The
Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz (English:
Rosa Luxemburg Square) is a square in Berlin-Mitte,
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
.
The square is dominated by the
VolksbühneThe Volksbühne is a theater in Berlin, Germany. Located in Berlin's city center Mitte on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in what was the GDR's capital....
as well as the
Karl-Liebknecht-HausThe Karl-Liebknecht-Haus or Karl Liebknecht House is the headquarters of the Party The Left in Germany. It is located between the Alexanderplatz and Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Berlin-Mitte....
, the headquarters of the German
Left PartyThe Party of Democratic Socialism was a democratic socialist political party active in Germany from 1989 to 2007. It was the legal successor to the Socialist Unity Party , which ruled the German Democratic Republic until 1990. From 1990 through to 2005, the PDS had been seen as the left-wing...
. The party's predecessor, the
Communist Party of GermanyThe Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period...
, opened its headquarter at the place already in 1926.
The place was previously named
Babelsberger Platz (1907-1910) and
Bülowplatz (1910-1933). In 1933 with the rise of the Third Reich, it was named
Horst-Wessel-Platz (1933 - 1945) after
National SocialistNazism, known officially in German as National Socialism , is the totalitarian ideology and practices of the Nazi Party or National Socialist German Workers’ Party under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945.Nazism is often considered...
martyrA martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce a belief, usually religious.-Meaning:...
Horst WesselHorst Ludwig Wessel was a German Nazi activist who was made a posthumous hero of the Nazi movement following his violent death in 1930...
. Following the fall of Berlin and
Soviet occupationThe Soviet Occupation Zone was the area of central Germany occupied by the Soviet Union from 1945 on, at the end of World War II...
, the place, by then part of communist-controlled
East BerlinEast Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a de facto part of West Germany. Despite its status as part of an occupied city,...
, was named
Liebknechtplatz (1945-1947) after German communist
Karl Liebknechtwas a German socialist and a co-founder of the Spartacist League and the Communist Party of Germany.-Early life:...
. It was then renamed
Luxemburgplatz (1947 - 1969) after communist leader
Rosa LuxemburgRosa Luxemburg was a Polish-Jewish-German Marxist theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary for the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, the German SPD, the Independent Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party of Germany.In 1914, after the SPD supported German...
, until it received the name
Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz by the
SED regimeThe Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a Communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
in 1969.
The place is noted as the scene of the
murders of Paul Anlauf and Franz LenckThe Murders of Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck were a double homicide that took place in Berlin in 1931, when police captains Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck were murdered by members of the Communist Party of Germany....
, a double homicide that took place in 1931 when police captains Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck were murdered by members of the
Communist Party of GermanyThe Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period...
. A monument created by Hans Dammann, commemorating Anlauf and Lenck, was erected at the place in 1934, but was destroyed in 1950 by
Erich MielkeErich Fritz Emil Mielke was a German Communist politician and Minister of State Security of the German Democratic Republic from 1957 to 1989. A hard-line stalinist, he spent several years in the Soviet Union. Mielke held the military rank of Armeegeneral...
, one of the murderers, by then a powerful man in East Germany.
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