Peter Gerhard Roeser

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Peter Gerhard Roeser (born December 30, 1814 Mülheim am Rhein ; died July 2, 1865 there ) was a German cigar worker , communist and early member of the ADAV .

Life

Peter Gerhard Roeser was the son of the silk weaver Johann Roeser and his wife Anna Helene, nee. Small. He had two brothers: Franz Josef Roeser (* 1812) and Johann Michael Roeser (* 1817; † 1818). Peter Gerhard attended elementary school in his hometown for a few years . Here he also met the later defendants in the Cologne communist trial Peter Nothjung and Dr. med. Johann Jacob Klein know.

After he came of age, he went on a hike in, until 1842, in Aachen , Düsseldorf and Cologne in various tobacco factories. He married Katharina (1798–1858) in 1842, the marriage remained childless. In 1842 he became unemployed due to the insolvency of the Stommel company. With a simultaneous inheritance through the death of his father-in-law, he was able to set up his own business as a cigar manufacturer. Due to the economic crisis of 1846 and the subsequent losses, he had to give up his business in 1849. He became a member of the Democratic Society and the "Association of Workers and Employers". In the association for workers and employers he met Hermann Becker . In June 1848 Roeser resigned from the association: "because the workers in this association were granted fewer rights than the employers claimed for themselves". After Joseph Moll was elected chairman of the Cologne workers 'association on July 6, 1848 , Roeser joined the association because “the workers' association was now pursuing a decisive direction”. On September 4, 1848, he was a member of the association's 25-member committee that was supposed to prepare the people's assembly in Worringen. The situation in Cologne came to a head, so that the state of siege was declared on September 26 and the Neue Rheinische Zeitung , headed by Karl Marx , was banned. Moll fled before the arrest and Karl Schapper and Hermann Becker were arrested. Therefore Roeser temporarily took over the chairmanship of the association. On October 12th, the club leadership proposed Marx as club president. On October 22nd, Marx was confirmed as President and Roeser as Vice-President. At the same time, Roeser was elected as a representative of the “workers' association in the Democratic District Committee”. This is followed by a ban on the "newspaper of the workers' association in Cologne". Thereupon the newspaper "Freiheit, Bruderlichkeit, Arbeit" was founded as a new organ of the association, which was published from October 26th to December 31st, 1848 by Roeser. After Schapper was released from prison, Roeser resigned as Vice President in mid-November and Schapper was elected. While the founder of the association, Andreas Gottschalk, who was released from custody, spoke out against participation of the workers' association in the elections for the Second Prussian Chamber in December 1848 , the majority of the association, including Marx and Roeser, were in favor. On February 28, 1849, Schapper was elected as president and Roeser as vice-president of the association. Around this time (Carnival 1849) Roeser joined the Communist League . After Marx was expelled from Cologne on May 19th and Schapper met the same fate, Roeser was elected president of the labor association at the end of May. The last public meeting of the workers' association, chaired by Roeser, took place on June 25, 1849. He talked about the June Revolution . Due to the stricter association laws, the association was transformed into the "Cologne workers' education association". While the association statute stipulated in § 1: "The workers' educational association aims to train its members in a scientific relationship" accused him of being an outspoken "follower of ultra-democratic principles". In addition to Roeser, Dr. med. Roland Daniels , the chemist Carl Wunibald Otto , employees Wilhelm Joseph Reiff and Peter Nothjung. Only one public event is known of the educational association, which took place on December 19, 1849. There the acquittal of Eduard Waldeck and Johann Jacoby of the charge of high treason was celebrated. The Prussian constitution of January 31, 1850 stipulated in Article 30 “Political associations can be subjected to restrictions and temporary bans by way of legislation”. The Cologne police took this as an opportunity to explain that the educational association was a political one. Since the police failed in court, the police now claimed that the association was an unapproved "private teaching institution". Since the police prevented further meetings of the association that could have made an application, the association was de facto dissolved. Nevertheless Roeser was still active, so he spoke at a meeting with the innkeeper Robert Clauberg in Krahenhöhe near Solingen in January 1851.

