinger (see Enclosure II, the affidavit of compositor Wiehe) entered into a conspiracy in order to obtain false testimonies against me, and to vilify me in public opinion as a liar and a slanderer. Such a conspiracy is criminal according to English law. The only circumstance that has prevented me from prosecuting Hollinger and Blind criminally is consideration for Blind’s family.

I sent copies of the affidavits (Enclosures I and II) of the two compositors Vögele and Wiehe to certain exiles in communication with Blind, who communicated them to him. The immediate consequence was the declaration of Dr. Schäuble in the Daily Telegraph of 15 February 1860, in which Schäuble names himself as the author of the pamphlet “Zur Warnung” and assumes responsibility for the accusations contained therein against Vogt. (See Enclosure VI.) If Vogt therefore wishes to prove his innocence, he must begin the lawsuit afresh – in London. Dr. Schäuble’s declaration that he is the author of the pamphlet “Zur Warnung” in no way alters the facts that the pamphlet was printed in Hollinger’s printing-office, that Blind had it printed, that it was written in Blind’s handwriting, that the testimonies adduced by him from Hollinger and Wiehe were false, and finally, that Hollinger and Blind sought to extricate themselves by false testimonies and to compromise me.

I do not need to explain to you further that the two affidavits of Vögele and Wiehe (Enclosures I and II) and the declaration of Dr. Schäuble in the Daily Telegraph of 14 February (Enclosure VI) place in your hands the positive proofs of the falsity of the calumny quoted by me under I) a) of this letter from the National-Zeitung.

b) My relationship with the Allgemeine Zeitung.

The two letters from the editors of the Allgemeine Zeitung to me dated 16 October 1859 (Enclosures IV and V) and my reply of 19 October 1859, which I have cited above under I, a), constitute my entire correspondence with the Allgemeine Zeitung. It is therefore simply limited to the fact that I placed at the disposal of the Allgemeine Zeitung a written document which was bound to clarify the origin of the pamphlet whose reprinting had led Vogt to institute legal proceedings against the Allg. Z.

On 9 May 1859, on the occasion of a public meeting held by David Urquhart, K. Blind told me the whole of the accusations against Vogt which were later repeated in the leaflet “Zur Warnung”, which did not appear until the following June. He assured me that the proofs were in his hands. I attached no great importance to this communication. Vogt’s pamphlet, entitled “Studien zur gegenwärtigen Lage Europa’s” [Studies on the Present Situation in Europe], further, Vogt’s relationship with Fazy, the “tyrant of Geneva”, and Fazy’s relations with L. Bonaparte, had already convinced me that Vogt was a Bonapartist agent. Whether with good or bad intention, whether paid or unpaid, was a matter of complete indifference to me.

Two or three days after Blind’s communication, Herr Biscamp, with whom I had never been in any personal or political connection whatsoever, appeared in my house, introduced by Liebknecht. Biscamp requested that I and my friends support the paper he had founded, “Das Volk”, with literary and monetary contributions. I rejected his request for the time being, because my time was in fact very much taken up, and, on the other hand, I first had to become better acquainted with “Das Volk”, of which only one number had so far appeared, before I could call upon my friends to participate in it. I emphasised in this connection that I had hitherto avoided any participation in the German journals published in London as a matter of principle. During this meeting I repeated to Liebknecht, in Biscamp’s presence, Blind’s statement at the Urquhart meeting. I also mentioned the southern German tendency to exaggerate out of vaingloriousness. Herr Biscamp later, in No. 2 of “Das Volk” of 14 May, under the title “Der Reichsregent als Reichsverräther” [The Imperial Regent as Imperial Traitor], on his own responsibility, and with additions belonging to him alone, wrote an article cited in Vogt’s work: “Mein Process etc.” under Documents pp. 17, 18, 19.

