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Rosa Luxemburg is born to a Jewish family in Zamość, Congress Poland controlled by Russisa at that time. She became the fifth child of Eliasz Luxemburg and Line Löwenstein.
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Rosa became bedridden with a hip ailment and was left with a permanant limp.
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Because of her parents strong beliefs about education, Luxemburg started attending a Gymnasium at this time. A Gymnasium is a type of school with a strong emphasis on academic learning.
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She started off her political career in this party, but ended up leaving it just a year later after four of the group's leaders were put to death and the party was disbanded in the events of a general strike.
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Rosa fleed to Switzerland to escape detention from Russian officals, and begins attending the University of Zürich along with socialists Anatoly Lunacharsky and Leo Jogiches. She studied philosophy, history, politics, economics, and mathematics.
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With Leo Jogiches and Julian Marchlewski, she started the Sprawa Robotnicza ("The Workers' Cause”), a newspaper which opposed the nationalist policies of the Polish Socialist Party, and believed that only through a string of revolutions throughout Europe could an independent Poland exist.
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Her dissertation under the title, "Die Industrielle Entwicklung Polens" (The Industrial Development of Poland) is completed and published at the University of Zurich in Leipzig.
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Rosa marries Gustav Lübeck, obtains German citizenship, and the newly weds move to Berlin to start a new life.
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In Berlin, Rosa became an active member of the left wing of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and wrote her famous brochure, 'Social Reform or Revolution'.
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Starting at this time Rosa, begun attacking what she saw as German militarism and imperialism. She also wrote numerous articles critising the government and it's policies. She would continue to protest until the time of her death.
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In these three years, Rosa was imprisoned for her political activities on three occasions.
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Rosa traveled to the Second International (Socialist) Congress, in Stuttgart, Germany where her and the other members moved to a resolution, which was accepted, that all European workers' parties should unite in attempting to stop the war.
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Luxemburg became the SPD representative at the European Socialists congresses. She argued that European workers' parties should organize a general strike when war broke out.
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As tension across Europe grew, and the Balkansended up in a war, there was no general strike and the SPD eventually started supporting the war to Rosa's dismay. This act was so devastating to Rosa that she even thought about commiting suicide.
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Luxemburg, along with Karl Liebknecht, Clara Zetkin and Franz Mehring, founded the Die Internationale group which wrote illegal, anti-war pamphlets signed "Spartacus". This group eventually became the Spartacus League in January 1916.
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As a result of the Spartacus League and its protests against the government, Rosa and Karl Liebknecht were imprisoned for two and a half years.
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The USPD and the SPD took over the government and started a new republic following the Kaiser's abdication.
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Karl Liebknecht and Luxemburg reorganised the Spartacus League and founded the Red Flag newspaper when they were out of prison. They also demanded that all political prisoners be set free, and the abolition of capital punishment. Then in the next couple of days they took part in a joint congress of the Spartacist League, independent Socialists, and the International Communists of Germany (IKD) to make plans about what to do next.
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At this time, another revolt arose in Berlin. However unlike most of her colleagues, Luxemburg chose not to participate in this act of defiance. In response to this uprising Rosa and Liebknecht were captured and killed by Pro-Nazi Freikorps. Then Rosa's body was thrown into the Landwehr Canal.
