Application by Marx for Restoration of His Prussian Citizenship

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Application by Marx for Restoration of His Prussian Citizenship

First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 15, Moscow, 1959

In connection with the amnesty granted by the Prussian government (see Note 257) Marx, during his stay in Berlin, March 17 to April 12, 1861, submitted an application to the Prussian government requesting the restoration of his Prussian citizenship (on his earlier steps in this matter see Vol. 7, pp. 407-10). With the working-class movement on the rise and a revolutionary crisis brewing in Germany, Marx probably wished to resume his political activity in Germany when the time was ripe for it. Marx’s applications, published in the Appendices to this volume, were written for him by Ferdinand Lassalle and signed by Marx. His request was refused by the Berlin Police President and, in November of the same year, by the Prussian Minister of the Interior. p. 339

To the Royal Police President

His Excellency Baron von Zedlitz-Neukirch

Your Excellency,

I hereby respectfully inform you that, on the strength of the Royal amnesty, I have returned to Prussia from London, where I have lived as a political refugee since 1849, with the intention of taking up residence here in Berlin to begin with.

In this connection I respectfully request Your Excellency:

1. on the basis of the Royal order of the amnesty and the law of December 31, 1842 (Ges. S. 15-18) to issue a confirmation of my reintegration into the status of a Prussian subject, for which Your Excellency is the competent authority under § 5 of the aforesaid law, and

2. to be good enough to forward to me the certificate mentioned in § 8 of the law of December 31, 1842, on the reception of newly-arrived persons (Ges. S. 5), to the effect that I have reported my entry into this community to the Royal police authorities; and I declare with respect to the latter that, upon request, I can show that I have fully independent means of subsistence through contracts as co-editor of the New-York Tribune, published in New York, as well as otherwise.

To begin with, I have taken up residence with a friend of mine, Herr F. Lassalle, 13 Bellevuestr., and request that the two documents asked for be sent to me there.

With best respects

Your Excellency’s devoted

Dr Karl Marx

Berlin, March 19, 1861

Marx’s Statement On The Restoration Of His Prussian Citizenship

First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 15,' Moscow, 1959

To the Royal Police President

His Excellency Baron von Zedlitz

Your Excellency,

I have the honour in reply to your letter of the 21st inst. to state that I am surprised that my letter of March 19 did not seem quite clear. In the words of my application, my request was: “on the basis of the Royal order of the amnesty and the law of December 31, 1842, to issue a confirmation of my reintegration into the status of a Prussian subject”.

It is this application that appears not quite clear to Your Excellency and seems to contain a contradiction insofar as I referred therein to Your Excellency’s being the competent authority to issue that confirmation, pursuant to § 5 of the law of December 31, 1842.

Under the Royal order of amnesty “unimpeded return to the Prussian states” has been granted to all political refugees not condemned by military courts.

Since I am one of those refugees and am a native Prussian, with reference to which I attach for Your Excellency as official proof my birth certificate in the form of an extract from the Register of Civil Status of the City of Trier (May 7, 1818), moreover as I left the fatherland in 1849, up to which time I had lived in Cologne as editor of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, and had not been prosecuted in actions in military courts, but only in several political press suits, which I drew upon myself in my aforesaid capacity as editor, it is clear therefore that I am included in the abovementioned amnesty.

At the same time, the foregoing provides Your Excellency with an answer to the particular questions that you addressed to me in your rescript.

But it seems possible that another question may be raised. The Royal amnesty not only declares that pardon has been extended to those already convicted under the law and those not yet convicted, but at the same time grants refugees “unimpeded return to the Prussian states”.

Does this signify, apart from remission of the criminal penalty, that the status of a Prussian citizen, which they had lost by residing abroad for more than ten years, is likewise restored to the refugees?

According to my interpretation and that of all jurists, according to the unanimous conception of public opinion and the entire press, it does. And there are two arguments that prove this incontrovertibly.