Later, about the middle of June, at a time when I was absent from London and staying in Manchester, Liebknecht received from Hollinger in his composing-room the proof-sheet of the leaflet “Zur Warnung”, which he immediately recognised as a reproduction of the communications made to me orally by Blind, and whose manuscript, as he learned from the compositor Voegele, Blind had handed over to Hollinger for printing. Liebknecht sent this proof-sheet to the Allgemeine Zeitung, which printed it and thereby incurred Vogt’s libel action. Liebknecht was all the more justified in taking this step (of which I knew nothing, as I was not in London) as he knew that Blind, Vogt’s accuser, had been invited by Vogt himself to collaborate in the projected propaganda work. In the face of a man who undertook to pay a premium for all articles favourable to Bonaparte’s plans in the German press (see Vogt’s admission on this point in his book, letter to Dr Löning, Documents, p. 36), it was a duty to make use of such widely circulated papers as the Allgemeine Zeitung for the “Zur Warnung”.

4) As soon as Vogt instituted his libel action against the Allgemeine Zeitung for printing the leaflet “Zur Warnung”, the editors of the Allgemeine Zeitung wrote to Liebknecht urgently requesting him to supply proofs. Liebknecht turned to me. I referred him to Blind and, at his request, accompanied him in person to Blind, as you will see from Blind’s letter (Enclosure VII). We did not find Blind, who was taking the waters at St. Leonards. Liebknecht wrote him two letters. They remained unanswered for weeks, until the moment when Blind might believe the Augsburg case was nearing its conclusion. (This calculation was thwarted by the adjournment which the Allgemeine Zeitung had meanwhile obtained for its case.) Then at last Blind replied to Liebknecht in the letter of 8 September (Enclosure VII), in which he says with the coolest effrontery that he has “no share whatever in the matter mentioned, as already remarked earlier on”, and intends “to speak verbally on some future occasion about the remarks that occurred in private conversation”. Liebknecht came with this letter to me.

I saw that forcible means had now become necessary to loosen Blind’s tongue. I recollected having read in the London “Free Press” of 27 May an anonymous article (“The Grandduke Constantine to be King of Hungary”) which contained the essential contents of the leaflet “Zur Warnung” and of the statements made to me orally by Blind. The style and content of the article had not left me in doubt for a moment that Blind was its author. In order to ascertain this, I went with Liebknecht to Mr. Collet, the responsible editor of the Free Press. After some parleying, he declared Blind to be the author of the said article. Shortly afterwards I received the written statement of the compositor Voegele, to the effect that the leaflet had been set in Hollinger’s printing office, and that the manuscript was written in Blind’s handwriting.

Liebknecht now wrote once more a lengthy letter to Blind, in which he informed him that we now had in our hands proofs of his connection with the leaflet “Zur Warnung”, referred him, among other things, to the article in the “Free Press”, and again called upon him to give the information at his disposal. K. Blind did not reply, but instead broke his silence not for a moment either before or during the court proceedings in Augsburg. It was thus now clear beyond all doubt that K. Blind had definitively resolved on a system of denial and diplomatic ignoring. Under these circumstances I told Liebknecht that I was prepared, if the Allgemeine Zeitung requested it of me in writing, to send it the statement of Voegele in my possession. This in fact happened, after receipt of the two letters from the Allgemeine Zeitung of 16 October, in my reply of 19 October.

The motives that determined me to take this step were as follows:

Firstly: I owed it to Liebknecht, who had first heard Blind’s statements about Vogt from me, to supply proofs that he was not propagating accusations against third persons at random.

Secondly: In my opinion, the Allgemeine Zeitung was fully entitled to print the pamphlet “Zur Warnung”, since it knew that it emanated from a quarter which Herr Vogt himself had invited to collaborate on his propaganda work. The circumstance that the Allgemeine Zeitung belongs to a party hostile to me and has always treated me personally with hostility, and has even repeatedly published the silliest gossip against me, did not alter my view any more than the circumstance that, being by chance outside the jurisdiction of the Augsburg court, the Allgemeine Zeitung could not therefore subpoena me as a witness.

Thirdly: Vogt had published a lampoon against me in the “Bieler Handelskourier”, No. 150 of 2 June, Supplement (cf. p. 31 of the Documents in Vogt’s book), evidently under the assumption that I was the author of the article published against him by Biscamp in “Das Volk” on 14 May. Likewise, in his charge against the Allgemeine Zeitung, he proceeded from the assumption that I was the author of the leaflet “Zur Warnung”. Blind was evidently resolved to perpetuate this quid pro quo, which was so welcome to Vogt.

