Letter from Jenny Marx to Joseph Weydemeyer


in Hamm



Written: Thursday [March 17, 1848] Hotel Manchester, rue Grammont No. 1
Source: Marx Engels Collected Works Vol 38, pg 539.
Publisher: International Publishers (1975)
First Published: MECW, First Russian Edition, Moscow, 1934
Translated: Peter and Betty Ross
Transcribed: S. Ryan;
HTML Markup: S. Ryan.


Dear Mr Weydemeyer,

My husband, being again so caught up in the work and pother here in this huge city, has asked me to suggest that you announce in the Westphälisches Dampfboot that several German societies have been formed here, particulars of which will be known to Mr Lüning; but that the German Workers' Club under the leadership of the Germans in London, Schapper, Bauer, Moll, and the Germans in Brussels, Marx, Wolff, Engels, Wallau, Born, that these (who are also in direct touch with the Chartists in England via Harney and Jones) have nothing in common with the German Democratic Society headed by Börnstein, Bornstedt, Herwegh, Volk, Decker, etc., a society which flies the black, red and gold flag (wherein it had already been anticipated by the Federal Diet) and babbles of Father Blücher and is drilled in sections by retired Prussian officers. It is of the utmost importance that, in the eyes of France and Germany, one should dissociate oneself completely from that society, since it will bring the Germans into disrepute. If the Dampfboot comes out too late, use the information provided above for a short article in any German newspapers you choose, these being more readily at your command in the South. Try and get as much as you can into German papers.

I would like to write and tell you a great deal more about the interesting goings-on here which grow livelier by the minute (tonight 400,000 workers are meeting in front of the Hôtel de Ville), while attroupements are again on the increase; however I am so busy with house and home and the three mites that all I have time for is to hail you and your dear wife from afar with a few friendly words of greeting.

Greeting and fraternity.

Your Citoyenne and Vagabonde

Jenny Marx