First, that the amnesty order guarantees not only remission of the penalty but also expressly “unimpeded return to the Prussian states”.

Secondly, because the entire amnesty would otherwise be a completely illusory one, only on paper. For, since all the refugees have lived abroad since 1848 and 1849, i.e., twelve years, this would mean that all of them have lost their status as Prussians, and if that status were not reinvigorated by the amnesty, the “unimpeded return” alleged to be granted would actually be granted to no one.

Accordingly, there can be no doubt that, in spite of the loss of Prussian nationality due to an absence of ten years, this right is to be revived by the Royal amnesty.

However, although this is my interpretation and that of the jurists, in practice only the interpretation of the authorities is decisive and provides an adequate basis for practical actions. How then will the Royal authorities please to interpret the Royal amnesty?

Will they interpret it in the sense that the amnesty is an amnesty, and unimpeded return is unimpeded return? Or will they interpret it in the sense that the granting of unimpeded return impedes return and that the refugees are to remain deprived of the fatherland despite the decree? Upon unprejudiced consideration of the circumstances, Your Excellency cannot fail to see that this scepticism can hardly be regarded as totally unfounded.

So much has been decreed in the last twelve years and so much astonishing interpretation has been referred to these decrees that by now no interpretation can any longer be regarded as positively sure nor can any interpretation be regarded as absolutely impossible.

Accordingly, the only positively sure basis remaining on which practical steps can be taken seems to be the interpretation given by the authorities themselves to the particular individual.

Will Your Excellency grant that, despite my loss of the status of a Prussian by virtue of the law, I have regained it through the Royal amnesty?

That is the very simple and clear question that I wanted to, and had to, address to Your Excellency.

I am all the more forced to do so, since I cannot bring my wife and children from London until this question is decided, for obviously I cannot be expected to undertake a problematical change of residence with my entire household and ;family and only thereafter engage in a contest which,, on the contrary, I should previously bring to a termination, if it is to be engaged in at all, before I take the costly step of moving and bring my wife and children back to the fatherland.

My question is all the more justified as a very natural and simple one in view of the fact that Your Excellency yourself has raised the question in your letter of the 21st inst.: on what basis do I claim “not to have lost the status of a Prussian despite absence for ten years”.

Your Excellency will have seen from the foregoing the basis on which I rest my claim.

The justification for my addressing my question to Your Excellency is found in § 5 of the law of December 31, 1842, which I have adduced. For, since, according to that, Your Excellency is the competent authority to grant naturalisation, so you are a fortiori the competent authority to explain interpretando whether by virtue of the amnesty I have regained the lost status of a Prussian. It is only in this sense that I have referred to § 5 of the law in question.

Furthermore it is particularly appropriate for me to turn to Your Excellency with this question because it is in Berlin that I wish to take up domicile, my ability to do so depending on that confirmation as a legal condition, and hence Your Excellency, as chief of the police of this city, is the person on whose view in the question posed the decision on the matter of residence will depend.

It can surely not be in Your Excellency’s interest, nor can it be expected of me, that I should wait three or four months or longer in complete uncertainty and with no possibility of taking practical steps to achieve my end until I receive notice, along with a definitive decision as to domicile, of what interpretation you give the Royal amnesty and whether thereby you will confirm my reinstatement as a Prussian or not.

Such uncertainty, lasting for months, would be extremely damaging to me in all my plans, arrangements and economic relationships. It is, of course, also my right to know whether the competent authority will or will not confirm that status for me, and that authority will not regard a refusal or postponement of a reply thereto as either legitimate or worthy of itself.

Accordingly, I freely, openly and loyally put this question to Your Excellency: whether or not you confirm that the Royal amnesty restores me to the status of a Prussian?

and I look forward to an equally free, open and loyal reply.

I am all the more eager to have this answer as soon as possible since only then will it be possible for me, in the most improbable case of an unfavourable decision, to appeal to the Chambers while they are still in session, during which, in any case, a proposal for an amnesty law evoked by doubts as to the interpretation of the amnesty order will be discussed, and since, on the other hand, I can stay here only for a short time now, as family affairs call me back to London.

