Public Statement to the Editors of the English Press (October 1852)

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Sir, — The undersigned call your attention to the attitude of the Prussian Press, including even the most reactionary papers, such as the Neue Preussische Zeitung, during the pending trial of the Communists at Cologne, and to the honourable discretion they observe, at a moment where scarcely a third part of the witnesses have been examined, when none of the produced documents have been verified, and not a word has fallen yet from the defence. While those papers, at the worst, represent the Cologne prisoners and the undersigned, their London friends, in accordance with the public accuser, as “dangerous conspirators who alone are responsible for the whole history of Europe of the ‘latter four years, and for all the revolutionary commotions of 1848 and 1849” — there are in London two public organs, The Times and The Daily News which really have not hesitated to represent the Cologne prisoners and the undersigned as a “gang of sturdy beggars,” swindlers, etc. The undersigned address to the English public the same demand which the defensors of the accused have addressed to the public in Germany — to suspend their judgment, and to wait for the end of the trials. Were they to give further explanations at the present time, the Prussian government might obtain the me-ans of baffling a revelation of police-tricks, perjury, forgery of documents, falsification of dates, thefts, etc., unprecedented even in the records of Prussian political justice. When that revelation shall have been made in the course of the present proceedings, public opinion in England will know how to qualify the anonymous scribes of The Times and Daily News, who constitute themselves the advocates and mouthpieces of the most infamous and subaltern government spies.

We are, Sir, yours fraternally,

F. Engels
F. Freiligrath
K. Marx
W Wolff

London, October 28th