Fourthly: and this was the main point for me. I wanted to confront Vogt and his accuser with one another, and indeed on a terrain where the matter had to be decided and all subterfuges were cut off on both sides. For this it was essential that I forcibly dragged the actual author and publisher of the leaflet “Zur Warnung” out of their hiding-place. That I had calculated correctly is proved by Dr. Schaible’s declaration (Enclosure VI) and Blind’s letter cited earlier in the Allgemeine Zeitung, of 13 February, supplement to No. 44.

My correspondence with the Allgemeine Zeitung is confined to the two letters (Enclosures IV and V) of Dr. Orges and my reply of 19 October cited above (sub I, a). This sufficed for Herr Vogt (and the National-Zeitung) to appoint me a collaborator of the Allgemeine Zeitung, and to present himself to the German public as the innocent victim of a conspiracy between the reactionaries and the extreme Left.

Liebknecht has been a correspondent of the Allgemeine Zeitung since 1855, just as Herr Vogt himself was formerly its correspondent. If necessary, Liebknecht will declare the truth on oath, namely, that I have never made use of him to smuggle even a single line into the Allgemeine Zeitung. His connection with the Allgemeine Zeitung was and is absolutely none of my business. Moreover, his correspondence is confined exclusively to English politics, and the same views he advocates in the Allgemeine Zeitung he advocated and still advocates in radical German-American newspapers. There is not a line in his correspondence that does not contain his own view, and which he could not therefore advocate anywhere. In English foreign policy, Liebknecht pursues roughly the same anti-Palmerstonian view as Bucher in the Berliner National-Zeitung. In English domestic policy, he has always advocated the views of the most advanced English party. He has never written a single line about the London refugee gossip in the Allgemeine Zeitung.

So much for my alleged connection with the Allgemeine Zeitung.

I) In No. 41 of the National-Zeitung, leading article “Wie man radikale Flugblätter macht” [How radical leaflets are made], page 1, column 2, line 45 from the top and following, it says verbatim:

“In May of last year, the already mentioned Biscamp founded a newspaper in London, ‘Das Volk’ ... The gods know where the money for the generously distributed paper came from; men know that Marx and Biscamp have no superfluous money.”

In the context of the whole article No. 41 and likewise the leading article No. 37 of the National-Zeitung, in which I am portrayed as an “ally of the secret police in France and Germany”, and in particular with reference to the passage to be cited by me under III), the passage just quoted suggests that the money for “Das Volk” was procured by me in a dishonourable manner.

6) In reference to this I note:

Vogt himself, in his pamphlet discussed by the National-Zeitung, cites on p. 41 of the “Documents” which form the appendix to his book, the following editorial note from No. 6 of “Das Volk”, dated 11 June:

“We have the satisfaction of informing our readers that K. Marx, Fr. Engels, Ferd. Freiligrath, W. Wolff, H. Heise etc. ... have resolved to grant ‘Das Volk’ their support.”

Thus, until mid-June I had not yet given any support to the “Volk”, and its financial circumstances up to that time are absolutely none of my concern. Meanwhile I can observe in passing so much: Biscamp, who at that time lived by giving lessons in London, always edited the “Volk” gratis. Likewise all contributors from the first issue to the demise of the paper gave their contributions gratis. The only production costs to be defrayed thus consisted of printing costs and dispatch costs. These, however, were always considerably higher than the paper’s revenue. Before I gave the paper my collaboration, the shortfalls were covered by public collections among Germans in London. Later I procured £20–25 (133 to 166 thalers), which were contributed exclusively by Dr Borchardt, general practitioner, Dr Gumpert, ditto, Dr Heckscher, ditto, Wilhelm Wolff, teacher, Friedrich Engels, merchant, (all resident in Manchester) and by myself. A part of these gentlemen by no means agrees with the political views of myself, Engels and W. Wolff; all, however, considered it most timely to counter the Bonapartist intrigues in the emigration (and this was the main purpose of the “Volk”).

Finally, the “Volk” left a debt, I believe of £8 (53 thalers), for which Biscamp is responsible, and for which Hollinger holds a promissory note from him. This is the whole financial history of the “Volk”.