I therefore request Your Excellency kindly to let me have the requested open and definite answer by return of post, for only then will I be able to submit, in due form, my application for settlement in this city.

I have the honour to remain,

Your Excellency’s obedient servant,

Dr Karl Marx

Berlin, March 25, 1861

Marx’s Statement On The Rejection Of His Application For Restoration Of His Prussian Citizenship

First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 15, Moscow, 1959

Berlin, April 6, 1861

To His Excellency the Royal Police President

Baron von Zedlitz, Knight p.p.

Your Excellency,

I have the honour to reply to your letter dated March 30 and received yesterday that the facts, referred to by Your Excellency, relating to my discharge from my Prussian citizenship in 1845 cannot be fully known to Your Excellency, since otherwise Your Excellency’s decision of March 30 would certainly not have been taken.

The following facts and legal grounds will convince Your Excellency that the status of a Prussian cannot be denied me at the present time.

1. In 1844, during my residence in Paris, an order for my arrest was issued by the Royal Governor of the Rhine Province, on the grounds of the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher edited by me, and was sent to the border police authorities to be carried out as soon as I set foot on Prussian soil.

This placed me in the position of a political refugee from that time on.

But the Royal Prussian government was not content with that.

In January 1845 it obtained my expulsion from France from the Guizot ministry.

I went to Belgium. But the persecution of the Royal Prussian government followed me there too. Still on the pretext that I was a Prussian, which entitled the Prussian government to take steps concerning me via their embassies abroad, here too my expulsion was demanded by the Prussian government.

Prevented from returning to my fatherland by the order of arrest, the only thing left me of my nationality as a Prussian was the capacity for being persecuted; the only thing left me was to be persecuted and expelled everywhere abroad at the instance of the Prussian government.

This made it necessary for me to deprive the Prussian government of that period of the possibility to persecute me further, and for this reason I asked in 1845 for that discharge from Prussian citizenship.

Even at that time, it was not in the least my intention to give up my Prussian nationality. This can be formally proved. Anyone who gives up his nationality can only do that with the intention of getting himself admitted to another nationality. I have never done this. I have not had myself naturalised anywhere, and, when the provisional government of France offered me naturalisation in 1848, I refused it.

That application in 1845 for discharge from Prussian citizenship was therefore not, as Your Excellency writes in error, a surrender, “by my own free will”, of my status as a Prussian, but merely a device, forced on me by extreme persecution, to free myself from the continuing device of this persecution. It was a pretext employed against another pretext, not at all a serious intention to give up my status as a Prussian.

Your Excellency will see from the foregoing that it is impossible for you to rely on that proceeding in 1845.

To try to rely on it would mean supporting the era of the worst absolutist persecutions of German writers, perpetuating them in their effects, and trying to take advantage of them. It would mean trying, on the basis of the political oppression of that period and the means thereby forced on me of saving myself from unbounded persecution, to deprive me of my Prussian nationality, which I never seriously intended to give up.

Finally, with reference to the expulsion in 1849 mentioned by Your Excellency, I will remark by way of supererogation that I returned to Prussia immediately after March 1848 and took up my domicile in Cologne and was admitted as a citizen by the municipality of Cologne without further ado. To be sure, the Manteuffel ministry ordered my expulsion in 1849 as an alleged foreigner. But this action is one of the most illegal deeds of violence of that ministry and hence cannot in any way be adduced as a decisive precedent, and even at that time I would not have yielded to it had not a number of political press prosecutions forced me to go abroad, as a refugee, quite apart from that expulsion.

After the foregoing explanations, I regard Your Excellency as just as unable to wish to rely on those facts as it is objectively impossible to deduce from them anything against me.

