J'accuse

J'accuse ...! (French for J'accuse ...! ) is the title of an open letter by the French writer Émile Zola Félix Faure, the former President of the French Republic, in order to inform them and the public about the true nature of the Dreyfus affair. The letter was published on 13 January 1898 in the newspaper L' Aurore, caused a major political scandal and the Dreyfus affair was a decisive turn. J'accuse is also referred to in the German language as a term for a bold, public expression against abuse of power.

Background

Three years earlier, the French Captain Alfred Dreyfus was convicted for alleged spying for the German Empire to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. When his innocence and Major Ferdinand Walsin - Esterhazy turned out to be the true culprit in a re-examination, the General Staff held still at the perpetration Dreyfus ' and that Jew and Alsatian was.

Already in November 1896 the journalist Bernard Lazare had in his pamphlet: ( German: "A miscarriage of justice: The Truth about the Dreyfus Affair " ) Dreyfus ' innocence insists " Une Erreur judiciaire La Vérité sur I'Affaire Dreyfus ."

The immediate impetus to the open letter from Zola gave the scandalous acquittal Walsin - Esterhazy. Zola put it public the background of the case is accusing senior officers of the General Staff and the military justice system as well as some involved in the case, reviewers and conservative press organs of anti-Semitism, of lies and deliberate perversion of justice in the Dreyfus case. The letter was published on the front page of the newspaper and made in France and abroad tremendous sensation. Zola was subsequently charged with defamation, as he had foreseen it at the end of the letter and accepted, and found guilty on 23 February 1898. To escape imprisonment, he fled to England, from where he returned in June 1899.

Content

Émile Zola pointed to the numerous legal mistakes and faulty proofs as well as the complete lack of serious evidence against Dreyfus. He argued that Dreyfus ' conviction was based on false accusations and a rough miscarriage of justice constitutes, as its main cause, he accounted for the Major in charge of the investigation Armand du Paty de Clam. Its methods of investigation and the prosecution testified of bias, incompetence and manipulation. Zola also highlighted the " Esterhazy affair ", that the acquittal of the real culprits. The entangled in their lies officers had not dared of esprit de corps, to testify to the truth. The Jesuit infiltrated General Staff had served instead of " dirt press " anti-Semitic propaganda.

Effect

Zola's letter raised the debate about Dreyfus ' guilt or innocence to a higher level. Especially now with him she became a principled debate about the character of the Third Republic. The French company was found to be deeply divided: who ' believed innocence of Dreyfus and Zola supported, identified himself, who admitted to human rights take precedence over the reason of state so as supporters of a liberal, secular republic; who ' held to blame for Dreyfus, thus expressed his sympathy for a right-wing conservative attitude expression, the indispensable pillars of the state saw in the military and the Catholic Church, where the fate of an individual was to sacrifice in doubt.

After years, sometimes violent clashes between the two camps, the social liberal and leftist forces prevailed in the parliamentary elections of 1902. The new majority adopted the 1905 law separating church and state. The secular character of the present French Republic is therefore a direct result of the Dreyfus Affair and open from Zola's letter.