DURING the war Rosa Luxemburg spent three years and four months in prison. One year – from February 1915 to February 1916 – in a prison in Berlin (Barnimstrasse) for a speech she made in Frankfurt-on-the-Main against military abuses, and another two years and four months – from July 1916 to November 10th, 1918 – in “preventive detention” in Berlin, Wronke and Breslau. She was entirely cut off from the outside world, and was allowed to receive only such books and letters as had passed a rigid censorship. Once a month she was allowed to receive visitors, but only under strict supervision.
This punishment was intended to crush the willpower of this most courageous protagonist of the proletariat, and to silence that voice of hers that was ever calling to action, ever branding lies and ever proclaiming the truth. Both these intentions failed. Her iron willpower was not lamed. Throughout her whole term of imprisonment Rosa Luxemburg worked on untiringly. The indescribable loneliness of endless days and nights brought out all the powers of her intellect and spirit. Her passion for knowledge broke forth in fanfare tones: the famous Junius Pamphlet written behind prison bars was not the only summons to action that found its way out of the prison gates. Handbills, appeals, and important supplements to the Spartacus Letters were transmitted to the friends of Rosa Luxemburg. By means of keen, stinging illegal correspondence and by means of other activities she tried, even in her cell, to guide the revolutionary development of the German working class.
But we do not intend at this juncture to write an appreciation of her scientific and her agitating activities during these terrible years. All we wish to do is to show to the young and to the older workers, to all those for whose welfare and liberty she fought, suffered and died – done to death by cowardly criminal hands – the true character of this greatly maligned woman. And in her case there can be no longer any reason for withholding these letters from publication. These letters have ceased to be private. To know Rosa Luxemburg as scientist and protagonist is to know only certain aspects of her complex nature. The letters from prison round off the portrait. The followers and fellow combatants of Rosa Luxemburg have every right to acquaint themselves with the wealth of thoughts and emotions that emanated from her big heart. It is good that they should see how this woman, undaunted by her own sufferings, brought a deep sympathy and a poet's vision to her understanding of all things in nature; how her heart responded to the music of bird songs; how she took a sincere interest in all the doings of her friends, in both small things and great. We merely point to the monument that the departed herself erected.
The Publishers
Last updated on: 2.4.2026