Printer's shop, newspaper press – around 1820

The wars of liberation aroused the desire in Germans for national unity and political participation. The middle-classes and students' fraternities were all in favour. The Prussian government reacted severely to such bourgeois-revolutionary tendencies. Memories of the French revolution were still too fresh. In March 1819 the murder of the author Kotzebue by a student provided the reactionary powers with an opportunity to crack down on critics of the ruling system of society. Freedom of speech was repressed. Censorship of books and the press, the banning of unions and assembly were the order of the day. In Koblenz the publicist and newpaper publisher Joseph Görres was silenced.

He reported what happened to him and his "Rheinischer Merkur" newspaper:
"..two directives were sent to the then General Governor Sack, to restrict the paper and put it in fetters… (When) the publisher, referring to a declaration of the ruling State Chancellor, steadfastly rejected any censorship, this was interpreted as evidence of opposition to the king. The king felt obliged to issue a restraining order. This directive from the highest quarter appeared in Berlin newspapers in the words: "the continuation of the Rheinischer Merkur, published in Koblenz, has been forbidden in future by order of the highest authority."
(Görres, Joseph: In Sachen der Rheinprovinzen und in eigener Angelegenheit, Stuttgart 1825, S. 29f.)

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