Narratives of Social Conflict in the Merstallinger Trial, 1883

Abstract

AbstractThe robbery of Viennese shoe manufacturer Josef Merstallinger on 4 July 1882 led to a political trial of social radicals the following year. When Merstallinger's assailants were arrested, they admitted to the crime and professed to have carried it out to raise funds for the radical socialist movement. In response, the police arrested dozens of radical activists and eventually charged twenty-nine people with crimes including high treason. The authorities, including the chief of the Vienna police and state's attorney, characterized the robbery as part of an international anarchist conspiracy that threatened violent revolution against the basis of Austrian and European civilization. The trial was thus intended to cripple the radical organization and demonstrate the dangers socialist politics posed to the public. A counternarrative for the defendants stressed the relative harmlessness of the radical movement, general harmony of Austrian social relations, and rights of the accused to free speech and to protection from arbitrary treatment by the police. A public jury trial suggested the greater persuasiveness of the latter narrative, as the jury acquitted the defendants of all charges except those directly related to the robbery.