Twenty-sheet clause
The Twenty-arm clause is a provision of the Carlsbad Decrees , the censorship in the German Confederation concerning. It said that all printed works that were twenty or less sheets in length, which corresponds to 320 pages, were subject to the preliminary censorship. Larger books were only checked after they were printed.
It was based on the assumption that politically explosive topics would only be addressed in shorter pamphlets . In order to circumvent the previous censorship, committed writers often worked the actual political statements into works on a larger scale, in order to bring them to the people in this way. For example, Heinrich Heine's Germany appeared. A winter fairy tale as part of the book New Poems , since it would have come under the clause alone. In 1835, Gutzkow added a poetological essay Truth and Reality to his novel Wally, the Doubtfulto bring his book to 21 sheets. For not only expressly political writings were subject to the twenty-sheet clause, but also fine literature .
Footnotes
- ↑ Wolfram Siemann : Vom Staatsbund zum Nationstaat, Germany 1806-1871 . CH Beck, Munich 1995. ISBN 3-406-30819-8 . P. 221.
- ↑ When the novel was finally banned, the police were only able to confiscate a few copies. The edition was sold out, and it was worth bypassing the previous censorship.
- ^ Hans-Christof Kraus : Culture, education and science in the 19th century . Oldenbourg, Munich 2008. ISBN 978-3-486-55727-5 . P. 104.