Vossische Zeitung
- Fascism's Agent Provocateur
- Piłsudski Gags the Press
- Austria's Telephone Service Threatened
The Vossische Zeitung's front page of 8 November 1926 reported that the Paris political police were about to wind up, for now, their questioning of Ricciotti Garibaldi, whom the headline branded fascism's agent provocateur in the Catalan separatist affair. The police said semi-officially that he had broken no French law and could not be charged, but would probably be expelled. A second report described Piłsudski's new press decree, which threatened heavy fines or prison even for unintentionally spread false news or rumours about the state and its officials, so that newspapers could print little beyond official communiqués. A third item said that Austria's telegraph and telephone employees, organised in the Technical Union, would begin passive resistance on Tuesday and strike on 15 November unless the government met their demands.
Translation
Fascism's Agent Provocateur
Garibaldi's interrogation is to be brought to a provisional close today. Garibaldi will, however, remain a "guest" of the political police in Paris, since the investigation against him will be resumed as soon as the questioning of the Catalan separatists and the translation of the numerous seized documents have been completed. Last night the police declared semi-officially that Garibaldi could not be charged, since he had committed no offense against French criminal law. It was, however, probable that he would be expelled from France.
Piłsudski Gags the Press
Under the new decree, very heavy fines or prison sentences are imposed for spreading false or distorted news, even if it is spread neither intentionally nor negligently, and even if it is reproduced only in the form of rumors, insofar as such news can cause unrest by pointing to dangers in domestic or foreign policy or to threats to the constitution, or insofar as it concerns the activities of the authorities, the President of the State, the ministers, the judges, the Marshals of parliament, and officials and military leaders with powers of decree or command. In practice, it is thus almost impossible for the press to publish anything other than official communiqués about the activity, intentions and policy of the government, or about measures taken by the voivodes or military commanders.
Austria's Telephone Service Threatened
The Technical Union, in which the telegraph and telephone employees are organized, and whose separately submitted demands had been rejected by the government, unlike those of the other categories of officials, decided yesterday to go into passive resistance on Tuesday and, if its demands have not been met by then, to begin a strike on November 15. This means that from Tuesday onward there is already the threat of a very poorly functioning telephone and telegraph service, and a week later, possibly, the complete shutdown of wire communication in Austria.
Context
Macià's border raid and Garibaldi's double role
The interrogation reported here was part of the aftermath of the plot of Prats de Molló, an armed invasion of Catalonia from French territory planned by Francesc Macià and the leadership of the Estat Català party, discovered and aborted in 1926. According to the Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana, the invading columns were to converge on Olot, occupy it and proclaim a Catalan Republic there. Because few Catalans had military training, Macià came to terms with exiled Italian anti-fascists who had fought in the war. One of them was Ricciotti Garibaldi Jr, grandson of the hero of Italian unification, whom Wikipedia describes as not really an anti-fascist fighter but a double agent; the Catalan encyclopedia calls him a secret agent of Mussolini's government who denounced the conspiracy to the French police. The French police were therefore forewarned, apparently through a leak from Garibaldi's group, arrested 111 people near the Spanish border and seized Macià himself on 4 November in the country house he was using. The Vossische Zeitung's headline, naming Garibaldi fascism's agent provocateur, matches this later historical judgement, while the passage translated here reports only the state of the French inquiry.
Garibaldi's fate and the Paris trial
The paper relayed a semi-official police view that Garibaldi could not be charged under French law and would probably be expelled. Later accounts describe a somewhat different course. According to Wikipedia, most of those arrested were expelled from France within a few days, while about twenty, regarded as the masterminds, were transferred to Paris to stand trial; the accused it names include two Italians, Arturo Rizzoli and Ricciotti Garibaldi Jr. The trial began on 21 January 1927. The Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana states that the penalties were reduced to expulsion and fines, and that the trial drew wide attention and made the Catalan question and Macià known throughout Europe. The pages consulted do not give Garibaldi's individual sentence, so they cannot confirm whether he was expelled as the police predicted. They do show that the French authorities ultimately put him in the dock alongside the conspirators he had denounced.
