Comparing the Centuries Politically

Rosa Luxemburg

Posted by James.

Roger Cohen has an interesting op-ed in the New York Times today. He compares Berlin today to Berlin 100 or so years ago, and the role it played during the 20th century as the heart of the ideological "shatter zone" between Russia and the West. In particular he mentions the stark comparison between people sunning themselves in Tiergarten at the spot where Rosa Luxemburg's body was dumped into the canal by a group of right wing assassins in 1919 when she was killed.

The reason the piece resonated is because Renate and I rode by there on our bikes a couple of weeks ago. Now, there is a double bridge over the canal, one side a public pedestrian/bike bridge, the other a closed bridge for visitors to the zoo, so they can get to a part of the zoo on the other side of the canal without having to leave the zoo grounds. A metal plaque honoring Luxemborg was on the side of the main zoo grounds, and I wondered what and why it happened to be there.

I found out this weekend, when we visited the Heimatmuseum in Charlottenburg, which has exhibits about the history of Charlottenburg. One room has a display of prominent political assassinations that happened in Charlottenburg. Luxemburg and her partner, Karl Liebesknecht were captured at the Hotel Eden in Charlottenburg and killed in Tiergarten on January 15, 1919.  Liebesknecht's body was found, but Luxemburg's was thrown in the Landwehr Canal and wasn't found until around 6 months later. Liebesknecht and Luxemburg were both leftist revolutionaries, and were involved in the left wing revolution that swept Germany after World War I, which was violently suppressed by right-wing soldiers from the war at the behest of the Weimar government. Though their assassination happened long before the Nazis came to power, Cohen makes the point that it was part of the political violence that characterized German society until the social and political system was obliterated by World War II.

Cohn's thesis is that the ideologies of the 20th century have burned out and people are just interested in what impacts them personally, stuff like health and spiritual well-being. I'm not so sure. I think the Islamic State is definitely a matter of personal health if you happen to be on the receiving end of their brutal cruelty. But their role in the Sunni/Shiite competition for power in the Middle East can't be dismissed. As far as spiritual well being, well their notion of spiritual well being certainly wouldn't align with Cohen's I think. He even classifies climate change as a personal issue, something I certainly can't agree with.

Anyway, it's hard to get away from history in Berlin, the signs of it are all around, from the brass plaques in the sidewalks at houses owned by Jews before the Holocaust:

to the socialist urban planning on the east side of the city (which I commented about here), a remnant of the Cold War division of the country.

History in America is quite different, confined to particular places, like the Civil War battlefield in Gettysburg, and not so all pervasive. Maybe its because we live in California, which has even less history. Maybe in another 100 years or so, people will walk around in the place where Google is now, provided it isn't under water from the polar ice caps melting, and there will be a plaque announcing that there was once an Internet pioneer that had its headquarters in Mountain View. Or maybe if the polar ice caps melt and it is under water, somebody will anchor a buoy there with a plaque on it. Or something like that.

Picture of Rosa Luxemburg from wikipedia.com