But fear of the revolutionary movements which Menzel maintained would be the result of the teaching of Young Germany, induced the German Confederation to take action, and on the 10th of December 1835 the Federal Diet passed a resolution, which aimed at nothing less than the annihilation of the whole group of authors, young and old, which it comprehends under the designation Young Germany. It reads as follows: "In view of the fact that a school of literature has lately come into existence in Germany, a school now known by the name of 'Young Germany,' or 'the young literature,' whose aim is, by means of belletristic writings, accessible to all classes of readers, impudently to attack the Christian religion, to discredit the existing conditions of society, and to subvert all discipline and morality, the Council of the German Confederation (Bundesversammlung) ... has unanimously passed the following resolutions: (1) All the German Governments bind themselves to bring the penal and police statutes of their respective countries and the regulations regarding the abuse of the press in their strictest sense to bear against the authors, publishers, printers, and disseminators of the writings of the literary school known as 'Young Germany' or 'the young literature,' to which notably belong Heinrich Heine, Karl Gutzkow, Heinrich Laube, Ludolf Wienbarg, and Theodor Mundt, as also by all lawful means to prevent the dissemination of the writings of this school by booksellers, lending libraries, or other means," &c., &c.
It was in this manner that the appellation Young Germany first became familiar to the general public. It was the German Police-Confederation which, constituting itself a critical authority, stigmatised a group of authors, mentioned by name, as an immoral and injurious "school"—and this on the information of one single rival of these men in the favour of the reading public.
Menzel was to Young Germany what Southey in his day was to the "Satanic school" in English literature, alias Byron and Shelley, or Katkóf, a generation later, to the "traitorous school" in Russian literature—Herzen, Ogarev, and Bakunin. In disturbed times the informer is as necessary an appendage to the foreground figures as the envious rival and spy was to the hero of the old tragedies.
[1] See Ludwig Geiger: Das junge Deutschland und die preussische Censur. Berlin, 1900.
[2] "Wundersam ist es, wie sich diese Herrlein einen gewissen sittig-religiös-poetischen Bettlermantel so geschickt umzuschlagen wissen, dass, wenn auch der Ellenbogen herausguckt, man diesen Mangel für eine poetische Intention halten muss."
The fellows manage to throw a kind of moral-religious-poetic beggar's cloak so cleverly round them, that, even if the bare elbow shows, we are obliged to consider this defect a poetic intention.