However, this is also

2. quite impossible because of the Royal decree on the amnesty. By it “unimpeded return to the Prussian states” is assured all political refugees. That is, unimpeded return even if they had in the meantime legally lost their status as Prussians. Unimpeded return, whatever the way in which they might have lost that status, whether by the law itself as the result of absence for ten years or by reason of an added verbal declaration of withdrawal from Prussian citizenship. The amnesty does not distinguish between these two modes of loss of the status of a Prussian. Neither does it distinguish between the refugees of 1848-49 and those of an earlier period; it does not distinguish between those who lost the rights of native-born Prussians as a result of the conflicts in 1848 and those who lost them as a result of the political conflicts of earlier years.

“Unimpeded return” is assured all political refugees, from whatever time their political conflicts and the resulting loss of their rights as native-born [Prussians] may date; all these are thereby restored to their previous rights as native-born.

Since the Royal amnesty does not distinguish whether those rights were lost by virtue of the law itself because of absence for ten years or because of an added declaration, it is absolutely impermissible to try, by interpretation, to introduce a limitation and a distinction into the Royal amnesty which it never makes itself.

Your Excellency will be aware of this firmly-established principle, that an amnesty may never be interpreted restrictively. This principle has been consecrated by the jurisprudence of all times and all countries with unanimity like no other principle. If this has been the inviolable principle of every tribunal that has had to apply and interpret amnesty decrees, it must equally be the principle of administrative authorities when it behoves them to make this interpretation. Any restrictive interpretation would signify: abbreviating the amnesty after the event and repealing it in part.

This will certainly not be Your Excellency’s intention. If I refrain from adducing the juridical materials on this matter that are at my disposal, the reason is that it will suffice to call Your Excellency’s attention to the fact that any other interpretation of the Royal amnesty than mine would contain a restriction thereof. Your Excellency will see from the foregoing that in fact everything comes down to whether, as I stated in my latest memorandum, the refugees are reintegrated into the status of native-born Prussians by the Royal amnesty, although all of them had lost the same under the law in view of their staying abroad for ten years without permission. If this is conceded, and Your Excellency yourself accepts this in your rescript dated March 30, it is a matter of total indifference if there has been, in addition to this legal loss of native-born status, which is set aside by the amnesty, a declaration by the individual in question in the past, and posing such a distinction would constitute an impermissible restriction of the amnesty.

But this is the case not only because of the wording of the amnesty and of the favourable spirit in which amnesties must always be interpreted, but likewise

3. in conformity with the legal nature of the situation under consideration. For in fact, what difference should it make to the Royal amnesty whether the rights as native-born, which the amnesty restores, as Your Excellency yourself does not dispute, were lost under the law itself or by reason of an added declaration on the part of the individual? As little as an individual declaration by a refugee of unwillingness to lose his status as a native-born Prussian, despite the law, would change his losing it under the law, just so little could that declaration either set this losing aside or reinforce it. The declaration by an individual that something should take place which would have taken place in any event by virtue of the law—discharge from Prussian citizenship—remains a déclaration surérogatoire, a totally indifferent, superfluous declaration, whose absence is no hindrance and whose presence is ineffectual.

Your Excellency seems to wish to see a distinction in that the status of a Prussian was allegedly given up by me “of my own free will”, whereas for the other refugees it was brought about involuntarily by a ten-year absence. But this too is incorrect. Formally, the refugee’s remaining out of the country for ten years likewise constitutes a voluntary abandonment of the status of a Prussian, for as a matter of fact none of the refugees was prevented from returning before this time had elapsed and presenting himself before the Prussian courts. Inasmuch as he did not do this, he voluntarily preferred to lose the status of a Prussian. The last day of the ten-year stay abroad without permission is thus completely the equivalent of a written declaration to the Prussian government of a desire to relinquish Prussian citizenship. Since this absence is just as free an act of the will as a document addressed to the government, the same declaration was submitted by voluntas tacita on the last day of this ten-year absence by all the refugees as the one that you have in your files submitted by me in 1845.

So far as form is concerned, there is just as voluntary a surrender of the rights of the native-born on the part of all the refugees as there is on mine.

