She is considered one of the most influential women of the 20th century. Rosa Luxemburg was born in 1871 in a part of Poland occupied by Russia. After graduating from high school in Warsaw, she went to the University of Zurich, where women are also allowed to study. After completing her doctorate, the socialist ended up in Berlin, where she became the spokesperson for the left wing of the Social Democrats and editor-in-chief of the Saxon workers’ newspaper. She is internationally known for her razor-sharp speeches and articles. But not all shared her opinion, Rosa found herself imprisoned multiple times for “libel of majesty” and “inciting class hatred”. When in 1913 she called for conscientious objection to military service, further prison sentences were added. The academic spent almost all of the First World War behind bars. Together with Karl Liebknecht, she founded the Spartakusbund, from which the Communist Party of Germany emerged after her dismissal. In the January uprisings that followed, the two were declared enemies of the state. They went into hiding, but on January 15, 1919, they were discovered in a friend’s apartment, arrested and murdered by Freikorps soldiers after hours of interrogation. Four days after Rosa Luxemburg’s violent death, women in Germany are given the right to vote for the first time. Her body was found five months later in the Landwehr Canal.