As regards Herr Biscamp, he has now himself declared, in the supplement to No. 46 of the Allg. Zeit[ung], of 15 February 1860: “My entire political connection with Herr Marx is limited to a few journalistic contributions which he supplied for the weekly paper Volk I founded.”

As regards my own sources of income, I will merely remark that since 1851 I have been a constant contributor to the “New York Tribune”, the leading Anglo-American paper, for which I supply not only correspondence but also leading articles. The paper has some 200,000 subscribers and pays accordingly. I have further been for several years a contributor to the Cyclopaedia Americana published by Mr Dana, one of the editors of the New York Tribune. I think that I shall still receive for the court proceedings a letter from Mr Dana of New York relating to these matters. Should this letter, however, not arrive in time, it is sufficient to refer you to Mr Ferdinand Freiligrath, manager of the General Bank of Switzerland, 2, Royal Exchange Buildings, London, who for many years was so kind as to collect my bills of exchange on America.

The shamelessness of Vogt and of the National-Zeitung allied with him, in suspecting me on account of my participation in a paper that did not pay, is all the greater as the same Vogt, page 226 of his book reviewed by the National-Zeitung, openly says that “he” will “furthermore” “take the money for his purposes wherever he can get it”.

III) In No. 37 of the National-Zeitung, leading article, entitled: “Karl Vogt and the Allgemeine Zeitung”, page 1, column 2, line 22 from the top and following, the National-Zeitung says, and I regard this passage as the most aggravating part of the libel suit, word for word as follows:

“Vogt reports p. 136 et seq.: Under the name of the Schwefelbande or also Bürstenheimer there was known among the emigration of 1849 a number of people who, scattered at first in Switzerland, France and England, gradually gathered in London and there revered Herr Marx as their visible chief... One of the principal occupations of the Schwefelbande was to compromise people in the home country in such a way that they had to pay money, so that the band would keep the secret of their compromising. Not one, but hundreds of letters were written to Germany, that one would denounce participation in this or that act of the revolution, unless by a certain date a certain sum should reach a designated address... The ‘proletarians’ (as whose chief I am depicted) 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 Germany and France.”

With regard to this infamous passage, which the National-Zeitung without further ado makes its own from Mr Vogt, and to which it gave circulation among its 9,000 subscribers, I remark as follows:

Firstly: As I already observed in my first letter to you, it will now be the task of the National-Zeitung to produce, out of the “hundreds” of threatening letters, a single letter or a single line whose author was I or any man notoriously connected with me.

Secondly: I repeat what I already said in my first letter, that I never wrote to any German newspaper after July 1849, except to the Neue Oderzeitung of Breslau (1854) at the time when it was edited by Dr Eisner and Dr Stein. As the numbers of the paper themselves show, and as Messrs Eisner and Stein will certainly be willing to testify, I never considered it worthwhile to mention the emigration even with a single word.

As for the columns of the “reactionary press” “filled” with “denunciations” by me or my friends, it will be the task of the National-Zeitung to produce a single column. It is, on the contrary, true and demonstrable that a large part of the London German emigration for years systematically filled German newspapers of all colours with their tittle-tattle against me. I have never used my connection with the New York Tribune, or with the Chartist papers, or with the Free Press to take my revenge.

As regards the “connection with the secret police in France and Germany”, Hoerfel in Paris, a notorious French police agent, was for a long time the chief agent of Kinkel’s emigration society. For his part, he was in connection with Beckmann, who was at once a Prussian police agent and correspondent of the Kölnische Zeitung. On the other hand, Engländer, likewise a notorious French police agent, was for a longer time the Paris correspondent of the Ruge clique. In this way “the democratic emigration” in London had completely established its “connection with the secret police in France and Germany”, naturally without its knowledge.

Finally Vogt and with him the National-Zeitung speak of “a number of people who, under the name of Schwefelbande or also the Bürstenheimer were known among the emigration of 1849, who, scattered at first in Switzerland, France and Germany, gradually gathered in London and there revered Herr Marx as their visible chief”.

