Courtroom – 1852

The communists' trial in Cologne was the most sensational court case of the 19th century. As a result of the anti-revolutionary domestic politics of Prussia, it became a show-trial. The political objective was to "break the revolution decisively" and to monitor and suppress the political opposition.

The trial was directed against communists and the editorship of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung newspaper, which also included Karl Marx. The newspaper was banned, the communist alliance was crushed and the democratic movement in the Rhineland was set back for decades.

Karl Marx wrote about the trial and the political police as an instrument of repression:
"The communists' trial in Cologne has shown the impotence of the state's power in its fight against social development…The very existence of the political police depends on the decision of this trial. The very existence of the political police.. not only concerns the existence and activities of the staff directly involved in this matter. Its existence amounts to the subjugation of the entire machinery of government, including the courts and the press under this institution."
(Marx, Karl: Enthüllungen über den Kommunisten-Prozess zu Köln, Göttingen/Zürich 1885, S. 74.)

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