Berlin

The campaign of defamation bore fruit against the liberals, but it did little direct damage to the Socialists. In the Reichstag elections of July 30, 1878, the National Liberals and Progressives both lost significantly, while the SPD declined only slightly nationwide and actually gained in Berlin, climbing from 31,522 to 56,147 votes in the city. This result so shocked the National Liberals that they signaled their readiness to follow the chancellor in his anti-Socialist crusade. The Progressives remained committed to their oppositionist stance, but were too weakened by their electoral defeat to carry much clout in the parliament, which was now dominated by the pro-Bismarckian forces.

The Anti-Socialist Law that was duly passed by the Reichstag in October 1878 was considerably more draconian than the one that had been rejected as too harsh five months earlier. The new law outlawed “socialistic and communistic” organizations on the grounds that they undermined “harmony between the social classes.” Publications espousing socialist views were prohibited, as were leftist public assemblies in “endangered districts,” such as Berlin. Penalties for transgression included jail, deportation, or “internal exile.” The only parts of Bismarck’s bill that the parliament refused to pass were proposals to strip current Socialist Reichstag deputies of their seats and to ban any future candidates from running on the Social Democratic ticket. Under the new legislation, Socialists could register for election to the Reichstag, but not actively campaign for a seat. Parliament also restricted the law’s validity to two and a half years, after which it would have to be reviewed for possible renewal. (In the event, the law was renewed four times, lapsing only in 1890, when Bismarck was fired.)

The Anti-Socialist Law was applied most vigorously in Berlin, belly of the Red beast. Citing its provisions, local authorities immediately expelled sixty-seven prominent Socialists from the city. Bismarck also tried to jail two Socialist Reichstag deputies, though they successfully invoked their parliamentary immunity. Fortified with an expanded budget, the Berlin police employed an army of informers to ferret out “subversives,” which resulted in a wave of denunciations. “One hears daily,” wrote Georg Brandes, “of house searches, arrests, and [harsh] penalties. . . . Five years’ imprisonment for a murmured curse against the Kaiser is not unusual. . . . A former non-commissioned officer recently got ten years forced-labor because, in a not entirely sober state, he wished death upon the Kaiser. . . . A working-class woman got four years in jail because she laughed at a salute to the Kaiser during an industrial exhibition.” Although Berlin’s judges were apparently aware of the glaring disproportion between the “crimes” in question and the punishment, they justified their political judgments by citing “the [dangerous] atmosphere of the times.”

Socialist Reichstag deputies were allowed to remain in Berlin, but they, like all citizens on the Left, were subjected to constant surveillance and harassment. The police spies, who received two marks a day for their work, followed the delegates wherever they went, and a contingent of informers occupied an entire section of the visitors’ gallery in parliament. Once, in the midst of a speech, a Socialist delegate called attention to the bevy of spies, causing them to decamp en masse “like startled crows.” “At least you have more shame than those who sent you here,” cried the delegate.

Ordinary victims of the persecution campaign responded to it with an intriguing combination of anxious vigilance and resourceful evasion. The writer Max Fretzer recalled how members of a small leftist-oriented “dance club” in Berlin worried that their group had been penetrated by a police spy. Henceforth, they were so wary about what they said that they could take no pleasure in their meetings. At the same time, however, the group got around the banning of Bebel’s pamphlet “Die Frau und der Sozialismus” by wrapping it in blank yellow paper and passing it around among colleagues who knew to ask for “the woman in the yellow coat.” All across Berlin, Socialist workers held outdoor meetings disguised as picnics and staged demonstrations masquerading as funerals or anniversary celebrations. Every year in March, for example, thousands of workers tramped to the cemetery in Berlin-Friedrichshain, where martyrs of the 1848 revolution were buried.