Perhaps,It Was Just A Rumour!
A Play on Helen Demuth,the servant in Karl Marx household,in whom Marx had an illegitimate child,suggests that Marx's wife Jenny had a relationship with a person called August Willich.Though I had read a lot on Marx,I had never heard of him.Who is he after all?
The "Knight" is really about a man by the name of August Willich, who is today rather obscure, and with whom Marx had a rather fierce quarrel over the right direction for the workers' movement to take.
Willich, who like Marx was a member of the "Communist League" and in exile in London around 1850, was the most important representative of the radical faction of this organisation. Political differences between the two exiles degenerated to such extent that they erupted in a heated wrangle in which Willich publically heaped abuse upon Marx, finally even challenging him to a duel. At least this was what Wilhelm Liebknecht reported, adding that Marx sent his second to the duel, which allowed him to escape by the skin of his teeth.
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| The rare book by Marx in the library |
This small, very rare booklet is part of the book collection at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Library. This and many other valuable and rare first editions by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and the early communists, socialists and anarchists come from the book collection of the Karl-Marx-Haus in Trier.
August Willich (November 19, 1810 – January 22, 1878), born Johann August Ernst von Willich, was a military officer in the Prussian Army and a leading early proponent of communism in Germany. In 1847 he discarded his title of nobility. He later immigrated to the United States and became a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
Willich was born in Braunsberg, Province of East Prussia. His father, a captain of hussars during the Napoleonic Wars, died when Willich was three years old. With an elder brother, Willich found a home in the family of Friedrich Schleiermacher, a theologian, whose wife was a distant relative. He received a military education at Potsdam and Berlin. Initially an officer in the Prussian Army, serving in the 7th (1st Westphalian) Field Artillery Regiment, he resigned from the army in 1846 as a convinced republican. Willich was not the only republican emerging from that regiment. One of his fellow officers in Münster and Wesel was Fritz Anneke, who also was to become a revolutionary commander in Palatinate 1849 and later a commander in the Union Army. Willich tendered his resignation from the army in a letter written in such terms that, instead of its being accepted, he was arrested and tried by a court-martial. He was acquitted and was permitted to resign.
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| Jenny |
In London, Willich became an associate of the French revolutionary and political exile Emmanuel Barthélemy. According to Wilhelm Liebknecht, Willich and Barthélemy plotted to kill Karl Marx for being too conservative. Willich publicly insulted Marx and challenged him to a duel, which Marx refused to fight. Instead Willich was challenged by a young associate of Marx, Konrad Schramm. The pistol duel was fought in Belgium with Barthélemy acting as Willich's second; Schramm was wounded but survived the encounter. Barthélemy was hanged in London in 1855 after shooting and killing his employer and another man.
Coming to the United States in 1853, Willich first found employment at his trade in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Here his attainments in mathematics and other scientific studies were soon discovered, and he found more congenial work in the coastal survey. In 1858, he was induced to go to Cincinnati as editor of the German Republican, a German-language free labor newspaper, which he continued until the opening of the Civil War in 1861. Willich became known as one of the "Ohio Hegelians" (followers of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel), along with John Bernhard Stallo, Moncure Daniel Conway, and Peter Kaufmann.
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| Barthelemy |
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| August Willich |
With the outbreak of the Civil War in early 1861, Willich actively recruited German immigrants in the southwestern Ohio region. He joined the 9th Ohio Infantry ("Die Neuner") as regimental adjutant with the rank of first lieutenant, and was promoted to major in August of that year.
After the war, Willich returned to Cincinnati and went into government service. He held a series of responsible positions, including auditor of Hamilton County. His home at 1419 Main Street still stands in Cincinnati.
In 1870, he returned to Germany, offering his services to the Prussian army during the Franco-Prussian War. His age, health, and communist views caused him to be refused, however. He stayed in Germany long enough to receive a college degree in philosophy, graduating from the University of Berlin at the age of sixty. Returning to the United States, he died in St. Marys, Ohio, and was buried there in Elmgrove Cemetery.
In his concluding note to the Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne,Marx wrote: "In the Civil War in North America, Willich showed that he is more than a visionary".
The Play,The Servant Of Revolution,written by Anitra Nelson,is forceful in suggesting an affair between Willich and Jenny Marx.The suggestion by the servant, Helen is rejected by Engels as a mere rumour.Helen refers to an incident in which Willich entered the bedroom in the Marx house hold and told Marx to prove his communist credentials by sharing Jenny with him.Marx snubbed him,but Helen says,Willich made the demand in further visits.The play goes on to say that Jenny reciprocated.
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