Neue Rheinische Zeitung

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Neue Rheinische Zeitung from June 19, 1848
Blackboard at Heumarkt 65 in Cologne

The Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Organ der Demokratie (NRhZ) was a daily newspaper published by Karl Marx in 1848 and 1849 in Cologne , which at the time belonged to Prussia ( Rhine Province ) , which also dealt with the revolutionary socio-political events of the time from a communist - socialist perspective . Marx's companion Friedrich Engels also contributed important newspaper articles as an editor .

history

Marx and Engels, who had already written The Manifesto of the Communist Party on behalf of the League of Communists in February 1848 , traveled from Belgium via Paris in April 1848 after the bourgeois revolutions in France and the states of the German Confederation (see March Revolution ) returned to the area of ​​present-day Germany (cf. Deutscher Bund ).

The predecessor of the NRhZ was the Rheinische Zeitung , which at the beginning of the 1840s was initially a rather liberal press organ in the Prussian Rhine Province . After Marx first became editor and finally editor-in-chief of the Rheinische Zeitung in 1841 , its course changed in a radical democratic and socialist direction. Marx's critical articles on the social question in the German states, which also attacked Metternich's reactionary system of restoration , had led to the Rheinische Zeitung being banned in 1843 .

The publication of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung was made possible in 1848 by the abolition of press censorship in the course of the March Revolution of 1848/49 in Prussia and in most of the other states of the German Confederation.

The first edition of the NRhZ appeared on June 1, 1848 . The editorial office was at "Unter Hutmacher 17", at today's Heumarkt 65 in Cologne. The newspaper had an extensive network of correspondents and, with a print run of almost 6,000 copies, which was unusually high for the time, quickly became one of the most famous press organs of the revolutionary years in all of Germany. The editors were members of the Communist League. Friedrich Engels later wrote about the collaboration: "The constitution of the editorial staff was the simple dictatorship of Marx ..."

The financing of the NRhZ was on weak feet during the entire time it was published. Shareholders were initially bourgeois liberals, but half of them withdrew after the first issue appeared. Karl Marx personally invested in the company. The printing press belonged to him personally. On two trips he tried to raise funds for the newspaper without much success. The largest donation, 2,000 thalers, he received from the leader of the Polish emigrants in Berlin, Vladislav Koscielsky .

From the beginning, the newspaper was under observation by the Prussian government organs. But thanks to the skilful use of the press laws, the authorities had no control over the editors. When the state of siege was declared on September 25, 1848 as a result of workers' unrest in Cologne, most of the NRhZ employees were not persecuted for their press work, but for their speeches at various meetings. Bürgers, Dronke, Engels, F. and W. Wolff escaped arrest by escaping. They could only return gradually as the individual proceedings were terminated. Engels did not resume his editorial work until January 1849. During this time, Marx himself stood before the court twice for press violations and for calling for tax refusal and was acquitted both times.

The red number 301 from May 19, 1849 with Freiligrath's parting word in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung

On May 19, 1849, after 301 editions , the Neue Rheinische Zeitung ceased its publication with an all-red edition after the last uprisings of the March Revolution in the Rhineland had been put down. Marx, Dronke and Weerth were expelled from the country as non-Prussians. Legal proceedings have been initiated against the remaining members of the editorial team.

Marx went into exile again , this time to London, where he stayed until the end of his life in 1883 and wrote his three-volume major work Das Kapital . However, he remained politically active and had great influence on the leaders of the labor movement and the emerging socialist and social democratic parties in Europe, with whose most important figures he was in lively contact. On his initiative, the 12-year-old International Workers' Association was founded in 1864 , which is now considered the first International .

Engels took part in the last revolutionary struggles in Baden on the side of the Baden Revolution . When this too was put down and the March Revolution finally came to an end, Engels also had to go into exile, which also took him via Switzerland to England, where he continued to work with Marx.

Political orientation

The NRhZ of 1848/49 campaigned for the establishment of a united, indivisible, democratic German republic , as well as for a war against Russia to restore Poland's unity and independence. The revolutionary events of the time formed the most important subjects with which the paper grappled. In terms of content, the NRhZ campaigned, among other things, for the lifting of the feudal burden , from which the farmers in particular have suffered for centuries. Furthermore, tried the NRhZ , France to the democratic model for the German revolution to make, because it there in the February Revolution in 1848 had managed to install the Republic and depose the king. Among other things, the newspaper reported on the arrest of a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly, Viktor Valdenaire, who was a friend of Marx . As a result of this incident, parliamentary immunity was introduced in Prussia.