The political setting of Piłsudski's press decree
The decree was a product of the system Józef Piłsudski built after his coup of May 1926. The so-called August amendment strengthened the constitutional role of the president and weakened the Sejm, and on 6 August President Ignacy Mościcki used his new right to issue decrees with the force of law. On 2 October Piłsudski himself became head of a new government. According to the Polish history portal dzieje.pl, the president then announced the so-called press decree, which imposed very severe penalties on journalists for "press offences". The climate for critical writers was already harsh: the same account says that anti-Sanacja publicists and writers, among them Tadeusz Dołęga-Mostowicz, Adolf Nowaczyński and Stanisław Stroński, were attacked, probably by men linked to the Piłsudskiites. The Vossische Zeitung's report added its own reading of the decree's reach, arguing that because even unintentional errors and rumours were punishable, the press could in practice publish little but official communiqués about the government.
How the Sejm answered the decree
Parliament moved quickly against the decree: the Sejm repealed the presidential decree as early as December 1926. According to dzieje.pl, however, a softened version came into force in the spring of 1927, when the parliamentary term was running out. With elections only months away, deputies could no longer repeal presidential decrees, and the president kept postponing sessions until parliament was dissolved at the end of November 1927. The Sejm's resistance thus removed the decree in the form the Vossische Zeitung described, but press restrictions returned in milder form while the legislature was sidelined.
Austria's public-service dispute
The telegraph and telephone workers' threat came amid a broader conflict in Austria's public service. Chancellor Rudolf Ramek had resigned in mid-October 1926 because of a threatened strike by federal employees, after which Ignaz Seipel became chancellor again. The historian Therese Garstenauer notes that public servants in the First Republic had plenty of reasons to organise, from the effects of hyperinflation to staff cuts. Their main bargaining body, the so-called Committee of Twenty-Five, was from 1924 into the early 1930s the government's exclusive negotiating partner, yet it was notoriously divided, unsuccessful and unpopular with the employees it represented. Against this background, the Vossische Zeitung's report that the Technical Union's separately submitted demands had been rejected, unlike those of other categories of officials, shows a professional group pursuing its own claims outside the general settlement; the page itself is the source for that detail.
Original
Der Lockspitzel des Fascismus
Die Vernehmung Garibaldis soll heute vorläufig zu Ende geführt werden. Garibaldi bleibt aber weiter " Gast " der politischen Polizei in Paris, da die Untersuchung gegen ihn wieder aufgenommen wird, sobald die Vernehmung der katalanischen Separatisten und die Uebersetzung der zahlreichen beschlagnahmten Dokumente beendet sein wird. Von der Polizei ist gestern abend halbamtlich erklärt worden, daß man Garibaldi nicht unter Anklage stellen könne, da er sich keines Vergehens gegen das französische Strafgesetz schuldig gemacht habe. Es sei aber wahrscheinlich, daß er aus Frankreich ausgewiesen werde.
Pilsudski knebelt die Presse
Nach dem neuen Dekret stehen sehr hohe Geld - oder Gefängnisstrafen auf die Verbreitung falscher oder schiefer Nachrichten, auch wenn sie nicht absichtlich oder fahrlässig verbreitet werden, und auch wenn sie nur in der Form von Gerüchten wiedergegeben werden, soweit diese Nachrichten Unruhe hervorrufen können durch Hinweise auf innenpolitische oder außenpolitische Gefahren, auf Gefährdung der Verfassung oder soweit sie die Tätigkeit der Behörden, des Staatspräsidenten, der Minister, der Richter, der Parlamentsmarschälle, der Beamten und Militärführer mit Verordnungs - oder Befehlsgewalt betreffen. Praktisch ist es also damit der Presse nahezu unmöglich, über Tätigkeit, Absichten und Politik der Regierung, über Maßnahmen der Wojewoden oder Militärbefehlshaber irgend etwas anderes als amtliche Communiqués zu verbreiten.
Oesterreichs Telephonverkehr bedroht
Die Technische Union, in der die Telegraphen - und Telephonangestellten organisiert sind, und deren besonders gestellte Forderungen im Gegensatz zu denen der anderen Beamtenkategorien von der Regierung abgelehnt worden waren, hat gestern beschlossen, Dienstag. in die passive Resistenz zu treten und am 15. November, falls bis dahin ihre Forderungen nicht erfüllt sind, den Streik zu eröffnen. Damit droht zunächst schon ab Dienstag ein sehr schlechtes Funktionieren des Telephonund Telegraphenbetriebes und für eine Woche später unter Umständen die völlige Stillegung des Drahtverkehrs in Oesterreich.