Mr. Vogt
Herr Vogt is apolemical pamphlet publishedby Karl Marx in exile in Londonat the end of 1860, which is directed against journalistic attacks by the politician and scientist Carl Vogt whoemigrated to Geneva. The work is also a commentary on the political situation in post-revolutionary Europe.
background
On April 1, 1859, Vogt had sent a letter to various German emigrants in London, among them the poet Ferdinand Freiligrath and the former Baden revolutionary Karl Blind , in which he expressed German support for Austria against Napoleon III. refused and in the sense of this program advertised for collaboration on a new weekly newspaper. Marx, whom Freiligrath had asked for a political assessment, dismissed Vogt's program as a “ jug foundry ”. Compared with Friedrich Engels , Marx explained that the program makes a revolutionary development in Germany impossible. Blind also turned to Marx and claimed to have evidence that Vogt was one of Napoleon III. a paid traitor. Marx spoke about Blind's allegations with Elard Biscamp , the editor of the London émigré newspaper Das Volk , who then mockingly named a “Reich regent as a traitor” in Vogt and sent the issue to Vogt.
Vogt reacted by denouncing Marx in the Bieler Zeitschrift Handelscourier in May 1859 as the head of a "clique of refugees" who were previously known in Switzerland as "Bürstenheimers" or "sulfur gangs" and are now involved in spinning connections and conspiracies be.
Blind, without the knowledge of the editors, had an anonymous leaflet printed in the Volk's printing plant in which Vogt was denounced as a French spy. The leaflet was published in the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung .
Vogt then sued the Allgemeine Zeitung , but his suit was dismissed. Vogt reported on this in December 1859 in his treatise Mein Trial against the Allgemeine Zeitung, where he accused Marx and the sulfur gang, among other things, of admitting German participants in the revolution from London with the threat of betraying confidential information to the German authorities for money blackmail. The Berliner National-Zeitung welcomed Vogt's writing in two editorials and accused Marx of a number of criminal and reprehensible acts.
Marx therefore sued the National-Zeitung in Prussia through three instances, but was rejected in each case. He then wrote a detailed literary reply entitled Mr. Vogt, which occupied him from January to November 1860.
consequences
Although Ferdinand Lassalle and Friedrich Engels had advised Marx to publish it in Germany, he had the font printed by a German publisher in London, with whom he agreed to share the profits and losses. However, the publisher went bankrupt and sued Marx, who was then left with the entire cost.
After copying the manuscript for printing, Marx's wife Jenny fell ill with smallpox and the children had to leave the house while Marx and the housekeeper Helene Demuth took care of Jenny's.
reception
It was often regretted that Marx bothered to answer the allegations. Writes Franz Mehring :
“Many of the emigrant stories that Marx had to go into because the attacker forced him to do so are rightly lost today, and it is difficult to get rid of a feeling of unease when one hears this man defend himself against slanderous attacks, not even the one Could stain the hem of the soles of his shoes. "
However, he praises the literary qualities of the script and attests Marx the "joke of a Shakespeare " when he compares Vogt with John Falstaff. Marx's "tremendous reading in old and new literature" provides him with "arrow on arrow, so as to snap them with deadly certainty on the brazen slanderer".
Lothar Bucher described the work as a compendium of contemporary history, Lassalle called it “a masterful thing in every respect” and Engels preferred it to Marx's work The Eighteenth Brumaire by Louis Bonaparte and considered it the best of Marx's polemical work.
Later the work took a backseat to the other works of Marx and could not prevent politicians like Heinrich von Treitschke and Ludwig Bamberger from repeating Vogt's accusations in their dispute with the Social Democrats.
expenditure
- Mr. Vogt. A. Petsch & Co, London 1860, digitized in the Google book search
- MEW . Volume 14, Dietz, Berlin 1972, pp. 381-686 ( 1 1962) digitized DEA archive
- Marx-Engels Complete Edition . Department I, Volume 18. Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1984, pp. 51-339 and 746-867
literature
- Franz Mehring : Karl Marx - history of his life . In Collected Writings . Volume 3, Dietz, Berlin 1960, especially Chapter 10. Dynastic upheavals 5. “Herr Vogt”, pp. 300–303.
- Günter Helmholz: On the history of the creation of the work "Herr Vogt" by Karl Marx . Dissertation Halle-Wittenburg 1975
- Günter Helmholz: "The Augsburg Campaign" - On the prehistory of the creation of the work "Herr Vogt". In: Hallesche worksheets on Marx-Engels research. Edited by the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, No. 2, 1976, pp. 4–25.
- Willi Tonn: Georg Lommel - a source of information for the pamphlet "Herr Vogt" by Karl Marx. In: Hallesche worksheets on Marx-Engels research. Edited by Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, No. 3, 1977, pp. 40–56.
- Frederick Gregory: Scientific versus Dialectical Materialism: A Clash of Ideologies in Nineteenth-Century German Radicalism. In: ISIS. 68 (2), 1977, pp. 206-223 (English)
- Karl-Heinz Leidigkeit: On the struggle of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels for the party of the working class in the years 1859/1860. In: Marx-Engels-Jahrbuch 2. Berlin 1979, pp. 162-180.
- Günter Helmholz: On the effect and distribution of the pamphlet "Herr Vogt". In: Contributions to Marx-Engels research 16. Berlin 1984, pp. 122–126.
- Cornelia Kometz: The reflection of Marx's studies on the “ Neue Rheinische Zeitung ” in the pamphlet “Herr Vogt”. In: Contributions to Marx-Engels research 22. Berlin 1987, pp. 163–166.
- Fumio Hattori: A dedication copy of Marx's work “Herr Vogt” . In: Contributions to Marx-Engels research 26. Berlin 1989, pp. 264–265.
- Jacques Grandjonc, Hans Pelger: Against the "Agency" Fazy / Vogt. Karl Marx's “Herr Vogt” (1860) and Georg Lommel's “The Truth About Geneva” (1865). Source and text history annotations. In: Marx-Engels. Research reports 6. Karl Marx University Leipzig, Leipzig 1990, pp. 37–113.
- Karl-Heinz Leidigkeit, Willi Tonn: The pamphlet "Herr Vogt" and the history of the Polish question in excerpts and notes from Marx. In: Contributions to Marx-Engels research. New episode 1991. Hamburg 1991, pp. 50–57.