The communist trial in 1852

Cologne Communist Trial of 1852. On the left, the eleven defendants with their defense counsel. Woodcut after a pen drawing by JHM

On May 10, 1851, Peter Nothjung was arrested at the main train station in Leipzig for lack of identification papers. He had a power of attorney that weighed heavily on Roeser. Just one day later they knew in Cologne. So Roeser succeeded in destroying further incriminating material. On May 19, a search of his house was carried out, his 80-volume library of socialist publications was confiscated and he was arrested. His brother was also temporarily arrested. During the remand succeeded Roeser by bribing a guard to smuggle letters out of prison. Heinrich Bürgers' wife reported about it in a letter to Ferdinand Lassalle , which was confiscated from Lassalle on May 28, 18512. This interrupted his contacts with the outside world for a long time.

The trial began in Cologne on October 4, 1852. The accused were Röser, Heinrich Bürgers , Peter Nothjung, Wilhelm Joseph Reiff , Hermann Becker, Roland Daniels , Carl Wunibald Otto , Dr. med. Abraham Jacobi , Johann Jacob Klein, Johann Ludwig Albert Erhard , Friedrich Leßner and the absent poet Ferdinand Freiligrath . Otto Saedt and August Heinrich von Seckendorff represented the indictment . All of the defendants were accused of “having founded a plot in Cologne in the course of 1848, 1849, 1850 and 1851, the purpose of which was to overthrow the state constitution and to arm the citizens and residents against the royal power and against each other to stir up civil war. Crimes against Art. 87, 89 and 91 Rheinische and § 61 No. 2 and § 63 of the Criminal Code for the Prussian States. ”In the third session on October 7, 1852, the interrogation of Peter Gerhard Roesers began, as did the following session was continued. Roeser admitted that Schapper had been admitted to the Communist League in 1850 , that he had made a partial copy of the March address of 1850 , that he had been president of the Cologne Workers' Association in 1848 and that he was one of the chairmen of the Cologne Federal Community of the Communist League. During the trial, he pointed out that he had to endure “seventeen months in isolation, a quarter of a year illness” without adequate medical care. He defended the Communist Party's manifesto against the political goals of the Willich- Schapperschen Sonderbund. Roeser refused to incriminate Reiff during the negotiations.

Heinrich Bürgers and Roeser's lawyer was the lawyer and former chairman of the Democratic Society Karl Schneider II , who was associated with Marx.

The senior procurator von Seckendorff applied for "eight years" for Roeser without taking into account the pre-trial detention suffered. The court ruled for "six years" imprisonment. With the judgment of November 12, 1852, Roeser was deprived of civil rights for five years in accordance with Section 63 of the Prussian Penal Code of 1851. In addition, lifelong police supervision and, together with all other convicts, the costs of the process.

Imprisonment in Graudenz and Stettin

The Graudenz fortress

Graudenz fortress . Stettin On November 12, 1858, he was released after serving his full term. From Stettin he went to see Ferdinand Lassalle in Berlin .

After imprisonment in the ADAV

General German Workers' Association

Characteristics

“Size 5 feet, 4 inches Prussia. Measure of hair: blond, mottled white forehead: narrow eyes: blue nose: blunt mouth: ordinary beard: blond shape: medium. "

- wormwood; Stieber, p. 102.

Works

  • Freedom, brotherhood, work. Organ of the workers' association . Responsible editor W. Prinz. Cologne No. 1 from October 26, 1848 to No. 20 from December 31, 1848. Publisher PG Roeser (Reprint Detlev Auvermann, Glashütten i. Ts. 1979)
  • Under the heading: An 'organ of democracy' . In: newspaper of the workers' association in Cologne . No. 10 of June 25, 1848, pp. [91–92]
  • Under the heading: An 'organ of democracy' . In: newspaper of the workers' association in Cologne . No. 12 of July 6, 1848, p. [108]
  • To the 31 civil guards of the 7th Company . In: newspaper of the workers' association in Cologne . No. 15 of July 16, 1848, p. [120]

