From the Indictment of the Participants in the Uprising in Elberfeld in May 1849

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Note from MECW :

This document consists of excerpts from the Indictment of the participants in the Elberfeld uprising in May 1849 (see pp. 159-69 of this volume; Notes 147, 148). The trial took place between April 23 and May 7, 1850, in Elberfeld; altogether 122 people were accused. The Indictment was published in the Cologne newspaper, Westdeutsche Zeitung, during April and May. The majority of the defendants were found guilty and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. The document presented here reflects the official point of view of the Prussian judicial authorities, yet at the same time proves that Engels played an important part in the uprising, for which he was regarded by Prussian justice as a dangerous state criminal. It is not by chance that Marx wrote to him on August 23, 1849, urging him to leave Switzerland for London. "In any case your safety demands it. The Prussians would shoot you twice over: 1) because of Baden, 2) because of Elberfeld."

Besides the above-named accused, the tailor Peter Nothjung is also accused of the main crime of the attempt, although he was neither on the Army Reserve Committee nor on the Public Safety Committee. He was von Mirbach’s adjutant, and as such was close to the whole movement and, according to his own statement, knew its purpose. At the time of the uprising he went from Cologne, his place of residence, to Elberfeld, where he was asked by the newspaper editor Engelsand Hühnerbein, with whom he was already acquainted, to help the Military Committeewith the reception of the men and the writing out of billeting orders. On the same day von Mirbach appointed him his adjutant and provided him with a black, red and gold sash as a mark of distinction. According to his own statement the aim of the whole movement was declared by the members of the Public Safety and Military Committees to be the recognition of the German Constitution, and for that reason the citizens should be armed. He fulfilled the functions of adjutant until von Mirbach’s departure; he was arrested in the neighbourhood of Ronsdorf....

Frederick Engels, a newspaper editor, is also said to have taken part in putting up barricades. Witness Heinrich Meininghaus states in particular that a young man with spectacles and a small moustache who was pointed out to him by an armed volunteer as the editor Engels, and who conducted himself as one of the leaders, gave the order to strengthen the barricade at the Wunderbau. The above-mentioned witnesses Simon and Sauer also speak of a young man with a small moustache and a check coat who took part in erecting the barricade in front of von der Heydt’s house....

The royal arsenal at Gräfrath was repeatedly attacked and looted by armed bands during the disorders in Elberfeld. The first marches of this kind took place on May 10 and 11 but were carried out not by the Elberfeld bands, but by inhabitants of Solingen and the neighbourhood for the purpose of arming those localities and then partly supporting the uprising in Elberfeld and partly spreading it further in the province. These marches on Gräfrath are the objects of a special charge in another investigation into the disorders which took place at the same time in Solingen and the neighbourhood, whereas here it is mainly a matter of the looting of .the arsenal which was carried out on May 15 and from Elberfeld. According to statements by several persons who took part in this march, on that day the accused Karl Jansen ordered part of his detachment, some 30-40 men, to make a sortie, as he said, against Wald to get weapons there. This detachment was headed by Jansen as a captain and Wohlmeiner as a lieutenant, and the editor Engels joined the two of them. Engels and Jansen procured themselves two cart-horses on the way at the copper works and rode on them at the head of the detachment as far as the estate of the merchant Jung at Hammerstein, where Engels exchanged his horse for Jung’s saddle-horse, and both he and Jansen had riding saddles given to them. After Hammerstein, according to the statement of another of the accused, Wilhelm Rausch, Jansen gave the order to proceed to Gräfrath to see whether weapons and uniforms which they could use were to be found in the arsenal there. According to the testimony of sergeant Starke to the local army reserve administration, and of non-commissioned officer Steiniger, 6-8 riflemen in the vanguard of the detachment arrived first at the arsenal and then the armed band of 30-40 men headed by Engels and Jansen, both on horseback and armed with sabres and pistols. The detachment immediately formed up in front of the arsenal and placed sentries at the doors. Then Engels went up to sergeant Starke with his pistol drawn, asked him whether any weapons were still available and, on receiving the answer that the weapons had already been taken by force by the Solingen and Wald detachments, ordered him to go into the arsenal with him. Personal resistance by the two army men to the armed band of 30-40 would have been useless, the more so as the doors of the arsenal could not be locked as a result of the earlier attacks by the Solingen detachment. The two army men therefore had to yield to force and allow the arsenal to be entered. There Engels chose several items of armament and uniform and had them brought out into the yard. For these two receipts, not quite identical in wording, were written out over the signature of Captain Karl Jansen....

According to these, the items taken out of the arsenal consisted of haversacks, helmets, trousers, cartridge-pouches, pistols, sabres, drums, footwear, and one rifle. On Janseris order each man of the band took from these the items of clothing which fitted him and the necessary weapons. Jansen himself does not deny that he led part of his armed detachment, 36-37 strong, to Gräfrath for the abovementioned purpose; he only asserts that he did so on the basis of a written order which he received from von Mirbach on the morning of May 15 for the requisition of equipment on the way to Wald via Gräfrath. He also confirms that Engels placed himself with him at the head of the detachment and, on arriving at Gräfrath, posted sentries at the arsenal doors and entered with the sergeant. He maintains that while Engels was busy in the arsenal, he himself, leaving Lieutenant Wohlmeiner with the detachment, made a reconnaissance of the terrain in the neighbourhood of the arsenal and on his return saw some of the various items of equipment already lying in the square. ...

accordingly accused, namely: ...

7. Frederick Engels, Johann Gottfried Wohlmeiner and Karl Jansen

a) of having in May 1849 in Elberfeld placed themselves at the head of an armed band, or having made the relevant arrangements, plundering the state-owned arsenal in Gräfrath; or

b) of having in May 1849 with a band and with open use of force plundered various articles of equipment from the royal arsenal in Gräfrath....