Decrees of Karlsbad

The decrees of Karlsbad are a series of legal texts resulting from the Conference of Karlsbad (ajourd' today Karlovy Vary), enacted on September 20th, 1819.

This meeting between Austrian and Prussian leaders, under the aegis of Klemens Wenzel von Metternich aims inter alia countering the effects of the liberal ideas which then spread within the Germanic Confédération.

Decrees

In ten points liberticides, it establish that the publications are found subjected to the Censure, the universities are placed under the control of observers of the State, etc

Concerning the University

1. An special representative of the sovereign of each State is named for each university with precise instructions and wide capacities. He must reside where the university is established. Its role is primarily disciplinary and of control. The universities, sometimes self-managed, often pole of propagation of the even revolutionary liberal ideas, are seen put under the cut of the State.

2. The confederated States must a mutual assistance to draw aside the professors who “professed hostile doctrines with the Law and order”. The professorial Corps is thus seen expurgé of its liberal elements which cannot find elsewhere a refuge or a professorial employment…

3. The laws which prohibit the secret societies within the universities must be applied strictly. It is the end of the student's Unions ( Burschenschaft ), particularly effective in the communication inter-academic. The special representative of the sovereign is, of course, in charge of the control of the application of this clause. “The governments of the confederated States must not employ in their respective public services the members of these secret societies.” As much to make so that the membership of a secret society (liberal) is penalizing in term of career…

4. If a student is expelled of a university on decision of his council or the special representative, it should not be accepted in another university. What applies to the teaching staff also applies to the students…

Concerning freedom of the press

Any daily publication or not, whose pulling exceeds the twenty specimens, must be approved beforehand by the authorities of the States of the Germanic Confederation. For better muzzling the Freedom of the press, the decrees of Karlsbad force the States to control their press and, so that a sovereign far too liberal does not allow circulation, since its State, of the subversive ideas feared by Metternich, it gives to the capacity confederal the right to intervene on the matter.

5. Each State is responsible for the application of the preliminary control of the publication, not only on its territory but have regard to the Confederation, with regard to the breaches of security, the constitution or the administration of the States.

6. The confederal Parliament has the right, of her own initiative, without having to be seized, to remove a publication which would have contravened the honor of the Confederation, its safety or that of the Member States, with the peace and the quietude of Germany. This decision (let with goodwill of an especially named commission) is without call and the respective governments must apply it.

7. When a newspaper or a periodical is struck of prohibition by the Diet, its editor cannot, in the five years following the decision, to publish on the territory of the Confederation.

Establishment of a board of trustees in Mainz

8. A confederal board of trustees east establishes with Mainz.

9. Its object is to supervise the revolutionary activities, the secret societies or not, the various plots, the “demagogic” activities of associations of individuals to contravene it. Its field is thus broad, it can be based on obviousnesses or suspicions, and even of “fears” of plot against the quietude of the Confederation or of its Member States.

10. The confederal board of trustees must inform the Diet, of time to others, the results of his activities.

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