1919 The murders of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht
The collapse of the armies of the German Empire in November, 1918 led to the end of Word War I and the beginning of a period of chaos and instability in Germany. The Kaiser, Wilhelm II, abdicated and fled to Holland; a new national republic dominated by Social Democrats had been announced in Berlin; and numerous uprisings on the left and right sought to impose a new order on the country.
Marxist lawyer Karl Liebknecht (1871-1919) had declared a Free Socialist Republic, founded the Spartakasbund (the origins of the Communist Party of Germany, the KPD) and plotted how to achieve power in the anarchic few months after the war’s end. With his associate Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) he participated in an ill-fated revolution of Spartacists which was crushed by right-wing militia groups, the Freikorps. Luxemburg and Liebknecht were arrested, tortured and murdered but became martyrs of the Left. Their opposition to Leninism was overlooked by later Communists in East Germany (the DDR) who venerated the slain pair in numerous ways.
