Every year in the bitter cold mid-January, tens of thousands gather in the German capital of Berlin to commemorate the assassinated revolutionaries Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. What's the story behind the biggest annual march of the political left in this Central European country?
After the First World War, which ended late 1918, grief, hunger and unemployment were prevalent in Germany. Ordinary soldiers and the impoverished proletarians had correctly blamed the German Kaiser and the monopolies for their misery. There were mass demonstrations and strikes by workers. War-weary troops returning from the front-lines made too weak an army to control the angry crowds. One year after the October Revolution in Russia, the German November Revolution forced the Kaiser to resign into exile. The Social Democrat Party (SPD) took power and became the new government. At that time, the Communists had not yet created their own party and were still a minority grouping within the SPD.
Only a few weeks later the new government began to show their counter-revolutionary character. During the First World War, the big monopolized weapon forgeries had grown rich off workers' blood in the trenches of war-torn Europe. These monopolies weren't expropriated by the new government, and compromises were made with the old militarist powers. The workers had no control over the monopolies and the workers' and soldiers' councils dissolved, handing power to the new government. The "Frei Corps," an extreme right-wing paramilitary group began to patrol in the place of the hopelessly disorganized police. These reactionary groups consisted mainly of upper-class men, who remained unpunished for their attacks. The government was clearly not headed towards socialism.
Dissatisfaction among the working class rose, along with their hunger. On New Year's Day, 1919 the revolutionary forces broke with the reformists. The Communist Party of Germany (KPD) headed up by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, was founded.
The right-wing reactionary forces immediately targeted Luxemburg and Liebknecht. Posters were put up calling for their assassination. The paramilitary, so-called "Frei Corps" spread under the benign toleration of the SPD government, which saw them as a way to suppress revolutionary workers.
On January 15th, 1919, a band of these paramilitaries, led by old German nobles, kidnappeded and murdered both Liebknecht and Luxemburg. They disposed of the corpses in a Berlin canal. On January 25th Karl Liebknecht, along with 31 murdered comrades were buried in the presence of workers from all over Germany. Rosa Luxemburg's corpse was not found until early Summer, and her funeral also became a mass demonstration.
The counter-revolutionaries killed the two most popular and admired leaders of the workers' movement, but they didn't succeed in destroying the growing Communist Party. In the following years, it swelled to become a mass party.
Since those turbulent days, the commemoration of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg has been kept alive by the workers' movement and the Communist Party. After Lenin's death in 1924 he became a part of the march, which was then named the "Lenin-Liebknecht-Luxemburg-Demonstration" (LLL).
In 1926 a memorial stone, designed by famous architect Mies van der Rohe, was erected at the graves of Luxemburg and Liebknecht. It was financed through the donations from workers. From 1927 onwards, this memorial became the destination of the annual demonstrations. The Nazis destroyed it in 1933. Only the dark period of fascism, 1934 to 1945 was able to suppress the march. Communists still celebrated the holiday through clandestine festivals.
After Germany was liberated from fascism by the Allies, the march was publicly held again in 1946, officially backed by the Socialist Unity Party, which arose as a united party of the former KPD and SPD, and the Eastern German government. It became institutionalized and the number of participants rose to many hundreds of thousands each year.
After the dramatic events of 1989/1990 the situation changed again. In October 1990 the two states, Western and Eastern Germany officially reunited. Socialist Eastern Germany was sacked by the Western German State, which had always acted as a front for NATO imperialism. The progressive thinking and socialist achievement of Eastern Germany seemed doomed.
The new power hoped that the march would be forgotten. They were to be disappointed! In 1990, without support by the state or any official institution, the demonstrations continued as the largest gathering of the radical left in Germany. In 1992 for the first time, a march was organized from Lenin Square in Berlin, (now renamed to United Nations Square), to the cemetery. Thousands participated, and hundreds of thousands again honored the heroes at the cemetery.
The government began to target the march, but soon realized that it could not be crushed with simple propaganda. Each year minor police provocations occurred, but year by year the number of participants grew. The attempts to bury the LLL demonstrations failed and the rulers decided to try their traditional method--brutality.
In 1996, 10,000 people were marching to join the 100,000 in their silent commemoration at the graveyard, when suddenly heavily armed police forces attacked. Dressed in riot gear, the police aggressively used nightsticks and shields to try and break the demonstration apart. Thanks to disciplined behavior and a strong will to protect themselves, the demonstrators marched on. The police tried a second time only a few minutes later, but again the provocation was refused and a highly alert march continued to the cemetery. In the square outside the graveyard, as every year, there was a relaxed atmosphere. There were small live music stages. Progressive organizations from all over Germany and around the world had set up their stands. The peril seemed to have been overcome. Suddenly, the war-like police forces raided the square and attacked everything and everybody in range of their billy clubs. They made no distinctions, assaulting young and old, businessmen and punks. Among the dozens of injured were elderly people in their 70s. The stands were all broken. After the police had finished their raid they left a shattered battlefield.
The following years were calmer, although there were still scattered police provocations. In 2001, the march was completely forbidden, allegedly because of murder threats by an unknown psychopath. Thousands disobeyed the restrictive order and found themselves hunted by their "protectors." Again, great difficulties had to be overcome to maintain the commemoration of the fallen comrades. Only this year was the procession finally calm again.
Over the recent years, international participation has grown. As guests of Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterjugend (Socialist German Workers Youth, SDAJ), comrades from neighboring countries regularly participate as an act of international solidarity. SDAJ also regularly organizes a joint event, conferring honors to the victims of the international brigades who fought against fascism during the Spanish Civil War.
To continue the Luxemburg's and Liebknecht's tradition as fighters against the war, SDAJ will make next year's march the starting point of a national anti-militarist campaign. The LLL tradition should be maintained not simply as a commemoration, but in relation to today's struggles as well. We are optimistic that the left will continue to unite.
Carsten lives in Berlin, and is member of the Socialist German Workers' Youth (SDAJ). He currently studies art history at Humboldt-Universitaet
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