Letters of Marx and Engels 1848

Engels To Karl Friedrich Köppen
In Berlin


Source: MECW Volume 38, p. 177;
Written: 1 September 1848;
First published: in French in L'Humanité, November 1920.


Cologne, 1 September 1848

My dear Köppen,

I return your article herewith. I should already have sent it before but had lost your address in the turmoil of the removal and the mass of business this involved. [232]

Marx will have told you how often we thought of you during the sleepless night of exile. I can assure you that you were the only one of the Berliners whom we recalled with pleasure. Come to that, the sleepless night of exile was pleasurable after all and I look back on it longingly from out of this tedious philistine farce known as the German revolution! But one must be able to make sacrifices for the dear fatherland, and the greatest sacrifice is to return to that fatherland and write leading articles for this gross and boorish public. Farewell.

Tout ā vous
F. Engels