– Timeline

Childhood and Youth in Poland

5 March 1871: Born in Zamość, Russian Poland.

1873: Moved with her parents and siblings to Warsaw.

1880- 14 June 1887: Studied at Warsaw’s Second Gymnasium for Girls.

early 1889: Left Poland to study at Zurich University in Switzerland.

Student in Switzerland

1893: Co-founded the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland (SDKP, later SDKPiL) with Leo Jogiches, Julian Marchlewski and Adolf Warszawski.

July 1893: Attended the International Socialist Congress in Zurich, Switzerland.

July 1896: Attended the International Socialist Congress in London, England.

1897: Awarded her doctorate from Zurich University.

May 1898: Moved from Zurich to Berlin, Germany.

German and International Socialist

September 1900: Attended the International Socialist Congress in Paris, France.

16 January 1904: Sentenced to two months imprisonment for ‘insulting the Kaiser’.

 

August 1904: Attended the International Socialist Congress in Amsterdam, Netherlands (above).

December 1905- March 1906: Participated in the ‘1905 Revolution’ in Warsaw. Imprisoned for revolutionary activities from March- June 1906 in the Warsaw Citadel (above).

12 December 1906: Sentenced to two months imprisonment in Weimar, Germany.

May- June 1907: Attended Congress of the Russian Social Democrats in London, England.

 

August 1907: Attended International Socialist Womens’ Congress and International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart, Germany (above).

August- September 1910: Attended International Socialist Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark.

November 1912: Attended Extraordinary International Socialist Congress in Basel, Switzerland.

25 September 1913: Made a speech at Fechenheim, near Frankfurt, calling on German workers to refuse to take up arms against their French brothers. As a result, she was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment on 20 February 1914.

December 1913: Attended meeting of International Socialist Bureau in London, England.

July 1914: Attended emergency meeting of International Socialist Bureau in Brussels, Belgium, which called for anti-war agitation.

Anti-war activist

 

5 August 1914: Following the Reichstag vote of the previous day, in which the Social Democrats voted in favour of war credits, Luxemburg co-founded the anti-war ‘Internationale Group’ in Berlin, which later evolved into the Spartacus League.

18 February 1915- 18 February 1916: Imprisoned in Barnimstrasse Womens’ Prison, Berlin.

February- March 1915: Wrote the anti-war Junius Pamphlet.

10 July 1916: Arrested in Berlin and held under ‘protective custody’ for the next two years.

8 March 1917: ‘February Revolution’ in Russia.

8 November 1917: ‘October Revolution’ in Russia.

Revolution

9 November 1918: Released from Breslau Prison on the day that the Kaiser’s abdication is announced and a new government is formed by Max von Baden, which seeks an armistice. Rosa returned to Berlin and began agitation with a new newspaper, ‘Die Rote Fahne’ (‘The Red Flag’).

24 December 1918: Fighting breaks out in Berlin between government forces and revolutionary sailors.

31 December 1918- 1 January 1919: Co-founded the German Communist Party (KPD) with Karl Liebknecht, Leo Jogiches and others in Berlin.

5 January 1919: Beginning of ‘the Spartacist Rising’ in Berlin, when armed workers demonstrate against the removal of left-wing police chief Emil Eichhorn.

15 January 1919: Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht (above) arrested by government ‘Freikorps’ and taken to the Eden Hotel, where they were interrogated. Liebknecht taken to Berlin’s Tiergarten and shot. Luxemburg rifle-butted and forced into a car, in which she was shot in the head. Her body is thrown into the Landwehr canal.

10 March 1919: Luxemburg’s former lover and lifelong comrade Leo Jogiches (above), now KPD leader, arrested and murdered by government troops in Berlin.

  

13 June 1919: Following the discovery of her corpse on 4 June, a funeral was finally held for Luxemburg in Berlin and was attended by thousands of mourners (above).