The situation concerning my complaint for gross insult against Father Expeditus Schmidt in Munich is quite similar. It has been filed in Dresden and the trial started in Kötzschenbroda. Here also, questions concerning the jurisdiction have been raised, but not by me. I have no reason at all to prefer the verdict to be pronounced in one place rather than another, for my cause is just. I do not need to weigh with subtle reasoning, if I would win or lose my lawsuit in a certain place, with a certain court, and in a certain case. I must not cling to such extraneous things, but rather stick by the matter itself and the truth of it; the rest, I leave up to the judges.
These transfers were no obstruction, but an advantage, for me. They have given me an opportunity to see the cards my opponents were holding. Most of all, it turned out that the two Fathers Schmidt and Pöllmann are closely connected with the name and the cause of Münchmeyer. Their lawyer is connected with the lawyer of Münchmeyer and Lebius. I will prove this, and then the connection with the Münchmeyers' plan to "to destroy me in the eyes of all of Germany in all the newspapers" will be perfectly self-evident. To enable my readers to briefly review the current state of affairs, I am ending this chapter by quoting an article, which the "Wiener Montags-Journal" <Monday's Journal of Vienna> published this year on October the 17th. It reads:
Karl May as a novelist.
(A redress.)
We are faced with an impressive series of volumes, the work of an immensely productive and successful author. But at the same time, it also constitutes his exoneration. This is because, until now, there have not been many cases where a person's literary work has been the reason for such abysmally vicious and underhanded attacks, as those targeted against Karl May. Before we will turn to a detailed assessment, recognising the so very rich imagination of this German novelist, we want to give the defamed author the opportunity to defend himself, which is now, after the lawsuits against his spiteful and malicious opponents have been successful, also a redress. Mr. May has written to us:
The entire so-called "Karl-May-persecution" has been constructed based on lies. The first one of these lies is, that I was an author for the youth and had written my traveller's tales for immature, young people. Most of these tales have been published by the "Deutscher Hausschatz", which as surely never been a magazine for boys. And every honest eye will instantly see, when glancing at the volumes which were published later, that they can only be understood my mentally grown-up persons. With this, all accusations of me allegedly "corrupting the youth" lose their basis. The fact that, nevertheless, young people are reading my books and even enjoy them very much, still would not prove that I had targeted them at them, but rather that a youthful soul is finding in them, what others are depriving it of.
A second lie is that I was fibbing in these traveller's tales of mine. Whoever says so surely does not even suspect what a bad testimony he is giving to his own intelligence. After all, it only takes the analytic powers of an eighth-grader to realize that all of my narratives only have their roots in real live, but otherwise extend upwards into regions which are not so commonplace. Every reader who understands me knows that I describe countries and peoples which, up to this day, exist almost exclusively in fairy-tales, but have to move, by and by, into the realm of absolute reality for us. When I envision and describe as reality what is still a fairy-tale to others, only for ignorant or malicious people, this can be a reason to maintain that I was fibbing.
In the past, nobody would have thought of judging me in this insulting manner. Whoever had not understood me would not have said more than that I had a very extensive imagination. Only after the biggest of all lies which exist about me had been spread, this is the lie that I had written "abysmally indecent trashy novels", they dared to talk to me in such a tone. This untrue statement has its source with a bookseller of colportage, who had an interest in spreading it around, in order to make as much money as possible by exploiting my name. In the person of Mr. Cardauns, who used to be the editor in chief of the newspaper called "Kölnische Volkszeitung" at that time, this lie found the man who, by means of his publications, did more than much to further its distribution and even took it on himself to produce "evidence" that the indecencies in question could be the product of nobody else's but my pen. Quite naturally, the true, irrefutable proof would only have been possible by presenting the original manuscripts, I had written. All other evidence could only be based on intentional deception or self-delusion and finally had come out as a bombastic illusion.
What kind of evidence was it which Mr. Cardauns presented? He came forth with one unproven allegation after another. He listed quite a number of "inner reasons", to conceal the lack of real reasons. He talked about proofs, evidence, indisputable official documents and such. The "Neuigkeits-Weltblatt" <Worldwide Paper of News> from Vienna even proves that he had stated that he would own the original document, undoubtedly proving May's guilt. Everyone had to presume based on this that he would have my original manuscripts in his possession, and therefore, he was believed, especially since those papers in which he had made his assertions persistently refused to print my responses. With his self-delusion he started a trend: others deluded themselves as well, until in due time they came to see the facts as they are by themselves. Today, only a few still believe in his elaborations. Others accept them, because they benefit from them in a lawsuit or for similar reasons. Whether Father Expeditus Schmidt and Father Ansgar Pöllmann, my two newest opponents, truly believe in their friend Cardauns, I do not know; I could only guess. What they assert is, from my point of view, far removed from any kind of a proof. But all they do against me, they base on the old foundation laid out by Cardauns, and they really seem to be convinced that I will soon collapse under the accusations they and their allies make.
These allies are: The former colporteuse Mrs. Pauline Münchmeyer, publisher of the notorious "Temple of Venus", which had been confiscated by the police. Furthermore, there is the lawyer of that woman, Dr. Gerlach in Dresden, who, by now, has incessantly waged his war against me for entire nine years. And finally, there is this well-known Mr. Rudolf Lebius in Charlottenburg, the socialist, who has seceded from the Christian church, who had proposed that he would be willing to praise and laud me in his paper, if I only gave him between 3000 and 6000 marks, and in the end even 10.000 marks. I gave him nothing. In response, he changed over to the Münchmeyers' side and was the most unrelenting one of my opponents ever since. I want to state explicitly that he also has the advocate Mr. Gerlach for a lawyer. And when I am now adding that the Münchmeyers' Mr. Gerlach is also the lawyer and advisor of Father Expeditus Schmidt and Father Ansgar Pöllmann, this results in the following drastic picture of of the chase: I am completely surrounded. I am encircled by Mr. Cardauns, the colporteuse Mrs. Pauline Münchmeyer, the advocate Mr. Gerlach, Father Schmidt, Mr. Lebius, and Father Pöllmann. Every one of them is ready to gun for me at any time. Though they deny being in contact with each other, they call upon one another as witnesses and experts in their lawsuits and assist each other in the collection of evidence against me and by producing petitions and legal statements for the courts. But the most prominent one of them all is this advocate of the Münchmeyers', who directs everything and all of them, even the two Fathers. The most harmless and amusing one, on the other hand, is Mr. Cardauns, who, as far as I know, could never made to confess that he did not possess my original manuscripts, until recently in Bonn he had to admit in my presence, being interrogated by the judge in charge as a witness, that he had never even seen them.
The question, whether that Münchmeyer lady will be able to bring me down with the assistance of her five secular and clerical comrades, has long since been decided. Nobody who knows how matters are would continue asking it. -- --