A social Democrat, Spartakistin, Communist, revolutionary – 1919 murdered politician Rosa Luxembourg was, and is, controversial admired. This also applies to your companions, Karl Liebknecht.
Germany 100 years ago: The First world war has just come to an end, the Emperor fled, but of peace there can be no question. Although the social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann on 9. November 1918 the Republic in Berlin, but the soldiers triggered and workers supported the Revolution continues. And it continues to kill people – because German on German shoot, in the struggle for the form of government they think is the right thing to do. In January 1919, the events. You will be remembered as Spartacus uprising in the story, because, among other things, the Marxist Spartacist League, was also involved.
Mass demonstrations are on the agenda. The provisional government is a coalition of the social Democrats (SPD) and the more radical Independent social Democrats (USPD), managed by the SPD’s Chairman, Friedrich Ebert. You device is now under massive pressure from the streets. The turn of the year founded the Communist party of Germany (KPD) increased this pressure. Your protagonists are two former SPD politician Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.
Karl Liebknecht: Because of his anti-war stance in 1916, from the SPD parliamentary group excluded
The unfulfilled dream of democratic socialism
Due to their uncompromising anti-war stance, they were isolated in their former party early, after the SPD, in 1914, voted for war bonds in order to Finance the First world war. Luxemburg and Liebknecht joined the USPD. In the revolution the winter of 1918/19, seems to meet for a short time, their dream of a socialist Soviet Republic. Model is Russia, where the Revolution was in 1917, successfully -, however, the dictatorship of the party. Rosa Luxemburg rejects the. Democracy and socialism have together for Luxembourg, “inseparable”, says Hamburg historian Marcel Bois in an interview with Deutsche Welle.
Not only will the policy have democratically should be designed, but also the economy. Therefore, they have supported the Council movement, a coup, but rejected. This attitude can be found originally in the KPD program: You’ll never take otherwise the government is violent, “as by the clear, unambiguous will of the great majority of the proletarian mass in Germany”.
Karl Liebknecht on one of the many mass demonstrations in the revolution the winter of 1918/19
“Karl, is that our program?”
What is the role played by the two most prominent German Communists in the Spartacist uprising in January 1919 play, is to the present day even among historians controversial. Marcel Bois agrees with the assessment, the impetus would have given in front of all revolutionary forces within the industry and Liebknecht was then “from the mood to get carried away”. The aim had been to overthrow the government. However, Luxembourg should have their companions asked: “Karl, is that our program?”
This traditional Episode leaves a sense of Luxemburg and Liebknecht, the supposedly correct rate rings. With her violent death, the fragmentation of the Left occurs in total in a new Phase.
Rosa Luxemburg’s body is found four months after her murder, the funeral took place in June 1919
15. January will be assassinated brutally. Right-wing free corps soldiers under the command of the ruling SPD shoot Liebknecht – according to the official presentation of “on the run”. Luxembourg is also shot, and the corpse in the Berlin Landwehrkanal thrown.
“Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters”
To organize your memory socialists and Communists each year, a silent Demonstration. Usually on the second Sunday in January, thousands of people to the memorial of the socialists in Berlin-Friedrichsfelde pilgrims. At times the division of Germany, in the GDR the Communist Regime arranged the Ritual is a self-contradictory. Because the powers-that-the remembrance of a woman and a man, the rejected one party dictatorship. Nothing else but the GDR with their Almighty Socialist unity party of Germany (SED) from the first day.
In commemoration of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, in 1988, GDR, mixed-critics of the regime among the people
Communism-expert Marcel Bois recalls that the dissidents appointed in the late phase of the GDR on Liebknecht and Luxemburg. A year before the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, they challenge the traditional commemorative event, the power of the state. On Transparent, you require a radical change in the society by quoting Rosa Luxemburg. Including your is probably the most famous sentence in connection with her criticism of the Russian Revolution: “freedom is always the freedom of dissenters.”
Luxemburg-Stiftung: “A small piece of reparation”
Today, the spiritual heritage of the equally popular as well as controversial politician, especially of the Rosa-Luxemburg-maintained Foundation. The Chairman Dagmar Enkelmann look at it as a “small piece of reparation”, that is named the left party close to educational institution after the murdered revolutionary.
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Dagmar Enkelmann on Rosa Luxemburg in the GDR and its importance today
To have the times of the GDR Luxembourg stood “on a Pedestal”, regrets grandson man in a DW Interview. Your theoretical thoughts, to be read in newspaper articles and letters that have dealt with much too little.
With a view to the European elections in may of this year, the grandson, man feels once again the seemingly eternal conflict of the Left reminds. It is still unclear whether there will be a common group. The Right were very quick to agree, says the former member of Parliament of the Left. However, it is an experience of 200 years, “that the Left builds up very quickly, the barricades between” and far too little working, “what unites us”. This experience also Rosa Luxemburg made – and paid for it with their lives.