Letters

  • Peter Gerhard Roeser to Karl Marx June 18, 1850
  • Roeser to the Federal Central Authority in London July 18, 1850
  • Peter Gerhard Roeser to Karl Marx September 14, 1850
  • Peter Gerhard Roeser to Karl Marx September 25, 1850
  • PG Roeser, H. Bürgers, CW Otto to the former central authority in London October 5, 1850.
  • Peter Gerhard Roeser to Karl Marx November 2, 1850
  • Peter Gerhard Roeser and Heinrich Bürgers to Peter Nothjung December 27, 1850
  • Peter Gerhard Roeser to Ferdinand Lassalle March 31, 1851. Digitized
  • Peter Gerhard Roeser to Ferdinand Lassalle December 9, 1858. Digitized
  • Ferdinand Lassalle to Peter Gehard Roeser [12. May 1863.]

literature

  • Reply . In: newspaper of the workers' association in Cologne . No. 12 of July 6, 1848, p. [108].
  • Röser, Peter Gerhard . In: wormwood ; Stieber : The Communist Conspiracies of the 19th Century . Second part, Berlin 1854, pp. 102-103. On-line
  • Karl Bittel : The Communist Trial in Cologne 1852 in the mirror of the contemporary press. Edited and introduced . Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1955.
  • JP Kandel: A bad defense of a bad cause . In: Contributions to the history of the German labor movement . Berlin 1963, issue 2.
  • Werner Blumenberg : On the history of the League of Communists, the statement of Peter Gerhard Röser . In: International Review of Social History . Vol. IX. Amsterdam 1964, pp. 81-122.
  • Herwig Förder, Martin Hundt , Jefim Kandel, Sofoa Lewiona [Editor]: The League of Communists. Documents and materials. Vol. 1, 1836-1849 . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1970.
  • Herwig Förder: Roeser, Peter Gerhard . In: History of the German labor movement. Biographical Lexicon . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1970, p. 383.
  • Heinrich Billstein: The Cologne Communist Trial . In: Reinhold Billstein (Ed.): The other Cologne. Democratic traditions since the French Revolution. Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1979, ISBN 3-7609-0467-X , pp. 101-134.
  • Herwig Förder, Martin Hundt, Jefim Kandel, Sofoa Lewiona [Editor]: The League of Communists. Documents and materials. Vol. 2, 1849-1851 . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1982.
  • Herwig Förder, Martin Hundt, Jefim Kandel, Sofoa Lewiona [Editor]: The League of Communists. Documents and materials. Vol. 3, 1851-1852 . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1984.
  • Fritz Bilz : work, fight and tobacco smoke - the Cologne cigar worker Peter Gerhard Röser 1814-1865 . Wentorf, Hamburg, Reinbek, Einhorn Presse Verlag 1995. ISBN 3-88756-030-2 (The workers' movement in the Rhineland 23)
  • The Communist Process in Cologne in 1852 , exhibition by the Cologne City Museum from October 24 to November 10, 2002, Cologne 2002
  • Fritz Bilz: Peter Gehard Röser. Cologne cigar worker and worker leader 1848/49 . In: Michael Klöcker (Ed.): Cologne Social History 'from below'. Collected essays on everyday history in the 19th and 20th centuries. Festschrift for Fritz Bilz's 65th birthday . Rheinlandia-Verlag, Siegburg 2009. (Ortstermine 23) ISBN 978-3-938535-60-8 , pp. 45-71

Web links

  • Frankfurter Postzeitung October 9, 1852 (supplement to no.242) Digitized
  • Karl Marx: Revelations about the Communist Trial in Cologne . Boston 1853 digitized
  • The Becker trial . In: The great conversation lexicon for educated stands . First supplement, Vol. Hildburghausen 1853, pp. 1505–1519 digitized

