Theodor Karl Ernst Adolf Liebknecht (19 April 1870 – 6 January 1948) was a German socialist politician and activist.

Biography

Born in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

in 1870 as the son of

Wilhelm Liebknecht Wilhelm Martin Philipp Christian Ludwig Liebknecht (; 29 March 1826 – 7 August 1900) was a German socialist and one of the principal founders of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).Karl Liebknecht Karl Paul August Friedrich Liebknecht (; 13 August 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a German socialist and anti-militarist. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) beginning in 1900, he was one of its deputies in the Reichstag fro ...

, Theodor Liebknecht studied law and worked, together with his brother Karl and Oskar Cohn, as a lawyer in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

from 1899 on, becoming politically active after his brother's murder in January 1919. Liebknecht was a member of the

Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, USPD) was a short-lived political party in Germany during the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. The organization was establish ...

(USPD), opposed to the merger with the KPD and the joining of the Comintern but also to the reunification of the party with the

SPD The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been t ...

, he continued the USPD as an independent party with

Georg Ledebour Georg Ledebour (7 March 1850, Hanover – 31 March 1947) was a German socialist journalist and politician. He served as a stretcher bearer in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. He worked as a journalist on several newspapers after 1875. He joined ...

until its merger into the ''Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands'' (SAPD, "Socialist Worker's Party of Germany") in 1931. In 1922 he accompanied

Kurt Rosenfeld Kurt Rosenfeld (1 February 1877 – 25 September 1943) was a German lawyer and politician ( SPD). He was a member of the national parliament () between 1920 and 1932. Early life Kurt Samuel Rosenfeld was born at Marienwerder, a mid-sized town nea ...

Emile Vandervelde Emile Vandervelde (25 January 1866 – 27 December 1938) was a Belgian socialist politician. Nicknamed "the boss" (''le patron''), Vandervelde was a leading figure in the Belgian Labour Party (POB–BWP) and in international socialism. Career Emi ...

and Arthur Wauter as foreign socialist lawyers who participated in the defence of the

Socialist Revolutionaries The Socialist Revolutionary Party, or the Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries (the SRs, , or Esers, russian: эсеры, translit=esery, label=none; russian: Партия социалистов-революционеров, ), was a major politi ...

in the

1922 Moscow Trial of Socialist Revolutionaries The Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries was an internationally publicized political trial in Soviet Russia, which brought twelve prominent members of the anti-Bolshevik Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (PSR) before the bar. The trial, which ...

. In 1924, he was involved in the split of the ''Sozialistischer Bund'' together with

. A right-wing member of the SAPD, he was opposed to the introduction of

Leninist Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishm ...

schemes of organization into the party. Following the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

rise to power, he emigrated to

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...

, Switzerland in 1933 and was later employed by the

International Institute of Social History The International Institute of Social History (IISH/IISG) is one of the largest archives of labor and social history in the world. Located in Amsterdam, its one million volumes and 2,300 archival collections include the papers of major figu ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

from 1936 to 1939. He was a supporter of the 2½ International. Liebknecht died in , Brome, Germany, in 1948.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Liebknecht, Theodor 1870 births 1948 deaths Politicians from Leipzig Independent Social Democratic Party politicians Socialist Workers' Party of Germany politicians