Königsberg secret society trial
The Königsberg secret society trial in July 1904 was a criminal trial before the Königsberg district court against nine German social democrats and smugglers, including the later Prussian Prime Minister Otto Braun , who the public prosecutor accused of smuggling “anarchist” writings into Russia, “ secret bundling ” and insulting the Russian tsar. Hugo Haase , Karl Liebknecht and others took over the defense. At the same time, Haase uncovered the cooperation between the Prussian police and Russian secret agents in front of the Reichstag. The SPD chairman August Bebel and Reich Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow also took part in the debates, which caused quite a stir . The trial ended with the acquittal of three defendants and the sentencing of the other six to short sentences for "secret bundling". The handling of pre-trial detention against the accused became the subject of further discussions about criminal law reform.
prehistory
In November 1903 the Königsberg social democrat Otto Braun was arrested by the police after a conversation with Hugo Haase and put into custody for five months. The Russian secret police Ochrana had accused him of smuggling documents from Russian " anarchists " from Switzerland into Russia, and the Prussian police had jumped to the side of their Russian colleagues. Eight other Social Democrats were also arrested and some were in custody for months. Hugo Haase worked intensively on the case both as a lawyer and as a member of the Reichstag for the SPD and independently investigated the activities of Russian police spies in Berlin.
Debates in the Reichstag and the House of Representatives
In January 1904 Hugo Haase interpellated in the German Reichstag against the work of Russian police agents on German soil. Haase asked Reich Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow: “How is it that in Königsberg proceedings were initiated against Reich citizens for alleged aiding and abetting in high treason and insulting the Russian emperor, before the criminal complaint of the Russian government was available? On whose initiative and by what means was the Russian government brought to file the criminal complaint? ”Haase described the criminal work of Russian police spies in Berlin against the Russian students represented there. He attacked Bülow personally: "Gentlemen, it would be extremely strange that at the head of our imperial government there is a man who from time to time refers to Kant and who, according to his declaration, fervently admires Fichte, and who nevertheless should tolerate the handing over of freedom-loving young people, freedom-loving girls and women to an executioner ... "State Secretary Oswald von Richthofen replied:" Anarchists are completely unwelcome to us ... I think the ladies are very strongly represented, and sometimes in free love ... The SPD chairman, August Bebel, spoke out indignantly and accused the government of “creeping in front of Russia”. Those extradited to Russia would be banished to the mines of Siberia without any legal process. The liberals Karl Schrader and Hermann Müller also took up Haase's criticism. The debate sparked many reports and comments in the liberal press and rallies of the Berlin SPD.
In February the Prussian Justice Minister Schönstedt accused the Königsberg defendants in front of the Prussian House of Representatives of trying to smuggle the writings of anarchist Russian terrorists. He cited appropriate calls for murder. On February 27 and 29, 1904, the SPD sparked another debate in the Reichstag, in which Bebel and the sick Chancellor von Bülow intervened. Bebel compared the treatment of Russian students with the persecution of German liberals during the time of the Karlovy Vary resolutions. Haase emphasized the distance of the SPD from terrorist calls, but compared this, in view of the repression prevailing in Russia, with the "bloodthirsty" sayings of German nationalists such as Ernst Moritz Arndt and Ludwig Jahn during the Restoration period . In his answer, Bülow emphasized that Germany only grants tolerance and protection to those “who place themselves under our laws ... and who behave decently. But we haven't got so far in Germany that we let such scroungers and conspirators dance around on us. "
Process flow
In July the trial against Otto Braun and eight other defendants began before the Koenigsberg Regional Court, almost all workers or craftsmen as well as a travel agent from the Vorwärts bookstore . Only one of them, the blacksmith and smuggler August Kugel, was still in custody. The indictment was secret bundling according to § 128 StGB, aiding and abetting high treason against the tsar and aiding and abetting insulting the tsar under §§ 102 and 103. Hugo Haase, Karl Liebknecht and the other defense lawyers uncovered during the trial that the Prussian police had seized the Russian Had sent writings to the Russian Consul General Vyvodzew for examination. He had found questionable sentences in one of the documents and reported them to the police in German. From this came the quotes that State Secretaries Schönstedt and the Prussian Interior Minister von Hammerstein had read out in front of the Prussian House of Representatives. However, three translators appointed by the court found that these sentences were not in the relevant script. When summoned as a witness, the consul admitted that he had "not translated literally".
With the help of law professor Michael von Reisner , Haase found out that, according to the Russian penal code, no Germans could be charged with insulting the tsar, as there was no mutual contract. The Russian embassy had incorrectly translated the relevant paragraphs to the Prussian authorities. Other witnesses testified that the sending of social democratic Russian literature to Russia had been largely open for years. The prosecutors nevertheless maintained their charges of high treason. Haase made a wide arc in his plea: “Is it conceivable that a powerful people, which has produced men like Dostoyevsky, Pushkin, Turgenev, Chekhov, Gorky, Tolstoy, can endure these conditions all the time? (...) From the scriptures there is a longing for progress, for culture, for acceptance into the family of the Western European peoples ... But if the desire for a constitution is high treason, then all of our grandfathers were high traitors, then it was the fraternity members. "
On July 25, 1904, the court finally acquitted three of the nine defendants, including Otto Braun, and sentenced six to several months' imprisonment for secret bundling under Section 128 of the StG. After the trial, Haase's reputation as an outstanding criminal defense lawyer was spread across Germany and Europe. Lenin sent him a congratulatory telegram from Switzerland because he had managed to make the domestic political situation in Russia known throughout Europe.
aftermath
Hugo Haase gave a comprehensive lecture at the SPD's Mannheim party congress in September 1906 on abuses in German criminal law and demands for criminal law reform. The arbitrariness of judges in imposing pre-trial detention played an important role in this. Haase's demands for reform were passed as a resolution by the party congress and later u. a. taken up by Gustav Radbruch .
Individual evidence
- ^ Ernst-Albert Seils: Hugo Haase: A Jewish Social Democrat in the German Empire. His fight for peace and social justice. Peter Lang, Frankfurt 2016, pp. 195–201
- ↑ E. Seils: Hugo Haase, pp. 202–208
- ^ Negotiations of the Reichstag, stenographic minutes, 44th and 45th session 1904, pp. 1343–1405; according to E. Seils: Hugo Haase, pp. 209–212
- ↑ Kurt Eisner : The Tsar's Secret Society. Berlin 1904 (new edition Berlin 1988). According to E. Seils: Hugo Haase, pp. 212–225
- ↑ E. Seils: Hugo Haase (2016), pp. 254–272