Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 33. (1980)
LIANG, Hsi-Huey: International Cooperation of Political Police in Europe, 1815–1914. An Essay Based on Some Austrian Archival Sources
International Cooperation of Political Police 201 Künste mit dem Volkswillen, Halbheit, Lähmen und Löschen des schönen und regen Volksgeistes durch schändlichen Egoismus, unverbesserliche Pedanterei und eiserne Dummheit“ “ 2S). This is not to say that the authors of the Final Report themselves were in a better position than Arndt to judge the political wisdom of the powers now organized in the Concert of Europe. The eighty essays that make up the bulk of the document of 1828 were presented to the statesmen in Frankfurt in the hope „dass die hohe Bundes-Versammlung selbst in den Stand gesetzt werde, darüber gründlich zu urtheilen und sich eine von der unsrigen unabhängige Ueberzeugung zu bilden“ 28 29). Most police officials disliked advising their governments on matters of high politics. The future of Germany, as the Commissioners in Mainz saw it, depended less on the activities of German statesmen and German revolutionaries than on forces beyond the boundaries of the Bund. The German revolution, they predicted, would resume its course under the influence of outside events, probably emanating from France. Not even the leaders of the German revolutionary movement would be able to control it30). Regardless of whether the police acted primarily as the protector and regulator of domestic society or as the agent of an international state purpose (in Austria the transition from the one to the other role took place in the late eighteenth century with the advent of Count Johann Anton von Pergen)31) its chief characteristic was always its concern with the behavior of single individuals - unlike the military, whose resources were best employed when facing a massive opposition. In the words of a noted German theoretician of police science: „Die Mittel zur Erreichung der seelischen Wirkung sind beim Heere materiell und auf Vernichtung fremder Volkskraft gerichtet. Bei der Polizei sind sie in erster Linie seelischer Art und werden materieller Art nur in dem Masse, wie es zur Überwindung eines materiellen Widerstandes notwendig ist ... Die grösste und entscheidende Kraft liegt daher beim Heere in überlegener Bewaffnung und Technik, bei der Polizei in dem Masse der Autorität und des Ansehens im Volk“ 32). The police authorities in Europe were ineffective against the eruption of almost simultaneous revolutions throughout the Continent in 1848, unprepared as they were for the sudden proliferation of political activism among the ur28) Ibid. p. 121. 29) Ibid p. 11. 30) Cf. ibid. pp. 262-264 where the Commissioners quote the opinion of a merchant, Samuel Gottlieb Liesching. Their report presented the political views of the revolutionaries with remarkable fidelity and accuracy, to the point of persuasiveness. Cf. ibid. pp. 309-310: This quotation is a well-articulated presentation of the revolutionary movement’s international structure. 31) Viktor Bibi Die Wiener Polizei. Eine kulturhistorische Studie (Leipzig 1927) 232-233. 32) Emst van den Bergh Polizei und Volk - Seelische Zusammenhänge (Berlin 1926) 26-27.