It is true that in point of fact those refugees were prevented from returning unless they wanted to expose themselves to the harm of arrest and a criminal procedure, and hence they were, in point of fact, under compulsion. But the same real compulsion was present in my case as well, as Your Excellency will have seen from Point 1. I too was, in point of fact, prevented in the same way from returning by the warrants of arrest that had been issued and I gave up the status of a Prussian only under exactly the same compulsion as.that under which the other refugees surrendered it on the last day of their ten-year absence. Indeed, I was also compelled to this ostensible surrender by the persecution extending into foreign countries.

Thus, whether Your Excellency takes the formal or the real side of the question into consideration, that affects me in precisely the same way as it does all other refugees, and if, as Your Excellency does not deny, the native-born status lost by ten-year absence has been restored to the refugees by the amnesty, it is equally restored to me despite the enforced disavowal, which is completely equivalent to this loss under the law.

As has been shown, my having declared in writing that I desired to lose the status of a Prussian, which I had lost anyway by virtue of the law, this declaration, which is totally without effect after the loss incurred lege ipsa, is not the essential point. It could at best only be seen as constituting a difference, although not a valid one, if I had assumed a new nationality elsewhere. This and only this would have been a voluntary action. The mere surrender of Prussian citizenship was enforced and would have taken place anyway lege ipsa. But I have never and nowhere had myself naturalised. Very many refugees did in fact do this. If even for these cases the Royal amnesty must be regarded as unconditionally sufficient grounds for granting them renaturalisation, in the event that they desire it, then in the case of myself, who have never taken out naturalisation in any other state, .the restoration of the # status of a native-born [Prussian] must of necessity be recognised as effected by the amnesty itself.

4. In the foregoing I have explained to Your Excellency that I have undoubtedly regained my status as a native-born Prussian, even if I had lost it in 1845, by virtue of the Royal amnesty. But an equally decisive ground for my claim is the circumstance that I have already won back my rights as a Prussian citizen by the decision of the Federal Diet dated March 30, 1848.

That decision declared that all the political refugees had the right to vote and to be elected to the German National Assembly who were to return to Germany and declare that they desired to regain the rights as citizens of the state. By this decision, which is binding on Prussia and towards which the Prussian government contributed, all political refugees were thus restored to their rights as citizens of the state in the state to which they had previously belonged or in the one in which they now wished to take it out.

As a consequence of this decision I went from Paris to Cologne at once, there reassumed my rights as a citizen of the Prussian state, obtained permission without difficulty from the Cologne City Council to take up domicile there and hence was undoubtedly in lawful possession from then on of the status of a native-born Prussian, which cannot in any way be altered by the unlawful coup, in violation of the Federal Diet’s decision, of the expulsion attempted by the Manteuffel ministry.

This fact of law is so decisive that it would be superfluous to add even a single word to it.

Your Excellency will be as convinced of this as I am and will equally regard it as not in the interest of the Prussian government to force me to appeal to the Federal Diet against a violation of its decisions by the Prussian government. It would be too contradictory a position if Prussia, which continues to recognise the reactivated Federal Diet, should wish to change over to refusing to recognise the few scattered decisions of the unoriginal Federal Diet that were issued in the interest of the people and in a liberal direction.

Such a procedure would be, juridically and politically, too exorbitant a monstrosity to be taken into consideration even tentatively.

As Your Excellency will see, it is not even necessary for me to refer to the decision, independent of the Federal Diet decision, of the Preparliament, likewise recognised de facto by the Prussian government, according to which even those German refugees who had been naturalised in other countries in the interim were also entitled to reassume their previous rights as citizens.

Pursuant to the decision of the Federal Diet dated March 30, 1848, to my removal to Cologne as a consequence thereof, and my. declaration to the Prussian ministry dated August 22, 1848, which is in Your Excellency’s files, I have therefore been once more in possession of the rights of a native-born Prussian since 1848, even if I did lose them in 1845.

