Gift of Leslie, Judith and Gabri Schreyer and Alice Schreyer Batko in memory of Oscar Schreyer

Id no. 2005.A.45, Poster, German

Subject(s):  Communism, Weimar

This communist election poster urges Germans to join the KPD (German Communist Party), also known as the Spartacus League (Spartakusbund). It depicts the party leader Karl Liebknecht addressing a mass of workers. The KPD was formed by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg on December 30, 1918 through a merger of communists, left-wing members of the Social Democratic Party, and Rosa Luxemburg?s Spartakusbund. Liebknecht and Luxemburg were abducted and murdered in Berlin, by Freikorps soldiers, under Minister of Defense Gustav Noske, at the end of the uprising and a few days before the election, on January 15, 1919. This poster was produced for the January 19, 1919 election - Germany's first election after the First World War.