Published as a letter to the editor, signed “A German Social Democrat” and dated London, November 28th, 1849, under the heading “The German Social Democrats and the ‘Times’”, in The Northern Star, No. 632, December 1, 1849, p. 5; attributed to Friedrich Engels by MEW (vol. 7). Text from the original newspaper (NCSE, Northern Star facsimile). Traducción al español
To the Editor of the Northern Star.
Sir,—The Times of Friday last contains a letter signed “Anti-Socialist,” denouncing to the English public, and to the English Home-Secretary, some of the “hellish doctrines” developed in the London German Newspaper, by a certain Mr. Charles Heinzen, described as a “shining light of the German Social Democratic party.” These “hellish doctrines” consist chiefly of a benevolent proposal for killing, in the next continental revolution, “a couple of millions of reactionaires.”
We may safely leave it with you to qualify the conduct of the editors of the Times, in allowing their columns to be made the receptacle of direct police information and denunciation in political matters. We are, however, rather astonished to see, in the “leading journal of Europe” Herr Heinzen described as “a shining light of the German Social Democratic party.” “The leading journal of Europe,” certainly might have known that Herr Heinzen, so far from serving as a shining light to the party in question, has, on the contrary, ever since 1842, strenuously, though unsuccessfully, opposed everything like Socialism and Communism. “The German Social Democratic party,” therefore, never took, nor is it likely ever to take, the responsibility of anything said or written by Mr. Charles Heinzen.
As to the danger likely to result from the “hellish doctrines” aforesaid, the Times might have known that Mr. Heinzen, far from trying to put these doctrines into practice during the last eighteen months of revolutionary convulsions in Germany, hardly ever during that time put his foot upon German soil, and played no part whatever in any of those revolutions.
The idea, Sir, of a man who never did any damage even to the most diminutive of German princes, being able to do harm to the gigantic British empire, would be, in our eyes, an insult to the English nation. We, therefore, beg leave to move that the whole matter be wound up by the Times giving a vote of thanks to Mr. Charles Heinzen, for the courage malheureux with which he combated Socialism and Communism.
I am, Mr. Editor,
Yours, very obediently,
A German Social Democrat.
London, Nov. 28th, 1849.