Accordingly, I am still in possession thereof today since, as Your Excellency yourself does not deny, the loss thereof which ensued by reason of the subsequent ten-year absence has been cancelled again by the present amnesty.

Although the foregoing demonstration that I already am in possession of the rights of a native-born Prussian and require only recognition of that status is so clear and irrefutable I have, in returning to my fatherland, only a practical purpose in mind and not that of a fruitless juridical-theoretical conflict.

If Your Excellency should, as it seems, conceive the relevant situation in such a way that I must first obtain a new naturalisation, that can and should be a matter of indifference to me provided that Your Excellency, since you are the competent authority to do this pursuant to § 5 of the law of December 31, 1842, declares your willingness to grant the naturalisation. Only then and only insofar can I yield up my already existing full right, if and insofar as Your Excellency prefers to issue a new naturalisation without difficulties. Up to that point I must maintain my rights and therefore request you, in this sense and reserving all rights, to treat this letter, in that case, also as a possible request to obtain a new naturalisation.

Your Excellency’s obedient servant,

Dr Karl Marx

Answer To Marx’s Application For Restoration Of His Prussian Citizenship

First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 15, Moscow, 1959

In reply to your request dated April 6 of this year, I inform you that the conviction that you are to be regarded as a foreigner is not in any way refuted even by the considerations stated therein. § 20 of the law of December 31, 1842, on the acquisition and loss of the status of a Prussian subject rules that that status is lost at the issuance of the document waiving it.

Accordingly, neither the motive for your seeking that waiver nor whether you have obtained citizenship elsewhere is relevant. Further, you have not regained the status of a Prussian either in virtue of the Federal Diet’s decision of March 30, 1848, or by His Majesty’s act of grace of January 12 cr. What is determinant for the elections to the German National Assembly is not that decision but the order of April 11, 1848, which is not in your favour in any way. His Majesty’s decree of January 12 cr. is an act of grace and hence relates only to remission or reduction of punishment (Art. 49 of the Constitution). But the loss of the status of a Prussian is never incurred by a conviction and is therefore not cancelled by acts of grace.

Consequently, the Police Presidium can only regard you as a foreigner. If you intend to apply for Prussian citizenship, it will be necessary for you, in order to meet the requirements prescribed in § 7 of the law of December 31, 1842, to make your application in the customary manner at the suitable police precinct, and no assurance can be given you in advance as to the prospects of success.

Royal Police Presidium von Zedlitz

Berlin, April 10, 1861

Marx’s Application For Naturalisation And Right Of Domicile In Berlin

First published in: Marx and Engels Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 15, Moscow, 1959

Official Opinion of the 33rd Police Precinct

Done at Berlin, April 10, 1861

Dr Karl Marx arrived here on March 1, 1861. After he had declared that he wished to settle here and obtain the status of a Prussian citizen by naturalisation, he gave the following information as to his personal situation:

I was born on May 5, 1818, at Trier in the Prussian Rhine Province, profess the Evangelical religion and am legally competent according to the laws of my previous homeland. I have resided in England for the last twelve years, supported myself there by literary work and have not been aided by public relief funds. I have several times been under investigation because of political press prosecutions and refer to the existing files for my conduct. I have not applied to any other Prussian authority for naturalisation or domiciliation and have never been rejected in this respect. In this connection, I have been notified that failure to report an investigation made of me or my dependents as well as incorrect data concerning my situation in general, or failure to report an application for naturalisation made to another Prussian authority will entail the cancellation and the withdrawal of the certificate of naturalisation, that the decision as to my application for domiciliation regardless of the declaration of the municipal authorities and acceptance of the filing fees, is made exclusively by the Royal Police Presidium, and I am therefore to refrain before obtaining the naturalisation and domiciliation certificates from any steps whatsoever to establish myself.

I have not yet rented any dwelling place of my own here—I have found lodging with Dr Lassalle, Bellevuestr. No. 13—and will support myself and my family by my literary work.

