Assassination of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg

The assassination of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg enters the book as a historical loss recalled through workers’ movement song. The text does not narrate the killings or describe their circumstances; instead, a note connects the song “Auf, auf zum Kampf” with the memory of the two murdered political figures.

Reference in the Book

The connection appears in a note explaining that the quoted text was written in 1919 by Berthold Brecht in honour of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. The note makes the song a memorial reference: their deaths give the workers’ movement text a specific historical occasion and political association.

Historical and Political Frame

The passage identifies the song with the workers’ movement and dates its text to 1919. It thus places the memory of the two figures within a political tradition of collective song, but supplies no further account of the assassination, its perpetrators, or the circumstances surrounding it.

Narrative Significance

Rather than presenting the event as a scene, the book lets it surface through a compact explanatory note attached to a song. This indirect reference preserves the distinction between the historical deaths and the later act of commemoration: the killings are not described, while the song’s dedication makes their political memory present in the surrounding text.