Trial against Gottschalk and Comrades

[Neue Rheinische Zeitung, No. 175, December 22, 1848]

* Cologne, 21 December. This morning the trial of Gottschalk, Anneke and Esser began before the local extraordinary assizes.

The accused, like the commonest criminals, closely confined, were escorted from the new prison to the courthouse, where a not inconsiderable armed force was quartered.

Our readers know that in the jury, as it is now organised, we see anything but a guarantee. The census confers upon a particular class the privilege of seeing the jurors emerge from its own midst. The drawing up of the jury lists gives the government the monopoly of picking out from the privileged class the individuals that suit it. The Herr Regierungspräsident namely draws up a list of a certain number of individuals whom he selects from the jury lists of the entire administrative district; the judicial representatives of the government purge this list down to 36, if our memory does not deceive us. Finally, at the moment of the actual constitution of the jury court, the public prosecutor has the right to purge this last list, the result of class privilege and a double governmental distillation, for the third time, and to weed it down to the final requisite dozen.

Truly a miracle if such a constitution does not throw the accused, who have openly opposed the privileged class and the existing state power, directly under the absolute power of their most ruthless enemies.

One will answer us: the conscience of the jurors, the conscience—do people demand a greater guarantee? But, mon Dieu,* the conscience depends on a person’s knowledge and whole mode of existence.

A republican has a different conscience from a royalist, a propertied person a different conscience from a propertyless person, a thinking person a different conscience from a thoughtless person. A person who is qualified for jury service solely by the census has the conscience of the census.

The “conscience” of the privileged is precisely a privileged conscience.

If, therefore, the jury court, as it is now constituted, appears to us as an institution for maintaining the privileges of a few and by no means as an institution for securing the rights of all; if, in the present case in particular, the public prosecutor has made the most extensive use of his power to purge from the last list the final dozen names that displeased him—we nevertheless do not doubt for a moment that the accused will be acquitted. Our guarantee is the indictment[109].

One fancies one is reading an ironically conceived defence brief by Gottschalk and his associates.

Let us sum up this indictment, which finds an analogue only in the indictment against Mellinet and his associates (trial of Risquons-Tout in Antwerp[120]).

There exists in Cologne a workers’ association[121]; Gottschalk was president, Anneke and Esser committee members of this association. The workers’ association, the indictment informs us,

“had a special organ, edited by Gottschalk, the ‘Arbeiterzeitung’, and whoever had no opportunity to attend the meetings themselves could see from this paper the dangerous tendencies of the association, which flattered the proletariat and worked towards communism and the overthrow of existing conditions.”

Thus tendencies could be seen, but no unlawful acts. Proof: Up until Gottschalk’s arrest etc., the parquet had brought no charge against the “Arbeiterzeitung”, and after Gottschalk’s arrest it was only once convicted—in the monster trial of the local public prosecutor’s office, namely the local public prosecutor’s action for insulting the local public prosecutor’s office[122].

“The association itself,” the indictment admits, however, “did not attempt to gloss over anything in its reports” (on the proceedings of the workers’ association, its committee meetings and its branch associations).

If, then, the “Arbeiterzeitung” could not be prosecuted for its “reports” on the proceedings of the workers’ association, the workers’ association itself could not be judicially pursued for its proceedings.

Against the workers’ association there is only what exists against the “Arbeiterzeitung”—the unpopular tendency of this association. Do the March achievements also include—tendency trials, trials against tendencies that have remained mere tendencies? So far our September laws[123] have not yet been enacted. Gottschalk and his associates were also by no means arrested and brought to trial for unlawful reports in the “Arbeiterzeitung” or unlawful proceedings of the workers’ association. The indictment makes no secret of this. It was not the previous activity of the workers’ association that set the judicial machinery in motion, but—listen:

“In the days from 14 to 17 June of this year a congress of delegates from a multitude of democratic associations that had arisen in Germany was assembled in Frankfurt. Gottschalk and Anneke, as delegates, represented the Cologne Workers’ Association. This congress, as is known, openly declared for the democratic republic, and the local authorities anticipated an echo of the movement there, when for Sunday, 25 June, a further general assembly of the Workers’ Association in the Gürzenich was announced.”

The local authorities anticipated an echo of the Frankfurt movement.

But what movement had actually taken place in Frankfurt? The democratic congress had openly declared for the unpopular tendency of the democratic republic. Hence an “echo” of this “tendency” was anticipated, and they sought to enter into combat with this echo.

