Most of the following words are records of disasters.
Those who wish to avert their eyes and block their ears should simply skip past and remain silent.
After the Great War, Germany’s political situation kept the country in chaos.
The socialists and communists, who took such pride in having achieved freedom and peace though revolution.
The weary soldiers, returned from the front bearing the shame of having lost the war.
A deep chasm formed between these two sides.
The soldiers continually complained to the people of the fatherland.
“We were still winning in the field. The kaiser only abdicated because of the socialist revolution back home. That’s why Germany lost.”
The soldiers on the front lines couldn’t see the entire picture that the generals did. They assumed that victory in their particular theater equated with German advancement. Germany was winning in their minds, so they believed they could have overcome the Allies had they only pressed on further. That disappointment and frustration morphed into hatred for the socialists and communists at home.
The German government, which feared that the country would move to the left after the war, used the anger of these returned soldiers. It created the Freikorps and encouraged them to join. The Freikorps were groups of private citizens charged with ensuring the safety of the homeland, but in reality they existed solely to rid Germany of socialists. Those returned soldiers clung to their military pride and so readily joined to satisfy their senses of self-worth.
However, discontent plagued the Spartacus Group, too, now rebranded as the Spartacus League. While the revolution had brought about the end of the war, Germany didn’t move to a socialist state like Russia had done. The Spartacus League felt a sense of urgency for their mission, so they continued protesting after the war in order to push the socialist revolution even further.
Karl Liebknecht supported the protests, but Rosa Luxemburg fiercely opposed them. She had always been a vocal advocate that a true socialist state could not be achieved with an organization at the helm and that the people of the nation standing up for themselves was the nature of revolution. The frantic pace of events worried her, and she feared for the future of socialism in Germany.
In fact, contrary to the hopes of the socialists, the German people did not continue the revolution. Unlike Russia, Germany provided farmers with a strong social network, lessening the need for forceful rebellion. Food scarcities continued in the cities, but as the economy slowly recovered and people could live somewhat regular lives, most people simply wished to return to their prewar quality of life. They cared not a whit for major societal revolution.
So the German government treated the Spartacus League’s protests as a rebel uprising and ordered the Freikorps to get rid of socialists.
Scheidemann, who had declared “Long live the German Republic!” from the balcony of the Reichstag during the November Revolution, worked with the financial officer of the Social Democrat Party’s Division Fourteen to formulate a secret plot for the assassination of Liebknecht and Luxemburg, even placing a bounty on their heads.
Whoever kills or captures Liebknecht and Luxemburg shall receive 100,000 marks.
January 5, 1919. The Spartacus League held a huge protest in Berlin, which turned into an uprising that eventually ended on the twelfth. Three days later at nine p.m., Liebknecht and Luxemburg were suddenly arrested at a hideout in Mannheim by soldiers under the command of an army lieutenant and city councilmen, after which they were escorted to the citizens’ council headquarters. They were placed in the Eden Hotel for a while before being taken to separate locations. On the way they were both beaten repeatedly with rifle stocks, receiving wounds harsh enough to fracture skulls.
Liebknecht was shot near a pond in Tiergarten Park, his corpse later brought to a mortuary as a John Doe.
Luxemburg was shot in the head during transport. Her body was taken to Tiergarten Park, the same park where they killed Liebknecht, and tossed from the Lichtenstein Bridge into the dark waters of the canal.
The men of the Freikorps cheered at the dull thud and spray of white foam, then returned to the road to continue the hunt.