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Special pages :
Dr. Gottschalk
First published: in Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 66, August 5, 1848
Cologne, August 4. Dr. Gottschalk had his three first interrogations published in the Zeitung des Arbeiter-Vereines zu Köln. As a punishment, the warders he has had up to now have been removed and a new gaoler appointed in the person of warder Schröder.
“The latter was not willing to take over his duties without an exact inventory,” writes the local workers’ paper, “and so Dr. Gottschalk and his cell were searched again, customs-style. Although nothing suspicious was found, a much closer watch than before is being kept on him.” ‘
Public proceedings in the Rhine Province are a sheer illusion as long as they are supplemented by “Spanish Inquisition proceedings”.[1]
In order to appreciate Gottschalk’s arrest, one should read the Gervinus Zeitung. [Deutsche Zeitung] The forceful intervention of the Public Prosecutor, it says, has restored confidence once more. On the other hand, the approaching festivities [600th anniversary of the Cologne Cathedral in August 1848] are diverting the attention of the frivolous citizens of Cologne from all thought of politics. And these same citizens of Cologne, to whom the Government has handed over Gottschalk and the Cathedral festivities, these same ungrateful citizens, the Gervinus Zeitung exclaims, forget all these good deeds of the Prussian Government as soon as it stammers the first word about a compulsory loan!
The arrest of Gottschalk and Anneke, the press trials, and so on, have restored confidence. In the city, confidence is the basis of public credit. Therefore lend the Prussian Government money, a great deal of money, and it will lock up even more people, stage even more press trials, manufacture even more confidence. More arrests, more press trials, more reaction from the Government. But in honest exchange — mark this well — more money, more and more money from the citizens!
We advise the Prussian Government in its financial difficulties to take refuge in a measure tried and tested under Louis XIV and Louis XV. Let it sell Lettres de cachet! Lettres de cachet! Lettres de cachet![2] as a means of restoring confidence and filling up the Prussian treasury!
- ↑ The Inquisition proceedings — a form of criminal proceedings under absolutism, which allowed extremely wide powers to judges, who combined the functions of prosecutor and examining magistrate, trial in camera, and the use of torture to obtain evidence. The Inquisition proceedings became particularly notorious in Catholic Church courts and especially those of the Holy Inquisition which examined crimes of heresy
- ↑ Lettres de cachet, i.e. warrants for arrest signed by the King of France at the time of the absolute monarchy. Any person could be imprisoned without investigation or court proceedings