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Special pages :
The Extradition of Political Refugees (1849)
First published: in Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 271 (second edition), April 13, 1849.
Cologne, April 12. By the issue of warrants for the arrest of Austrian, German and non-German so-called political criminals, especially Kossuth, Bem, Perczel and other Hungarian heroes, the Prussian Government has already proved the close connection between Prussian constitutional freedom and blood-stained royal, imperial martial law. That an entente cordiale between Potsdam and Olmütz[1] existed, despite the question of the imperial crown, the German question, the Schleswig-Holstein and other questions, was a fact which could be overlooked only by the diplomatising literary moles from the Kölnische Zeitung and other shrewd journals. But that this entente cordiale was to sink to the lowest depths of vileness, to the infamy of the extradition of political refugees to the Austrians — that is what our glorious Government still had in store for us.
If Robert Blum had escaped from Vienna into Prussia, the Prussian Government would have handed him over to his executioners.[2]
On April 4 of this year the Prussian Government handed over the Viennese cadet Höcke, a comrade-in-arms of Robert Blum’s, to the bloodhounds of Austrian martial law. The Oberschlesische Lokomotive published the following report from Ratibor dated April 4:
“Yesterday at midday the Viennese cadet Höcke was brought here in a special conveyance under police guard from Breslau, to which town he had fled not long ago, being charged with high treason for his part in the October revolution in Vienna. In a letter to his family in Vienna, Höcke had given his Breslau address. This letter must have shared the fate of many others, i.e. it was opened at some Austrian post station, for soon afterwards the police authorities in Breslau received the order to arrest the aforesaid Höcke at the place where he lived, and to hand him over to the Austrians.
"Accordingly, the prisoner arrived here at noon yesterday under escort, where a very serious illness, from which he has suffered for a long time, delayed the continuation of his journey to judgment by court martial. He was put in the town gaol under a strong military guard, but already at 5 a.m. today he was taken across the frontier under the escort of two men of the town guard and a policeman. The much-vaunted Prussian human feeling did not allow him on this last journey of two-and-a-half hours to leave the vehicle even once, although it was a necessity in view of his illness. Nor was he allowed any kind of refreshment, for the purchase of which no money was available although, according to the prisoner’s statement, 80 talers were taken from him when arrested in Breslau, and the cost of transport, as we know for certain, amounted to only (!) 30 talers.
"It is the most urgent duty of German newspapers forcefully to draw the attention of the Austrian fugitives to the danger to which they are exposed by staying on Prussian, and especially Silesian soil. The old extradition treaty continues to operate in all its old glory.[3] The great German fundamental law, called martial law, is recognised in Prussia just as it is in Austria, and it is being put into effect with relish.”
Such an example from the heroes of martial law in the various countries where a state of siege has been proclaimed should not be given us in vain. Just as they assist one another now, so the democrats of all nations, too, will assist one another when the day of reckoning comes.
The royal and ministerial scum of half Europe found a safe refuge in England last spring.[4]
We assure Herr Manteuffel, Herr Brandenburg and Co. that in the next revolution which they themselves are so busily expediting, no obstacle will be put in the way of England handing them over to the victorious German people thirsting for revenge. Arrangements for that have already been made.
- ↑ Potsdam — a town near Berlin, the residence of the Prussian kings, where military parades and reviews of the Prussian army were held. Olmütz (Olomouc) — a town in Moravia, from October 7, 1848, temporary residence of the Austrian Court which fled from Vienna where the people rose in revolt; centre of counter-revolutionary forces
- ↑ An allusion to the shooting of Robert Blum, a German democrat and deputy to the Frankfurt National Assembly, by sentence of an Austrian court martial. During the popular uprising in Vienna in October 1848, Welcker and Mosle, liberal deputies of the Frankfurt National Assembly (see Note 30), were sent to Vienna to negotiate with the insurgents and the Austrian Court and Government, which moved from the capital to Olmütz. Both of them acted as commissioners of the so-called Central Authority (Zentralgewalt) set up by the Frankfurt Assembly on June 28, 1848 and consisting of the Imperial Regent (Archduke Johann of Austria) and an Imperial Ministry. This provisional Central Authority had neither a budget nor an army of its own, possessed no real power, and was in fact an instrument of the counter-revolutionary German princes. However, Welcker and Mosle never turned up in revolutionary Vienna and confined themselves to fruitless talks with the Austrian Ministers and audiences granted by Emperor Ferdinand and Commander-in-Chief of the counter-revolutionary army Windischgrätz. The mediatory mission of the imperial commissioners was in fact a cover for the treacherous refusal by the liberal majority of the Frankfurt Assembly to support the Viennese insurgents. Robert Blum, who represented the Left wing of the Frankfurt Assembly, sided with the insurgents and, despite his parliamentary immunity, was shot on November 9 by an Austrian firing-squad after the uprising was suppressed. The correspondence between Welcker and Mosle and the Austrian Ministers was published in the Appendices to the Report of the Committee of the Frankfurt Assembly for investigating Austrian affairs (see Verhandlungen der detschen verfassunggebenden Reichsversammlung zu Frankfurt am Main, Ed. 2, Frankfurt am Main, 1849, S. 602-19). The Neue Rheinische Zeitung responded to the Welcker-Mosle mission with a critical article "Report of the Frankfurt Committee on Austrian Affairs". This crudely arbitrary act on the part of the Austrian military clique was approved by reactionary circles in Prussia
- ↑ The reference is to the conventions concerning extradition of criminals, deserters, vagabonds etc. concluded by Prussia with a number of German states (Austria, Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony, Grand Duchy of Baden etc.) and also with Russia in 1816-20. In practice, these conventions applied to persons accused of political crimes in accordance with the policy of the Holy Alliance powers. The reference is to the October-November 1848 counter-revolutionary coup d'etat in Prussia which resulted in the dissolution of the Prussian National Assembly and the introduction of the Constitution imposed by King Frederick William IV This refers to the Prussian National Assembly convened in Berlin on May 22, 1848, to work out a Constitution and introduce a constitutional system on the basis of an "agreement with the Crown". It was dissolved on December 5 as a result of the coup d'etat in Prussia. The causes behind the coup d'etat were the formation of the Brandenburg-Manteuffel counter-revolutionary Government and the publication on November 9 of a decree transferring the Assembly to the provincial town of Brandenburg. Liberal and democratic (Left) deputies failed to offer any real resistance to the instigators of the coup d'etat and confined themselves to passive resistance. The introduction of a Constitution "granted" hy the King was announced simultaneously with the dissolution of the Assembly. The Holy Alliance—an association of European monarchs founded on September 26, 1815, on the initiative of the Russian Tsar Alexander I and the Austrian Chancellor Metternich, to suppress revolutionary movements and preserve feudal monarchies in European countries. During the 1848-49 revolution and subsequent years, counter-revolutionary circles in Austria, Prussia and Tsarist Russia attempted to revive the Holy Alliance's activities in a modified form. which strove for an international union of counter-revolutionary forces in the struggle against the revolutionary movement
- ↑ In the initial period of the European revolution of 1848, various reactionary sovereigns and public figures, deprived of throne and power and seeking safety from the people’s wrath, found refuge in England. Among them were: ex-King of the French, Louis Philippe (February); ex-Chancellor of the Austrian Empire, Metternich; the Prince of Prussia, Wilhelm (March); and later Lola Montez, an influential favourite of Ludwig I, King of Bavaria who was compelled to abdicate, and others