2024-03-29T12:55:10Z
https://keydocuments.net/oai
oai:jgo:source-98.en
2017-04-12T00:00:00Z
en
The Police Authority. Department II (Political and Criminal Investigation Unit), Report by Constable Erxleben. Re: Observations Carried out in the Streets and Public Houses, Hamburg, October 1st, 1898
https://dx.doi.org/10.23691/jgo:source-98.en.v1
Die Polizei-Behörde. Abteilung II (Politische und Criminal-Polizei)
Institute for the History of the German Jews
Online Ressource
This source is one of ca. 20,000 reports written by police spies about
conversations they overheard in Hamburg pubs and in public spaces
between the end of 1892 and the end of 1910.
When the Anti-Socialist Law The “Law against the Publicly
Dangerous Endeavors of Social Democracy,” [Sozialistengesetz] passed
on October 19, 1878. was not renewed in 1890, the Hamburg senate began
to fear the Social Democratic labor movement and the outbreak of
social revolt. As part of a reorganization of Hamburg’s police force
following Prussia’s model in the early 1890s, the chief of the
political police succeeded in establishing a department for gathering
intelligence on the mood and political views among Hamburg’s workers
and craftsmen. The department consisted of six civil servants who
visited Hamburg’s pubs, beer halls, and streets disguised as workers
in order to observe the conversations of those present and
subsequently write reports on them. The city was split into 16
observation districts, one of which was the dockland area called
Billwerder Ausschlag. Hamburg’s political police reports on the mood
of those observed have been given little attention in historical
scholarship for the most part until historian Richard J. Evans
reviewed and published a selection of them. They proved to be a trove
of archival material that is immensely informative with regard to the
cultural history and everyday life of workers, craftsmen, and the
lower classes. This 1898 report written by Constable Erxleben sheds
light on a common conversation in which antisemitic stereotypes are
being evoked.
2017-04-12