ROSA LUXEMBURG
21
sion to which the accused men belonged. . . . The adherents of the
victims refusp.d to take any part in the proceedings.
The accused were not brought to the dock in the usual way, but
were introduced from the Judge's rooms. They arrived laughing and
radiant, their breasts decorated with orders. Throughout the trial, they
conducted themselves nonchalantly, one of them reading a newspaper
when he felt bored, another eating sandwiches, a third playfully trying
to get hold of some hand-bombs which one of his chums in uniform
happened to have in his pocket....
On the evening of the murders, soon after sunset, Liebknecht and
Rosa Luxemburg were taken to the Eden Hotel, where they spent some
hours in charge .of their guardians. There was ... a good deal of con–
versation, some of it animated, in which the two victims discussed and
defended their views. Orders were received that they were to be trans–
ferred to the Moabit Prison, and Liebknecht was taken to the back
door of the hotel, where a military car was waiting. As they were
leaving, one of the company cried out: "See that these swine do not
reach the prison alive!"
As soon as Liebknecht got into the car, Private Runge aimed two
blows at him with the butt of his rifle. One blow missed, the other cut
his 'head open. Ober-Lieutenant von Pflugk-Hartung, the officer in
charge, then got into the car. (He told the Court that he had taken
quite a fancy to Liebknecht in the hotel, thought that for a Socialist
he had interesting views and a good way of putting them.) He drew his
revolver and told him that he would shoot him if he tried to escape.
. . . Presently, in a dark corner of the Thiergarten, the car stopped ...
Liebknecht was shot and killed, and evidence was accepted as satis–
factory that he must have been running away. Pflugk-Hartung was
acquitted, with great applause....
About an hour later, Rosa Luxemburg was taken to the front door
of the hotel. . . . There, for some reason that was not inquired into,
'Private Runge was also waiting for her. As soon as she got into the car,
he swung his rifle and clubbed her on the head.
It
was doubtful if his
blows had actually proved fatal, and it was suggested that he was mental–
ly defective. And so he was given two years' imprisonment.
Lieutenar_, Vogel, the officer in charge of this party, then got into
the car, accompanied by two other officers. "Fraulein Luxemburg," he
testified, "received two violent blows on the head from the butts of rifles
of helmeted soldiers. She collapsed, and when we came to a bridge the
thought came to us all to throw her body into the river." According to
the other officers, however, she was shot through the head by Lieutenant
Vogel. He testified that he threw the body into the river "to save the
honor of the
Garde-Schutzen
Division." ... He was given a sentence
of two years and four months imprisonment. Already, however, his escape
had been contrived. A man in officer's uniform drove up in a motor
