Neue Freie Presse
- Social Reparations.
- Arrest of Garibaldi and Colonel Macia.
- Virtue Crisis.
The Neue Freie Presse of 14 November 1926 combined Viennese domestic polemic, a Paris arrest story and a society feuilleton. An open letter titled "Soziale Reparationen" reproached unnamed addressees for honouring the Republic on its festive day without offering any message of reconciliation between the classes or any grief over economic ruin. A report from Paris described how Colonel Macia, leader of the Catalan separatist conspiracy, was taken off the Perpignan express under police escort, confronted with Garibaldi for about an hour, and then sent with him to the Santé prison. The feuilleton "Tugendkrise" opened in a tea-dance room full of Charleston and jazz, where a cigarette-smoking lady proposed an evening lecture on the "virtue crisis of the modern woman".
Translation
Social Reparations.
You have paid homage to the Republic. Your holiday wish, however, did not consist of a message of social rapprochement. It was not overshadowed by pain at the economic ruin, and it was not inspired by the idea that a better coexistence between the classes could be achieved, along with a fuller use of productive capacities, by eliminating quarrel and strife and by gaining clarity about the real balance of power [?] about the possibilities of the future.
Arrest of Garibaldi and Colonel Macia.
The leader of the Catalan separatist conspiracy, Colonel Macia, arrived in Paris today. The police had taken the same precautions as at Garibaldi's arrival. The express train from Perpignan, which was an hour late, was stopped outside Paris. Colonel Macia was taken over by two officers of the security police and put into a car. Before continuing on to Paris, they stopped at a country inn and had a simple breakfast there. Only long after one o'clock did the colonel arrive in Paris with his police escort. At three o'clock the eagerly awaited confrontation with Garibaldi began. After the confrontation, which lasted about an hour, Garibaldi and Macia were arrested. Both were immediately taken to the Santé prison. …
Virtue Crisis.
While the little legs of the dancing girls flew apart in the Charleston like the electrodes in an electroscope, and the rhythmic rutting cry of the Negro music vigorously underscored the quieter tea ceremony in the neighbouring reception room, the cigarette-smoking lady suggested to the sweets-nibbling gentleman that they drive that evening to a lecture which had been promisingly announced in the newspaper under the title "The Virtue Crisis of the Modern Woman."
Context
The Prats de Molló plot behind Macià's arrest
The convoy the paper describes was the last stage of an affair that had broken open earlier that month. Catalan historiography calls it the events of Prats de Molló: an attempted military invasion of Catalonia carried out from France to achieve its independence, by the conspiracy the paper says Macià led. Macià had taken refuge in Perpignan in September 1923, right after Miguel Primo de Rivera's coup. The French police had little difficulty arresting most of the participants near the Spanish border, 111 people in all, and Macià himself was arrested on 4 November in the country house he was occupying. Within a few days most of those arrested were expelled from France, while about twenty men regarded as the masterminds were transferred to Paris to stand trial. The colonel's journey from Perpignan to Paris, with a halt at a country inn, belonged to this transfer.
Garibaldi's double role in the Catalan conspiracy
The Paris report presents Garibaldi and Macia as two suspects in a single affair: the police take the same precautions for both, hold a confrontation of about an hour and send both men to the Santé. The excerpt gives no hint that Garibaldi was anything other than a fellow conspirator. Later historical accounts describe him very differently. Ricciotti Garibaldi Jr, grandson of Giuseppe Garibaldi, is identified as a spy of Fascist Italy. Macià had brought in Italian exiles to supply the military experience his volunteers lacked, and the account of the Prats de Molló plot states that Garibaldi was not really an anti-fascist fighter but a double agent serving Mussolini's political police. The same account says the French police were on notice, apparently because of a leak from Garibaldi's group, and the Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana states that he, as a secret agent of Mussolini's government, denounced the conspiracy to the French police. The confrontation the paper called eagerly awaited therefore set the plot's leader against the man historians regard as its informer.
How the Paris case ended for Macià
The trial of the conspirators in Paris began on 21 January 1927. The Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana records that the penalties were reduced to expulsion and fines, while the English-language biography of Macià states that he was convicted to two months in jail and a fine of 100 francs; the two accounts differ in detail. The same encyclopedia stresses that the trial had wide resonance and made the Catalan problem and Macià known across Europe. That publicity outlasted the failure of the expedition. Macià was later officially appointed President of the Generalitat of Catalonia and kept the post until his death in December 1933. The November 1926 report thus recorded the arrest of a man who, within a few years, would head Catalonia's autonomous government.
The Linz Programme and the quarrel over class conflict
The open letter "Soziale Reparationen" reproaches people who paid homage to the Republic on a festive day but offered no message of social rapprochement and no idea of ending quarrel and strife between the classes; the excerpt does not name them. The political climate of those weeks helps explain its tone. On 3 November 1926, eleven days before this issue, the Social Democratic Workers' Party adopted a new programme in Linz, drawn up by Otto Bauer, Max Adler and Karl Renner. Its shared aim was to overcome the capitalist social order and reshape it into a socialist one, while the party insisted on implementing its demands by democratic means, through elections and a parliamentary majority. Its most famous sentence warned that if the bourgeoisie resisted, the working class would be forced to break that resistance by means of dictatorship, and the House of Austrian History notes that this sentence, though framed as a defence, aggravated the climate of domestic politics in the First Republic. The letter's call for class coexistence and for clarity about the real balance of power addresses the same questions, although the excerpt itself does not mention the programme.
Original
Soziale Reparationen.
Sie haben der Republik Ihre Huldigung erwiesen. Ihr Festtagswunsch bestand jedoch nicht etwa in der Botschaft der sozialen Annäherung, er war nicht überschattet von dem Schmerz über die ökonomische Zerrüttung, nicht beseelt von der Idee, man könne ein besseres Zusammenleben zwischen den Klassen erreichen und eine stärkere Ausnützung der produktiven Fähigkeiten durch Ausschaltung von Zank und Streit, durch Klärung über die wirklichen Machtverhältnisse [?] über die Möglichkeiten der Zukunft.
Verhaftung Garibaldis und des Obersten Macia.
Der Führer der katalonischen Separatistenverschwörung Oberst Macia ist heute in Paris eingetroffen. Die Polizei hatte die gleichen Vorsichtsmaßnahmen wie bei der Ankunft Garibaldis getroffen. Der Schnellzug von Perpignan, der eine Stunde Verspätung hatte, wurde vor Paris angehalten. Oberst Macia wurde von zwei Beamten der Sicherheitspolizei im Auto übernommen. Bevor man nach Paris weiterfuhr, kehrte man in einer ländlichen Gastwirtschaft ein und nahm dort ein einfaches Frühstück zu sich. Erst lange nach ein Uhr traf der Oberst mit seinen Polizeibegleitern in Paris ein. Um drei Uhr begann die mit Spannung erwartete Konfrontierung mit Garibaldi. Garibaldi und Macia wurden nach der Konfrontierung, die etwa eine Stunde dauerte, verhaftet. Beide wurden sofort in das Gefängnis der Santé eingeliefert. Von
Tugendkrise.
Während die Beinchen der Tänzerinnen beim Charleston auseinanderflatterten wie die Elektroden im Elektroskop und der rhythmisierte Brunstschrei der Negermusik die stillere Teezeremonie des benachbarten Gesellschaftszimmers kräftig untermalte, schlug die Zigaretten rauchende Dame dem Süßigkeiten knabbernden Herrn vor, am Abend zu einem Vortrag zu fahren, der in der Zeitung unter dem Titel " Die Tugendkrise der modernen Frau " vielversprechend angekündigt war.