The Spartacist rising: January 1919. Flashcards
when was the Spartacist rising?
in January 1919 some Spartacist members staged an attempted revolution in Berlin against Ebert’s Government.
who were the Spartacist?
The Spartacists a Marxist revolutionary movement organized in Germany during World War I. they were led by a group of middle class intellectuals, including Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin and Franz Mehring.
what success did the rising have?
they captured the headquarters of the government’s newspaper and telegraph bureau, but they did not capture any other buildings.
why did the sparticisr rising fail?
the whole uprising was badly prepared and had no hope of success.did not get the support of other left-wing groups.
why were the Freikorps dispersed at the sparticist uprising?
a request of Gustav Noske, a defence expert and acknowledged hard man of the SPD, sent Freikorps, rather than the military to deal with the Spartacists. Led by General Walter von Luttwitz, it took 3 days of savage fighting to crush the uprising.
who was punished for the rising?
Spartacist sympathisers were rounded up and brought to justice. Liebknecht was badly beaten before being shot ‘while attempting to escape’, his body was then delivered to a mortuary without any information to identify it; Luxemburg, who declined the opportunity to flee the city, was shot and her body thrown into a canal, where it remained undiscovered until May. According to eyewitnesses Ebert was horrified by these murders, he had not been informed of the arrest of either and earlier that day ordered the release of Liebknecht’s wife, another revolutionary.
