Rosa Luxemburg was one of the most unique personalities to ever inhabit the European left. This politician who would have preferred to study zoology fought for a society in which everyone could take equality, freedom, and solidarity for granted. Her opponents in the enemy camp would have her assassinated in January 1919. Even after her death, opponents in her own camp condemned her views on democracy and freedom – which Rosa Luxemburg understood as the freedom of the dissenters – and misused her good name.

Jörn Schütrumpf is a historian of the German labour movement and currently the director of reseach into the life and work of Rosa Luxemburg at the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung. This book originally appeared in German in 2006 and was re-published in 2018 in a third, revised edition. The English translation by Natascha Mueller-Hirth was published in 2008. Physical copies are available for purchase from the Karl Dietz Verlag.