Rosa Luxemburg, a young Polish turned German political activist, bravely opposed World War I and was murdered for it. Her legacy lives on in media and among modern-day political protesters.
Rosa Luxemburg, an early 20th century political activist who opposed colonialism and militarism, declared, “I want to effect people like a clap of thunder.” She succeeded in her mission, both in life and in death. While political activism cost Rosa her life, the impression she made lives on.
The current Israeli-Palestinian conflict has sparked a resurgence of interest in Luxemburg’s life and ideologies. It is this conflict that led me to read the graphic work, “Red Rosa: A Graphic Biography of Rosa Luxemburg”, by Montreal-born graphic artist Kate Evans.
The book gathers high praise, with Barbara Ehrenreich raving that “this book is hard to put down and contains a challenge that is impossible to turn away from: we could create a better world – peaceful, egalitarian, even joyful – if we are willing to learn from Red Rosa.” The book is a thrilling ride through a time of both upheaval and promise. It describes how the growing drumbeat for war ultimately foiled gains for European workers in labor and voting rights.
The rise of a political activist
Rosa Luxemburg was of Polish and Jewish descent. As a young adult, she moved to Germany on a quest to forge a revolutionary consciousness among German workers. She became a German citizen in 1897, the same year she graduated manga cum laude (with great honour) as a Doctor of Law.
Rosa was appalled by the outbreak of World War I in 1914, which she saw as caused in part by imperialist rivalries. She was outspoken in her belief that ordinary German citizens should not sign up to fight in a war designed to benefit, as she saw it, the elites in Germany and other European nations. A famed orator and giant of the political left, her speeches at anti-military rallies summoned an audience, to the disdain of the German government. Twice she was on trial and even imprisoned – first for sedition and then for slander.
Luxemburg was staunchly anti-imperialist and anti-colonial. She was one of the great internationalists of the early twentieth century and a pioneer of free speech and human rights. She bravely wrote articles passionately denouncing colonial massacres and misrule in Africa and elsewhere. In particular, she condemned what is now widely understood to be the first genocide of the twentieth century – the endeavour in 1904 to1908 to eradicate the Herero and Nama peoples of “German Southwest Africa” (now Namibia). Ultimately, at least 100,000 people died, roughly 85% of the Herero and Nama populations.
On February 16, 1917, Luxemburg wrote a letter from Wronke Fortress prison to a friend and comrade pronouncing her commitment to internationalism: “I am just as much concerned with the poor victims on the rubber plantations of Putumayo, the Blacks in Africa with whose corpses the Europeans play catch” [as with Jewish suffering]. She added, speaking of the victims of Germany’s General von Trotha’s genocidal war: “… that ‘sublime stillness of eternity,’ in which so many cries of anguish have faded away unheard, they resound within me so strongly that I have no special place in my heart for the ghetto. I feel at home in the entire world, wherever there are clouds and birds and human tears.”
Luxemburg famously wrote hundred of letters and articles that told of the barbarity of colonial rule and the commission of crimes against humanity. Her controversial writing, which challenged the German government, was risky to publish. As such, all her work in the Polish language paper Gazeta Ludowa was published anonymously. Notably, she exposed and decried the brutal actions of Germany’s military officer, Prince von Arenberg, who was pardoned despite having brutally tortured and murdered a defenceless African.
A defender of the right to free speech
Throughout her life, Luxemburg was critical of German militarism. She not only denounced World War I, but for many years was outspoken against the buildup of what we now refer to as a “military-industrial complex.” As part of her attack on the German state’s military buildup, she also defended her right to free speech. Under relentless condemnation, she wrote that “freedom is always the freedom of dissenters.” She was an early critic of the rise of authoritarian clampdowns on free speech, whether in Germany or in the new Soviet state under the rule of Vladimir Lenin.
During her trial in 1914 (dramatized brilliantly in “Red Rosa”), Luxemburg courageously defended her right to speak freely. She and her counsel, Paul Levi (who was also her lover), developed a unique strategy to defend against the charge of “insulting the officer corps”. They effectively put Prussian militarism in the dock, turning the tables. Their brilliant strategy was to call to the stand thousands of common soldiers who would testify to the inhumanity and cruelty of German army officers. The Minister of War, aware of the possible fall-out, quietly withdrew the charge against her.
A political assassination
On January 15, 1919, Rosa Luxemburg was murdered while in the custody of prison officials. Her body was hastily submerged in a canal, and the officers in charge claimed the man who shot her was an angry civilian. Later, the GKSD (a paramilitary unit, called upon by the government) would admit to the execution. That day, the GKSD also executed Karl Liebknecht, Rosa’s comrade and fellow revolutionary.
“Red Rosa” describes the elaborate efforts made to protect the powerful officials responsible for the order to kill both Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. The book quotes Kurt Gietinger, the journalist who investigated the trials in light of new documentation. Gietinger asserts that “the murders of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht constitutes one of the great tragedies of the twentieth century.” He adds that no other political assassination in German history stirred public passions and transformed the political climate like that of the killing of these two giants. In sinking Rosa’s body in the Landwehr Canal in Berlin that cold January evening, “they were sinking the Weimar republic along with it.” The book meticulously reconstructs how orders were given for the murders and which paramilitary soldiers carried them out. The trial itself was designed to cover-up the new German government’s complete complicity in the evil deed.
A lasting legacy
Rosa Luxemburg has been the subject of many books, a fine 1986 film directed by Margarethe von Trotta, and poems and songs. Bertold Brecht wrote in the Berliner Requiem’s “The Drowned Girl”: “She told the poor what life’s about / And so the rich rubbed her out / May she rest in peace.” Written by Brecht with music by Kurt Weill, the song imagines Luxemburg’s last moments and captures the inhumanity of the assassination. David Bowie performed the song, as the character Baal, from Brecht’s play by that name (available online as a 1982 BBC 1 production).
For the current crisis, though, Rosa Luxemburg continues to inspire protesters against the shocking complicity of Western governments, including the German government, in Israel’s “plausible genocide” of the Palestinian people in Gaza. South Africa has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, even bringing the matter to the International Court of Justice. Germany has declared its support for Israel, sparking Namibia to accuse Germany of hypocrisy.
Rosa Luxemburg’s life and words have inspired today’s anti-war protestors. For instance, 110 Jewish artists, writers and scholars in Germany published an open letter on October 23, 2023. They cite Luxemburg and call on the German government and police to respect freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. The name “Rosa Luxemburg” will continue to resonate with young people who seek a better world, where nations respect one another and strive for non-violent conflict resolution.
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DISCLAIMER The information in this article was correct at time of publishing. The law may have changed since then. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of LawNow or the Centre for Public Legal Education Alberta.
About Rob Normey