I consider this passage as a side-issue, but shall nevertheless, for the clarification and exposure of the slanderous intention of Vogt and the National-Zeitung, remark the following:

The Schwefelbande was the name of a society of young German refugees who stayed in Geneva in 1849–50 and there had set up their headquarters at the Café de l’Europe. It was neither a political nor a socialist society, but in the proper sense of the word a “society of jolly companions”, who sought to overcome the first hangover of exile through mad pranks. It consisted of:

Eduard Rosenblum, stud. med.; Max Cohnheim, commercial clerk; Korn, chemist and apothecary; Becker, engineer, and L. S. Borkheim, student and gunner. I had never seen any of these gentlemen except Herr Becker once at the Democrats’ Congress in Cologne, 1848. In mid-1850 the members of the society, with the exception of Korn, were expelled from Geneva. The society scattered to the four winds.

It is to the kindness of Mr Borkheim, who now presides over a large commercial house in the City (44, Mark Lane), that I owe the foregoing notes about this society, previously entirely unknown to me. I became acquainted with Mr Borkheim himself only about 14 days ago, when I had applied to him in writing for information. So much for the Schwefelbande.

As for the Bürstenheimer, this was a nickname which a certain Abt, now secretary to the Bishop of Freiburg, attached to the Workers’ Educational Society in Geneva. Abt had namely been declared infamous in a general refugee society in which, besides former members of the Frankfurt Parliament, there were also members (refugees) of the Workers’ Educational Society. To revenge himself, he wrote a pamphlet in which he christened the Workers’ Educational Society “Bürstenheimer”, because a brushmaker named Sauternzem was at that time presiding in the society. This Workers’ Educational Society in Geneva had no connection whatever with me and the London communist society to which I belonged. In summer 1851 two of its members, the lawyer Schilly, now in Paris, and P. Imandt, now professor at the seminary in Dundee, were expelled by the Swiss authorities and went to London, where they joined the workers’ society then led by Willich and Schapper, from which, however, they withdrew again after a few months. Their relation to me was that of countrymen and old personal friends. The only person in Geneva with whom I ever stood in connection since my expulsion from Prussia (1849) was Dr Dronke, now merchant in Liverpool.

The names Schwefelbande and Bürstenheimer, as well as the two disparate societies they designated, belonged, therefore, exclusively to Geneva. Neither society ever had any connection with me. In London they first became known through the leading articles of the National-Zeitung, which the Daily Telegraph, a London daily paper, reproduced in extract. My connection with the “Schwefelbande” and the “Bürstenheimer” is therefore a deliberate lie of Vogt’s, for which the National-Zeitung has made itself the conduit.

IV) The National-Zeitung, No. 41, leading article “How radical leaflets are made”, p. 1, column 1, line 49 from the top, says: “Vogt speaks at first merely of the ‘party of the proletarians’ under Marx”, whereby it thus identifies me with the “party of the proletarians”, and everything it says about this party therefore concerns me personally.

Now it continues further in the same article, column 2, line 18 et seq. from the top: “In this manner, in 1852, a conspiracy of the most shameful kind, with the mass production of counterfeit paper money (see the details in Vogt) was hatched against the Swiss workers’ societies, a conspiracy which would have caused the Swiss authorities the utmost unpleasantness if it had not been discovered in time.” And further below in the same column, line 33 from the top: “The ‘party of the proletarians’ has a particular hatred of Switzerland, etc.”

From the Cologne Communist trial, October 1852, the Nationalzeitung must have known (exactly as Vogt knew it from my “Revelations concerning the Communist Trial”) that I was never in contact with Cherval, who is supposed to have carried on the intrigues in Switzerland in 1852; (Mr Karl Schapper in London, 5 Percy Street, Bedford Square, who was in contact with Cherval before the Cologne trial, is ready to provide any explanation on the matter); that during the Cologne Communist trial I denounced Cherval through the lawyers as a confederate of Stieber;

that according to Stieber’s own statements, extorted from him, Cherval in 1851, when he carried on the Franco-German plot in Paris under Stieber’s direction, belonged to a society hostile to me. The Nationalzeitung knew from Vogt’s book, which it makes the subject of two leading articles, that I, likewise after the conclusion of the Cologne trial, in a pamphlet sent to Switzerland for printing: “Revelations concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne”, had denounced Cherval as a mouchard. When Cherval during the Cologne trial allegedly escaped from the Paris prison, but in fact came to London as a mouchard, he was received with open arms in the then Willich-Schapper Workers’ Society, but expelled in consequence of the interpellation which the lawyers in Cologne (notably Schneider II), instructed by me, addressed to Stieber regarding Cherval during the court proceedings.