In contrast to France, however, in the German Confederation, the majority of national liberal forces in the Frankfurt National Assembly , which was supposed to draft an all-German constitution , advocated the introduction of a constitutional monarchy throughout Germany with a hereditary emperor under a liberal auspices. Accordingly, these tendencies as well as any connection between the bourgeoisie and the nobility in general were criticized by the anti- monarchist NRhZ .

Marx and Engels' hope that the bourgeois-liberal revolution of 48/49 would take a socialist turn was not fulfilled. In May 1849, some of the last uprisings of the “German Revolution” in the Prussian Rhine Province and in the neighboring Westphalia , such as Siegburg , Solingen , Iserlohn and Elberfeld (today part of Wuppertal ), were suppressed (see Iserlohn uprising of 1849 and revolution of 1848/49 in Westphalia ). The revolution had failed for the time being.

Editors

  • Karl Marx - Editor in Chief
  • Friedrich Engels - wrote most of the leading articles, specialist in foreign policy and military questions, articles on Hungary, Italy and the Schleswig-Holstein question
  • Heinrich Bürgers - only one article known
  • Ernst Dronke - at times a correspondent in Frankfurt a. M., article on Italy
  • Georg Weerth - Feuilleton, serial novels, articles on England and Belgium
  • Ferdinand Wolff - at times a correspondent in Paris
  • Wilhelm Wolff - rubric "From the Reich", news from the small German states a. a. m.
  • Ferdinand Freiligrath - foreign editor, poems, in the editorial office since the beginning of October 1848

See also

literature

  • Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Organ of democracy . Clouth, Cologne 1848–1849. ( Digitized and full text in the German text archive )
  • Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Organ of democracy. 1848-1849 . JHW Dietz Nachf., Berlin 1928 facsimile edition . 2 volumes
  • Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Organ of democracy. Editor-in-chief: Karl Marx. Editors: Heinrich Bürgers, Ernst Dronke, Friedrich Engels, Ferdinand Freiligrath, Georg Weerth, Ferdinand Wolff, Wilhelm Wolff . Volume 1. Numbers 1 to 183. Cologne, June 1, 1848 to December 31, 1848 . Detlev Auvermann, Glashütten im Taunus 1973 facsimile edition. Not identical to the 1928 edition as the original and extra supplements are different.
  • Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Organ of democracy. Editor-in-chief: Karl Marx. Editors: Heinrich Bürgers, Ernst Dronke, Friedrich Engels, Ferdinand Freiligrath, Georg Weerth, Ferdinand Wolff, Wilhelm Wolff . Volume 2.Number 194 to number 301. Cologne, January 1, 1849 to May 19, 1849 . Detlev Auvermann, Glashütten im Taunus 1973 facsimile edition. Not identical to the 1928 edition as the original and extra supplements are different.
  • Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Organ of democracy. Register tape . JHW Dietz Nachf., Berlin, Bonn-Bad Godesberg 1977 ISBN 3-8012-2176-8 Contains preface, person index , place index.
  • Heinrich Billstein: Marx in Cologne. With a contribution by Karl Obermann . Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1983, pp. 117-217. ISBN 3-7609-0766-0
  • Walter Schmidt (Ed.): Neue Rheinische Zeitung. France 1848/49. Reclam jun., Leipzig 1986.
  • François Melis: Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Organ of democracy. Edition of unknown numbers, leaflets, print versions and separate prints . KG Saur, Munich 2000 ( Dortmund contributions to newspaper research . Vol. 57) ISBN 3-598-21320-4 Bibliography on NRhZ pp. 327–342
  • Walter Schmidt : The "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" and the Prussian constituent assembly. From the appearance of the newspaper to the fall of the Camphausen Ministry and the formation of the Auerswald / Hansemann Ministry . In: Yearbook for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , Issue II / 2005.
  • François Melis: On the history of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung and its edition in the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA) . Argument Verlag, Hamburg 2012 ISBN 978-3-88619-656-2 ( Scientific Communications, issue 7 )
  • Marx-Engels Complete Edition . Department I. Works · Articles · Drafts. February to October 1848 (journalism: Neue Rheinische Zeitung, etc.) . Volume 7. De Gruyter, Berlin 2016. ISBN 978-3-11-045760-5 .
  • François Melis: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Your ambivalent relationship to Judaism . Helle Panke, Berlin 2019. (= Philosophical Discussions Issue 58)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wolfram Siemann : The German Revolution of 1848/49 (Suhrkamp. New historical library), Frankfurt a. M. 1985, 119.