People’s World | January 14, 2019

This week marks the anniversary of the Jan. 15, 1919, murders of German communists Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. They were both born in the same year, 1871, and died on the same day, their names necessarily linked in history.
As members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), they were outraged that their party supported German involvement in World War I. In 1915, they broke from the SPD and co-founded the anti-war Spartacus League (Spartakusbund). Both were imprisoned for their anti-war agitation.