bavarikon4UMemorial leaflet in honour of Kurt Eisner (1867-1919), of Karl Liebknecht (1871-1919) and of Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), 1919
The assassination of Kurt Eisner (1867-1919) triggered an enormous wave of sympathy for the Bavarian Prime Minister, who in the weeks before the attack had been shunned and regarded as a political failure. He was now considered a symbol of the left and of the revolution in Bavaria and enjoyed an enormous popularity, such as he had not possessed during his lifetime. Many proletarians now displayed a photo of Eisner in their accommodation. Finally, the assassination was understood as a reactionary act, which would lead to the intensification of tensions between the political camps in Munich over the coming weeks.
In the flyer "Comrades, Commemorate the Martyrs of German Freedom", which appeared in Munich in the weeks after the assassination, Eisner is styled a martyr of the political left, together with the founders of the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (Communist Party of Germany, KPD) Karl Liebknecht (1871-1919) and Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919). On 15 January 1919, Liebknecht and Luxemburg had been killed by members of an anti-revolutionary special unit after the suppression of the so-called “Spartakusaufstandes” (Spartacus Uprising) in Berlin.
Below the three garlanded portraits, a working class family puts their children into the arms of a female figure who is to be understood as an allegory of freedom. The verses below are an ode to freedom.