Karl Liebknecht
Karl Paul August Friedrich Liebknecht (13 August 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a German Marxist, originally in the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), and later a co-founder with Rosa Luxemburg of the Spartacus League which, on 30 December 1918, became the Communist Party of Germany (KPD).][1] He participated in the uprising of January 1919 that aimed to implement a Communist dictatorship.
Political career
A pacifist member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from 1900, he became one of its deputies in the Reichstag from 1912 to 1916[2], where he represented the Left-revolutionary wing of the party. In 1916 he was expelled from the SPD's parliamentary group for his opposition to the Burgfriedenspolitik, the political truce between all parties in the Reichstag while the war lasted. He twice spent time in prison, first for writing an anti-militarism pamphlet in 1907 and then for his role in a 1916 anti-war demonstration. He was released on 23 October 1918 from the second term of imprisonment under a general amnesty three weeks before the end of the First World War.
During the November 1918 revolutions that broke out across Germany in the final days of the war, Liebknecht proclaimed Germany a "Free Socialist Republic" from the Berlin City Palace on the Lustgarten on November 9th[3]. On November 11th, together with Rosa Luxemburg and others he founded the Spartacist League of international revolutionaries[4]. In December, his call to make Germany a Soviet republic went out:
- All Executive, all legislative, all judiciary power to the workers' and soldiers' councils'.[5]
However this was rejected by the majority of the Reich Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Councils (Reichsrätekongress) who were then bitterly attacked by Liebknecht and Luxemburg[6]
Death
Shortly after the suppression of the Spartacist/Communist uprising in which he played a role, Liebknecht and Luxemburg were captured in Berlin on 15 January 1919 by the Rifle Division of the Cavalry Guards of the Freikorps (Garde-Kavallerie-Schützendivision).[7] Luxemburg was captured, interrogated, and shot. Her body was then flung into Berlin's Landwehr Canal.[8] Liebknecht was shot in Berlin's Tiergarten[9] and his body, without a name, deposited in a city morgue.
After their deaths, Liebknecht and Luxemburg became martyrs for Leftists. Despite the mass killings under Communist regimes an annual Liebknecht-Luxemburg Demonstration is held in Berlin, claimed to be the world's largest funerary parade and the biggest meeting of the German Left.
References
- ↑ Haffner, Sebastian,. Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918-19, Andrew Deutsch, Munich & Vienna 1969; English translation London, 1973, pps: 18, 23, 127.
- ↑ Haffner, 1973, p.141.
- ↑ Haffner, 1973, p.85.
- ↑ Haffner, 1973, p.23.
- ↑ Haffner, 1973, p.83.
- ↑ Haffner, 1973, p.109.
- ↑ Thadeusz, Frank (29 May 2009). "Revolutionary Find: Berlin Hospital May Have Found Rosa Luxemburg's Corpse". Der Spiegel. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/revolutionary-find-berlin-hospital-may-have-found-rosa-luxemburg-s-corpse-a-627626.html. Retrieved 30 November 2014.
- ↑ Wroe, David (18 December 2009). "Rosa Luxemburg Murder Case Reopened". The Daily Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/6840393/Rosa-Luxemburg-murder-case-reopened.html. Retrieved 30 November 2014.
- ↑ Heffner, 1973, p.140.