As is known, the democratic congress at Frankfurt, and the central committee appointed to execute its decisions, sat in Berlin without being challenged by the governments[124].

The German governments, therefore, despite the unpopular tendency, had to recognise the legality of the Frankfurt congress and of the organisation of the democratic party decided by it.

But the Cologne authorities “once and for all anticipated” an echo of the Frankfurt movement. They anticipated an opportunity to catch Gottschalk and his associates on unlawful ground. To constitute this opportunity, the police directorate dispatched “Police Commissioners Lutter and Hünnemann” to the general assembly of the Workers’ Association at the Gürzenich on 25 June, “specially instructed to observe the occurrences there”. In the same general assembly there was, by coincidence, “the bookbinder Johann Maltheser” who, as the indictment sighs, “would be a principal witness if he were not in the pay of the police authority”, i.e., in other words, if he were not a paid police spy. Finally, probably from pure patriotic fanaticism, the “Referendar v. Groote” presented himself, “who gives Anneke’s speech in the general assembly in the greatest detail, since he wrote it down during the session itself”.

One sees: on 25 June the Cologne authorities anticipated a crime to be committed by Gottschalk and his associates. All police precautions to establish this eventual crime had been taken. But when the authorities once “anticipate”, they do not want to wait in vain.

“From the reports” of the police commissioners despatched to establish an anticipated crime and other henchmen

“the state authority on 2 July took occasion to apply for an investigation against Gottschalk and Anneke on account of their” (meaning anticipated) “incendiary speeches held in that public assembly. On 3 July their arrest, along with confiscation of their papers, took place.

On 5 July, after several witnesses had been examined in the meantime and further denunciations had come in, the investigation was extended to the entire previous activity of the leaders of the Workers’ Association, and thereby against several other members of it, notably against the cooper Esser, etc. What the investigation against the accused has produced relates partly to their speeches in the Workers’ Association, partly to their papers and the printed matter disseminated by them.”

What the investigation has really produced—we shall prove it tomorrow from the indictment itself—is that the movement anticipated on 25 June confined itself to a movement on the part of the authorities—this echo of the Frankfurt movement—that Gottschalk and his associates had to do penance with six months’ close detention on remand for the authorities’ disappointed anticipation of 25 June. Nothing more dangerous than to disappoint the state authority’s anticipation of earning a life-saving medal for the fatherland. No one likes to be disappointed in his anticipations, least of all the state authority.

If the whole manner in which the crime was staged on 25 June shows us the state authority as the sole creator of this criminal drama, the investigation documents offer us an opportunity to admire the ingenious dexterity with which they spun out the prologue for six months.

We cite verbatim from: “The Political Tendency Trial against Gottschalk and Associates”, edited by M. F. Anneke. Published by the “Neue Kölnische Zeitung”[130]:

“After the investigation had lasted about five or six weeks, it was declared closed by the investigating magistrate Leuthaus, who had replaced Herr Geiger, promoted to police director. The state prosecutor Hecker, however, after examining the files, submitted new applications, which the investigating magistrate also granted. After about 14 days the preliminary investigation was concluded for the second time. After Herr Hecker had once again studied the files at leisure, he again submitted a number of new applications. The investigating magistrate refused to accede to them, and so did the chamber of the council. Herr Hecker appealed to the indictment senate, and this instance ordered that some of the applications were to be granted, whereas others were to be rejected. Among the latter was, for example, the application to draw into the investigation, on the basis of a mere list of names of persons from all parts of Germany found in Anneke’s pocket-book, all these persons, some 30 or 40 in number.

After the investigation had been happily spun out thus far and could practically no longer be extended, the chamber of the council, on 28 September, ordered the files to be transferred to the indictment senate. This recognised the indictment on 10 October, and on 28 October the general prosecutor signed the indictment.

The ordinary quarterly assizes, which had begun on 9 October, were thus happily missed for this trial.

After 27 November an extraordinary assizes was appointed. This, too, was, if possible, still to be missed. The files of the preliminary investigation were namely sent to the Ministry of Justice with the application to refer the trial to another assize court. The Ministry of Justice, however, found no adequate reason, and towards November the accused Gottschalk, Anneke and Esser were finally referred, for 21 December, to the local extraordinary assizes.”

*1 my God.

‘During this long prologue, the first examining magistrate, Geiger,
became acting police director and the public prosecutor Hecker to