Engels in Neue Rheinische Zeitung May 1849

News from Southern Germany

Source: MECW Volume 9, p. 399;
Written: by Engels on May 3, 1849;
First published: in the supplement to the Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 289, May 4, 1849.

Cologne, May 3. We have today received several letters from various parts of Southern Germany; they are all unanimous in conveying the heartening news that everywhere the people are impatiently awaiting the moment when they can at last confront the barefaced counter-revolution of the rulers “by the grace of God” and their worthy accomplices with a genuine revolution — not like that of March — and avenge the acts of violence and infamy that, day after day, for so long have been perpetrated against the people’s rights. Everywhere the people are organising themselves into companies, electing leaders, providing themselves with arms and ammunition etc. It is particularly encouraging, however, to learn that the spirit prevailing amongst the majority of the military there precludes the possibility of once again setting the soldiers like murderous dogs and wild beasts upon their brothers and making them run amuck against their own flesh and blood.

The justified anger of the people has reached a level that makes an imminent outbreak appear inevitable. It is to be hoped that this time the storm will rage so mightily through all Germany that at last the whole pack of divinely appointed martial-law addicts, robber knights and traitors to the people will be uprooted utterly and finally from German soil.