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ He signed his letters with PG Roeser, and he also drew his articles in the newspaper of the Arbeiter-Verein zu Köln in the same way. Therefore the spelling Röser is not appropriate.
  2. ^ Fritz Bilz: Work, Struggle and Tobacco Smoke , p. 41.
  3. ^ Toni Offermann : Workers' movement and liberal bourgeoisie in Germany, 1850–1863. Verlag Neue Gesellschaft, 1979, p. 92.
  4. ^ Statement by Klein from October 16, 1852. (Karl Bittel, p. 88.)
  5. ^ Fritz Bilz: work, fight and tobacco smoke , p. 47.
  6. ↑ Quoted from Fritz Bilz: Arbeit, Kampf und Tabaksqualm , p. 48.
  7. ^ [The state of siege in Cologne] (leaflet) reprinted in: Karl Obermann : Flugblätter der Revolution. A collection of leaflets on the history of the revolution of 1848/49 in Germany . Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1970, pp. 313-314.
  8. ^ Fritz Bilz: Work, Struggle and Tobacco Smoke , p. 61.
  9. ^ Heinz Rosenthal : The beginnings of the workers' movement in Solingen 1849-1868. Solingen 1953, p. 10.
  10. ↑ Leipziger Illustrirte Zeitung No. 19, November 20, 1852, p. 32.
  11. ↑ “Power of attorney. The citizen Nothjung is instructed by the central authority to find out about the situation of the federal government while traveling freely through northern Germany and everywhere to make the arrangements that seem sufficient to him, about which he will report immediately to the central authority. Cologne, November 4, 1850 PG Roeser, H. Bürgers. "(Fritz Pilz: Arbeit, Kampf und Tobaksqualm , p. 108; Der Bund der Kommunisten. Vol. 2, p. 305.)
  12. ↑ Karl Bittel, p. 48.
  13. ↑ Karl Bittel, pp. 57–63.
  14. ↑ Karl Bittel, p. 64.
  15. ↑ "Yesterday I addressed a letter to you to be handed over to K. Marx, in which I inform him that the police advisor Stieber from Berlin, who acted as a witness in the trial against Röser and his friends, presented a book to Stieber after other previous revelations, allegedly the original minutes of the London Communist Congregation [...] ”. Letter from Karl Schneider to Ernst Dronke October 24, 1852 (Der Bund der Kommunisten. Vol. 3, p. 1922 f.)
  16. ^ Karl Bittel, p. 298.
  17. ^ Karl Bittel, p. 298.
  18. ↑ § 63 pr. StG Online
  19. ↑ Corresponds to about 1.72 m.
  20. ↑ Marx-Engels Complete Edition . Department III. Volume 3, p. 565.
  21. ↑ The League of Communists . Vol. 2, pp. 212-213.
  22. ^ Kurt Koszyk , Karl Obermann: Contemporaries of Marx and Engels . Assen, Amsterdam 1975, p. 383
  23. ↑ The League of Communists . Vol. 2, pp. 356-358.
  24. ↑ Marx-Engels Complete Edition. Department III. Volume 3, p. 639.
  25. ↑ The League of Communists . Vol. 2, p. 265.
  26. ↑ Marx-Engels Complete Edition. Department III. Volume 3, p. 646.
  27. ↑ The League of Communists . Vol. 2, pp. 284-285.
  28. ↑ The League of Communists . Vol. 2, pp. 290-291.
  29. ↑ Marx-Engels Complete Edition. Department III. Volume 3, p. 672.
  30. ↑ The League of Communists . Vol. 2, pp. 304-305.
  31. ^ Kurt Koszyk, Karl Obermann: Contemporaries of Marx and Engels . Assen, Amsterdam 1975, pp. 382-384.
  32. ↑ The League of Communists . Vol. 2, pp. 349-350.
  33. ↑ The League of Communists . Vol. 2, pp. 400-401.
  34. ^ Central and State Library, Berlin. Signature: Kuczynski estate / 8. Special location / 5. Collection of autographs on the history of the labor movement (Kuc8-5-152).
personal data
SURNAME Roeser, Peter Gerhard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Röser, Peter Gerhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German cigar worker, member of the Association of Communists and the ADAV
DATE OF BIRTH December 30, 1814
PLACE OF BIRTH Mühlheim am Cologne
DATE OF DEATH July 2, 1865
Place of death Mühlheim am Cologne