My income comes to about 2,000 reichsthaler; neither I nor my wife have any property.

With respect to my military status, I am already exempt from all service in the army because of my age.

I have no decorations.

I request: that the certificate of naturalisation be issued me and that I be permitted to take up residence here.

Read aloud, accepted, signed.

Dr Karl Marx

Letter From Marx To Police President Von Zedlitz

First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 15, Moscow, 1959

To His Excellency Herr von Zedlitz

Royal Police President

Your Excellency,

I received your esteemed letter of April 10 last evening.

Although in Your Excellency’s last letter you were of the opinion that because of the application in 1845 it would be of no effect in my case even if the amnesty should have cancelled the loss of the status of a Prussian due to absence for ten years, Your Excellency now, in view of my latest arguments, takes rather the opposite opinion that the amnesty, because as such it allegedly can only contain a pardon of penalties, cannot cancel the loss of the status of a Prussian, no matter for what reason that loss has ever been incurred.

In order not to prejudice my rights, I am forced to remark that this letter, according to the legal opinion of the undersigned, would present 1) a partial annulment of the Royal amnesty, 2) a non-recognition of the Federal Diet and its decisions and hence a violation of the German constitutional principles, as laid down in the Federal Act,3) finally, an equally emphatic negation of all public law in Prussia.

Mindful, however, of the practical purpose by which I am guided, J will not weary Your Excellency by a demonstration of these three legally unassailable theses, but agree, in the sense in which I expressed it to Your Excellency at the end of my last memorandum, to receive what is my right and what I must hold fast as such, even in the form of a new naturalisation from Your Excellency.

Being compelled to leave here in haste because of news from my family, I applied early yesterday in this sense in omnern eventum for the new naturalisation at the police precinct of my district. At the same time, I respectfully inform Your Excellency that because of my departure I empower Mr. F. Lassalle, of this city, to receive the naturalisation certificate for me, to make and take note on my behalf of all the necessary applications and steps in this matter, and in general to exercise my rights to the same extent as is in my power.

Respectfully requesting Your Excellency to kindly address the final decision to Mr. F. Lassalle, of this city, I remain,

Your Excellency’s obedient servant

Dr Karl Marx

Berlin, April 11, 1861

Power Of Attorney Given By Marx To Ferdinand Lassalle For The Restoration Of His Prussian Citizenship

First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXV, Moscow, 1934

I hereby empower Mr. Ferdinand Lassalle of Berlin, on my departure from that city, to vindicate my rights in the matter, now pending before the Royal Police Presidium, relating to the recognition of my status as a Prussian, restored to me under the Royal Amnesty of January 12 of this year or, alternatively, the possible granting of new naturalisation and permission to reside in Berlin. I further empower him to submit applications, to lodge petitions and appeals with the Royal Prussian Government as also with the German Federal Diet, and to avail himself of every right to which I am entitled, in the same measure to which I myself am entitled thereto.

Dr Karl Marx

Berlin, April 12, 1861

To The Directorate Of The Schiller Institute

Written about May 3, 1861

First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXV, Moscow, 1934

[Draft]

I have the honour to enclose as Appendix I a copy of a communication from the Librarian which was handed to me not long since. When I took the liberty of making a few observations to Mr Stössel regarding certain expressions used therein, his reply, as I had expected, was that the communication was merely a copy of the set form laid down by the Literary Section of the Directorate.

If, therefore, I now feel compelled to bring the said observations to the attention of the Directorate, I should first of all emphasise that these do not in any way apply to the substance of the communication as such. Everyone will, no doubt, subscribe to this last, to a strict adherence to the time limit prescribed for the loan of books, to the levying of “fines” should that limit be exceeded, and to the observance of the Institute’s rules and regulations generally. What I am concerned with here is merely the tone of this document. That tone is so very different from that customary in correspondence between educated persons that I must confess I am not used to receiving such letters, nor, from what Mr. Stössel tells me, am I the first to have been struck by ihis. to put it mildly, uncouth form of address.

