Two Trials of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung

Author(s) Karl Marx
Friedrich Engels
Karl Schapper
Karl Schneider II
Written 8 February 1849


First published in the Deutsche Londoner Zeitung No. 203, February 16, 1849
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 8
Collection(s): Deutsche Londoner Zeitung

Cologne, February 8. Yesterday and today two press cases were again heard in the assizes against Marx, editor-in-chief of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Engels and Schapper, members of the paper's staff, and today against Marx, Schapper and the lawyer Schneider II, who are charged with having incited the people against the Government in connection with refusal to pay taxes. The crowd of people was extraordinary. In both cases the accused undertook their own defence and sought to prove that the charges were groundless, in which they succeeded insofar as the jury in both cases pronounced a verdict of not guilty.

In political trials the Government nowadays really has no luck at all with the juries. A few officers of the local garrison[1] who took part in the popular movements in September of last year may fare worse; they fled over the border to Belgium when things went awry, but have now presented themselves again and are awaiting the decision in the proceedings which have already been instituted against them.[2]

  1. ↑ Adamski and Niethake.—Ed.
  2. ↑ Lieutenants Adamski and Niethake took part in the September events in Cologne and in November 1848 were elected to the People's Committee (see Note 384). When the threat of arrest arose, they fled to Belgium, but were arrested, there and deported to France. On December 14, after their voluntary return to Germany, they were court-martialled. On May 29, 1849, the court martial deprived Adamski of his commission and sentenced him to nine months' imprisonment in a fortress.