160. Marx to Julius Weber – 24 February 1860

It was therefore the most shameless and most intentional slander on the part of Vogt and the Nationalzeitung affiliated with him to hold me responsible for the alleged Swiss doings of this individual whom I had exposed, persecuted, and who was notoriously hostile to me. Vogt speaks of Marxian affiliates in Geneva with whom Cherval is supposed to have associated. Now, as in 1852, I have no connection with a single person in Switzerland.

I repeat what I wrote to you previously: On 15 September 1850 I and my friends separated from a section of the London Central Authority of the then existing German Communist Society (called the “Communist League”) – from the section which, under Willich’s leadership, became involved in the (otherwise extremely childish and harmless) revolutionary and conspiratorial machinations of the “democratic emigration”. We transferred the Central Authority to Cologne and conducted no further correspondence with any part of the Continent except Cologne. [11] This correspondence, as the Cologne trial proved, contained nothing criminal. From the spring of 1851, as soon as the arrests of individual members of the society occurred in Cologne, we (the London section of the society) broke off all and every connection with the Continent. I corresponded only with a friend of the arrested men (Mr Bernbach, formerly deputy to the Reichsversammlung in Frankfurt), who was personally unknown to me, concerning the means of defence. My friends in London assembled once a week in order to frustrate the police manoeuvres that Stieber employed in the most shameless fashion and renewed daily. In mid-November (1852), after the close of the Cologne trial, I, with the assent of my friends, declared the “Communist League” dissolved and have from that time until now belonged to no society, whether secret or public. Ferdinand Freiligrath, who was a member of the Communist Society, was in Cologne from autumn 1848 to spring 1851, and has resided in London from spring 1851 until now, can testify to the exact truth of the foregoing statements. Moreover, a sufficient piece of evidence is the enclosed letter of 19 Nov. 1852, bearing the London and Manchester postmarks, which my friend F. Engels has rediscovered among his old papers.

The enclosed pamphlet, cited by Vogt and the Nationalzeitung, I had printed in Boston (in America), after the original edition published at Basel by Schablitz had been confiscated at the Baden frontier in an edition of 2,000 copies. You will see from it, and later from the Stieber-Eichhoff trial now pending in Berlin, that the Communist Society to which I belonged until mid-November 1852 offered no

160. Marx to Julius Weber + 24 February 1860

grounds whatever for the charge, and that I and my London friends, on the other hand, with our very limited means, tore to pieces all the nets of police intrigue so energetically that the condemnation of the accused, as the former Stieber agent, a certain Hirsch, now imprisoned in Hamburg, says in his confessions in the New-Yorker Criminalzeitung of 22 April 1853, was to be finally guaranteed by the plan that Hirsch should travel to Cologne under the name of Haupt and commit perjury in the name of the Haupt he impersonated. This coup was on the point of being carried out when, says Hirsch, Herr v. Hinckeldey wrote:

“The public prosecutor hopes, given the happy composition of the jury, to obtain the verdict of guilty even without extraordinary measures, and he (Hinckeldey) therefore requests that no further exertions be made.”

It goes without saying that the appended pamphlet has only juridical value for elucidating my struggle against Stieber-Hinckeldey and the Prussian police system of that time. The societies mentioned in it have belonged for many years to history. |

[12] V) Finally, in order to make clear to you the importance which this libel action against the Nationalzeitung has for me, I shall just very briefly mention the London consequences of the Nationalzeitung’s leading articles.

In the Daily Telegraph (a newspaper appearing daily in London) of 6 February 1860 there appeared an article two and a half columns long under the title: “The Journalistic Auxiliaries of Austria” (“Die journalistischen Helfershelfer von Oestreich”.)

