State of Siege in Cologne

Add a subpage to this text

Read the help page for usage.

 

The Cologne authorities, frightened by the upsurge of the revolutionary-democratic movement, resorted to police persecution and on September 26, 1848, placed the city in a state of siege “to safeguard the individual and property”. The military commandant’s office issued an order prohibiting all associations that pursued “political and social aims”, cancelled all meetings, disbanded and disarmed the civic militia, instituted courts martial and suspended publication of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung and a number of other democratic newspapers. On October 2 the protest campaign made the Cologne military authorities lift the state of siege, and on October 3 subscription to the Neue Rheinische Zeitung was resumed. However, Marx was not able to resume publication of the newspaper until October 12 because of lack of funds and because Engels and Dronke had had to leave Cologne, under threat of arrest.

Cologne, September 26. Today we are also omitting the synopsis. We are hurrying to print the paper. We are being informed by a reliable source that the city will be placed in a state of siege within an hour or two, that the civic militia will be dissolved and disarmed, that the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, the Neue Kölnische Zeitung, the Arbeiter-Zeitung and the Wächter am Rhein will be suspended, that courts martial will be instituted and that all the rights gained in March are to be suppressed. It is reported that the civic militia is not inclined to let itself be disarmed.