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The Berlin Socialist Trials of 1896: An Examination of Civil Liberty in Wilhelmian Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Eleanor L. Turk
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Extract

Punctually at 8:00 A.M. on 26 November 1895, teams of police officers in Berlin began to search the homes of nearly eighty members of the Social Democratic Party, and the city offices of their organizations. These surprise raids, over by 10:00 a.m., were ordered by the Prussian Minister of Interior, Ernst Köller, to obtain evidence that the Socialist organizations had been working with one another to promote their political goals. In 1895 it was illegal in Prussia, and in most of the other states of the German Empire, for political associations of any kind to work together. Yet the evidence so efficiently confiscated on that gray November morning ultimately put not only the Socialists on trial, but government policy and the fundamental political rights of German citizens as well. Neither the national constitution nor the federal law codes provided protection for the rights of association or assembly at that time. In the absence of such guarantees, the political organizations had to cope with the particularities of the various state laws.

Type
Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , December 1986 , pp. 323 - 342
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1986

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References

1. Vorwärts, 26–27 Nov. 1895. Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Chlodwig zu, Denkwürdigkeiten der Reichskanzlerzeit (Stuttgart, 1931), 135Google Scholar. Drucksachen zu der Verhandlungen des Bundesrats des Deutschen Reichs, 1907, 2 [hereafter: Drucksachen], Nr. 159, Anlage I, pp. 138, lists the state association lawsGoogle Scholar.

2. Drucksachen, Nr. 159, Anlage I, p. 2.

3. Ibid., p. 3.

4. These figures are compiled from a column entitled “Unterm neuesten Kurs” which appeared monthly in Vorwärts. (Vorwärts used this title sarcastically. Caprivi's policies had been branded “the New Course.” Hohenlohe's government was considered by the Socialists as a continuation and intensification of anti-liberal policies.) The column listed, chronologically, the charge, defendant, jurisdiction, and decision in court cases involving Social Democrats.

5. Vorwärts, 24 July 1894.

6. Ritter, Gerhard A. and Niehuss, Merith, Wahlgeschichtliches Arbeitsbuch: Materialien zur Statistik des Kaiserreichs 1871–1918 (Munich, 1980), 28–29.Google Scholar

7. Schwarz, Max, MdR: Biographisches Handbuch der Reichstage (Hanover, 1965), 807, 821.Google Scholar

8. Dokumente und Materialien zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, 3 (Berlin, 1974), no. 208Google Scholar, “Programm der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands,” 386. Schwarz, 807, 821. The major Reichstag factions in these two legislative periods were as follows:

9. This period has been analyzed in: Nichols, J. Alden, Germany After Bismarck (New York, 1958)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Röhl, J. C. G., Germany Without Bismarck (London, 1967).Google Scholar

10. Hohenlohe, Denkwürdigkeiten, 92–94.

11. Bundesarchiv Koblenz, Hohenlohe Nachlass [hereafter: HN], A5, Köller to Hohenlohe, 15 Sept. 1895 with Anlage.

12. Hohenlohe, Denkwürdigkeiten, 98–99.

13. HN, A5, Hohenlohe to Köller, 20 Sept. 1895.

14. Wilke, Ekkehard-Teja P. W., Political Decadence in Imperial Germany (Urbana, Ill., 1976), 131–44Google Scholar, describes the “Köller Crisis” in detail.

15. Hohenlohe, Denkwürdigkeiten, 123–35. HN, A6, “S.M. Lage der Sache.” Bundesarchiv Koblenz, Bülow Nachlass, Nr. 75, 295–96. A letter from the Kaiser's friend Philipp zu Eulenburg to Bülow, dated 6 Dec, described the Kaiser's anger at having to let Köller go.

16. Rassow, Peter and Born, Karl Erich, Akten zur staatlichen Sozialpolitik in Deutschland 1890–1914 [hereafter: Akten] (Wiesbaden, 1959), 64–84.Google Scholar

17. Vorwärts, 1, 5 Dec. 1895. The party's Reichstag leadership consisted of Auer, Bebel, Singer, Liebknecht, and Meister; the first three were under indictment for violating the Prussian Association Law.

18. Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Reichstages, 9. Legislaturperiod, IV. Session, 1895/97 [hereafter: SB: Reichstag], I. Anlageband, Nr. 26, p. 83.

19. Ibid., Nr. 48, 126–27.

20. Saul, Klaus, “Der Staat und die ‘Mächte des Umsturzes’,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 22 (1972): 302–5.Google Scholar

21. SB: Reichstag, 1: 621–22; 624.

22. Ibid., 1: 1041–69.

23. Neue Preussische Zeitung [hereafter: Kreuzzeitung], 27, 28 Feb. 1896. Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 29 Feb., 3 Mar. 1896.

24. Allgemeine Zeitung, 29 Mar. 1896. Vorwärts, 15 Apr. 1896. Frankfurter Zeitung, 15 Apr. 1896. SB: Reichstag, IV, Anlageband, Nr. 321, pp. 1701–3.

25. Akten, 76–84.

26. SB: Reichstag, 4: 2387–404.

27. Kreuzzeitung, 7 June 1896, 2d Beilage.

28. Geheimes Staatsarchiv der Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin-Dahlem [hereafter: GSA-Dahlem], Rep. 84a, Justizministerium, Nr. 5372; Staatsministerium Nr. 2827, 10 June 1896.

29. SB: Reichstag, IV. Anlageband, Nr. 448, p. 2198.

30. GSA-Dahlem, Rep. 90, Preussische Staatsministerium, Nr. 394, 13 June 1896.

31. Akten, 90–94.

32. Ibid., 94–57.

33. Ibid., 97–98.

34. SB: Reichstag, 4: 2667–76.

35. Ibid., 4: 2735–49.

36. GSA-Dahlem, Rep. 84a, Justizministerium, Nr. 5372; Staatsministerium 2948, 23 June 1896.

37. HN, Rep. 100, XXII, A8, Journal, 27 June 1896. SB: Reichstag, 4: 3016–123.

38. Akten, 99–106.

39. The political contest over this bill is discussed in: Eleanor Turk, L., “Holding the Line: The National Liberals and the Prussian Association Law of 1897,” German Studies Review 1, no. 3 (10, 1978): 297–316Google Scholar. Recke's confidence was not shared by his colleagues, but they supported the bill at his urging.

40. Vorwärts, 2 Apr. 1897, 4 Apr. 1897.

41. Turk, 307–16.

42. For example: Kaeble, Hartmut, Industrielle Interessenpolitik in der Wilhelminischen Gesellschaft: Centralverband Deutscher Industrieller 1895–1914 (Berlin, 1967), 164ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. Saul, Klaus, Staat, Industrie, Arbeiterbewegung im Kaiserreich: Zur Innen- und Aussenpolitik des Wilhelminischen Deutschland 1903–1914 (Düsseldorf, 1974)Google Scholar, gives numerous examples of the proliferation of employer organizations. Eley, Geoff, Reshaping the German Right: Radical Nationalism and Political Change after Bismarck (New Haven, 1980), 229ffGoogle Scholar. discusses the spread of conservative organizations. Stegmann, Dirk, Die Erben Bismarcks: Parteien und Verbände in der Spätphase des Wilhelminischen Deutschlands: Sammlungspolitik 1897–1918 (Cologne, 1970)Google Scholar is the standard work on the role of organized politics and lobbying.

43. The struggle over the Prussian three-class franchise is the most obvious example.

44. Schwarz, 807, 821.

45. Evans, Ellen Lovell, The German Center Party 1870–1933: A Study in Political Catholicism (Carbondale, Ill., 1981), 95–97Google Scholar. Lieber was, according to Evans, more interested in economic than political issues, however.

46. Schwarz, 807, 821.

47. Ibid., 807–8, 821; Turk, 299n.