22 THE UTOPIAN COMMUNIST
to penetrate the ritual mysteries^17 of all such subversive organiza
tions.
Although Swiss, Scandinavians, and Hungarians also belonged
to the League of the Just, its language of procedure was German.
Associated in the leadership with Weitling, who reflected the
point of view of the craftsman, were a group of intellectuals and
refugees who had enjoyed considerable formal education. One
of them, Karl Schapper, had studied forestry and had lived the
life of a university man at Giessen. While a refugee in Switzerland,
he had been prominent in the Young Europe movement and had
fallen under the spell of Mazzini. In Paris he made his living as a
typesetter. He quickly rose to the top in the administration of the
League and was a member of its Brennpunkt; and, after his expul
sion from France, he became a leader of the communists in Lon
don.^18 Dr. August Hermann Ewerbeck, an M.D. from Danzig,
was a member of the League's Volkshalle and taught socialism to
a small group who met regularly in a room in the suburb of Vin¬
cennes. He translated Cabet's Voyage en Icarie and succeeded to
Weitling's leadership in the League when the latter moved on to
Switzerland. Weitling credited Ewerbeck with leading the League
into definitely communist lines. Other influential members were
Dr. Germain Maurer of Rhenish Prussia, who later was employed
as a teacher in Berlin and contributed to various German papers.
Among the members who did not belong to the intelligentsia may
be mentioned Heinrich Bauer, a Franconian shoemaker; Joseph
Moll, a watchmaker from Cologne who became a Chartist in Eng
land and fell in the revolution of 1849 in Baden; a certain Weissen
bach, who, according to Weitling, gave the League its name and
later came to Peoria, Illinois, to live; and Heinrich Ahrends of
Riga, who also immigrated to the United States, took up spiritual
ism in New York, and remained a lifelong friend of Weitling.
(^17) See Dr. jur. Wermuth and Dr. jur. Stieber, Die Communisten-Versch-
voorungen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1853), especially I, 177-87.
The account consists largely of police and court records.
(^18) August Wilhelm Fehling, Karl Schapper und die Anfänge der Arbeiter¬
bewegung bis zur Revolution von 1848 (Rostock, 1922), passim.