This article, dated from Frankfurt am Main, but really written in Berlin, is, as the most superficial comparison shows, in part mere paraphrase, in part word-for-word translation of the two leading articles of the National-Zeitung, Nos. 37 and 41, which I have incriminated. I shall send you the relevant number of the Daily Telegraph in the next few days. In this article of the Telegraph I, together with my friends, am, first, made into “an accomplice of the secret police” exactly as in the Nationalzeitung; secondly, the entire passage cited by me under IV) about the Schwefelbande, the threatening letters for money, my connection with Cherval’s coining of false money in Switzerland, etc., is translated word for word from the Nationalzeitung.

As soon as this article had appeared, I wrote immediately to the editor of the Daily Telegraph and demanded of him, under threat of an action for libel, to make me an amende honorable. He replied: he had sent my letter to his correspondent in

160. Marx to Julius Weber + 24 February 1860

Germany and would await his answer. This answer appeared in the number of the Daily Telegraph of 13 February 1860 and, in word-for-word translation (you will receive the original in a few days), reads as follows:

“Frankfurt am Main. Febr. 8. I shall be brief in disposing of the remarks that Dr Marx has addressed to you in reply to one of my reports. He has simply addressed his letter wrongly. Had the learned gentleman addressed his remarks to Dr Vogt himself, or to one of the hundred German editors who have cited Dr Vogt’s book, his behaviour would have corresponded to what the matter seems to require. As it is, however, Dr Marx leaves the numerous accusations raised against him in his own fatherland unrefuted and prefers to cool his anger by an attack on the sole English paper that published a statement which has been printed and reprinted in almost every German town of any size. The learned gentleman seems to forget entirely the fact that he has not the slightest right to complain of the publication of a certain piece of unpleasant news in an English paper, so long as he does not see fit to call to account the originators and disseminators of the mischief in his fatherland. I close these lines by declaring my readiness to concede the untruth of the statements contained in the communication in question, as soon as Dr Marx shall have convinced the world of their falsity. If he is in possession of the proofs required for such a purpose, nothing can be easier for him than to achieve so desirable a thing. At least 50 German towns are at his disposal, where he will have to institute proceedings and bring the editors to due punishment. Should he not choose to take this course, it is not the duty of an English correspondent to retract that which he has not asserted, but only repeated on the uncontradicted authority of the most respectable sources.”

I merely draw attention in passing to the exaggerations by means of which the Berlin correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” (I believe a Jew by the name of Meier) seeks to conceal his plagiarism from the Nationalzeitung. First there are a hundred German editors, then many thousands (namely as many editors as there are towns of any significance in Germany), and finally there are at least 50 editors that I should have to sue. By the most respectable sources, moreover, he means his sole source, the Berlin Nationalzeitung.

I also merely mention in passing that in my letter of 6 February (to the editor of the “Daily Telegraph”),

160. Marx to Julius Weber + 24 February 1860

which he, as he wrote to me himself, forwarded to his German correspondent, I had informed the editor of the “Telegraph”, and consequently also his correspondent, that I would be instituting an action for libel against the Berlin Nationalzeitung.

What I regard as the sole and decisively important point is that the Daily Telegraph, skulking behind its correspondent, refuses me all satisfaction until I have conducted the action against a German paper. It invokes the “respectable” authority of the Nationalzeitung, which alone brings precisely the statements made by it into this context.

You will comprehend what scandal the Telegraph’s article caused in London. This scandal I owe to the Nationalzeitung. If only in the interest of my family, I must bring an action for libel against the “Telegraph”, for which the necessary advances here amount to at least £200 – before the decision of the action. You will have seen from the rascally insinuation that my alleged connection with the Neue Preußische Zeitung [14] is explained by the fact that my wife is the sister of the former Prussian minister, v. Westphalen, to what bottomless baseness Vogt is capable of descending.

I now expect immediately (should no letter to me have been sent off previously) the notification that you have received the following letters:

1) Letter from London of 13 Febr. together with advance of 15 Thlr.
2) Letter from Manchester of 21 Feb. together with power of attorney and 7 enclosures.

3) This letter from Manchester of 24 Feb., in which enclosed the brochure: “Enthüllungen über den Communistenproceß zu Köln” and a letter I wrote to F. Engels on 19 Nov. 1852 and which bears the postmarks of London and Manchester.

With perfect esteem
Your most devoted
Dr Karl Marx |

I Registered
Judicial Documents
To the Royal Justizrath
Herr Weber
Berlin I