Indeed, when 1 had read this missive, it was as though I had been suddenly transported home. It was as though, instead of a communication from the Librarian of the Schiller Institute, I were holding a peremptory summons from a German inspector of police ordering me, on pain of a heavy penalty, to make amends for some kind of violation “within 24 hours”. The otherwise very innocuous uniform of the beadle who served this writ on me could not on this occasion but help to complete the illusion.

Immediately after this incident I took occasion to reread the manifesto dated November 12, 1859, and issued, so to speak, as the programme of the incipient Schiller Institute. Seen alongside the afore-mentioned communication from the Librarian, that programme now appears in a somewhat peculiar light. In it we read that the Schiller Institute was intended to be such

“that a young German ... should at once feel more at home here... find himself better looked after and provided for, both morally and intellectually ... and, above all, should return to the fatherland in no way estranged from it”.

No doubt, the bureaucratic style of such official communications is the very thing to make the recipient instandy feel that he is on his home ground, and to instil in him the belief that he is just as well if not “better looked after and provided for” than he would be at home, in the dear, old patriarchal police state, that great institution looking after and making provision for little children; nor, so long as such official communications continue to flourish, can there possibly be the remotest danger of any member of the Schiller Institute’s becoming estranged from the fatherland. Indeed if, once in a way, there should happen to be some member of the Schiller Institute who had not had occasion to become acquainted at home with the forms of bureaucracy and the imperious language of officialdom, the Schiller Institute would seem to offer him an excellent opportunity to do so; again, this presumably is the construction to be put upon the programme’s undertaking that the Schiller Institute will help ensure

“that even he of advanced years, who decides to return home and settle down there again, should, along with the German language and culture, also preserve and even develop to a higher degree, his capacity for public service as a German man and citizen”.

Indeed, it would hardly have occurred to many members that “the German spirit in the fullest sense of the term”, for the nurturing of which the Schiller Institute was to be a rallying-point, should inter alia also comprise that spirit of bureaucracy in whose hands, alas, almost all political power at home is still vested but against which the whole of Germany is fighting and over whkh, at this very moment, it is scoring victory after victory. This hectoring tone, these categorical demands that an order be obeyed within 24 hours are, at all events, out of place here, and if they entail, not a fortnight’s imprisonment on a diet of bread and water, but the fearsome threat of a half-crown fine, then the effect is comical into the bargain.

Among its members the Schiller Institute numbers not only Germans, but also Englishmen, Dutchmen and Danes, for whom this tone will certainly not have the ring of “home”. I permit myself to ask what such members are likely to think of the “German spirit” upon receiving missives of this kind?

It so happens that I myself do at present belong to the Literary Section of another society here which does not boast a librarian and, in similar cases, it often falls to me to send out circulars to members. I enclose herewith the customary form (Appendix II), not because of any pretence it might have to serve as a model, but rather because it may, perhaps, show that the same object can be attained without infringing on that deference which one educated person owes another.

I repeat that while fortiter in re is certainly most commendable, members would also seem to me to be entitled to some suaviter in modo. By all means, let the iron hand of the Literary Section descend on the head of every member, but let it also wear a velvet glove. And that is why I would request the Directorate to be so kind as to ensure that the Literary Section’s official correspondence with members should be modelled, not so much on orders issued by German administrative offices to those they administer, as on what is proper in correspondence between educated persons.

Power Of Attorney Issued By Marx To Engels To Take Over Wilhelm Wolff’s Estate

First published in: Marx-Engels Gesamtaus-gabe, Dritte Abteilung, Bd. 3, 1930

23 May, 1864

1, Modena Villas, Maitland Park,

Haverstock Hill, London, N.W.

My dear Sir,

I hereby request you and give you full power to act as my representative at, and take all the necessary steps for, the execution of the will of our common friend, Wilhelm Wolff.

KARL MARX, Dr. Ph.