Living from Leo Jogiches

Leo Jogiches was one of the leading figures of the Spartacus group, along with Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. However, he is not as well known as Luxemburg and Liebknecht, as he worked in the background. Jogiches frequently changed his places of residence and used different pseudonyms to avoid being shadowed by the Political Police. The move to the corner house at Schwarzastrasse 9 in Berlin-Neukölln in September 1915 was probably also a tactical measure, since the apartment had several escape routes. Jogiches lived there as a subtenant. He always seemed to be in a hurry and was not very talkative. His neighbors thought he was a writer, money lender or food pusher. 

Jogiches led the Spartacus group alone from February 1915, as Luxemburg and Liebknecht were in security custody. On him rested the entire responsibility for the organization and conspiratorial work of the group. He continued the publication of the "Spartacus Letters" and had pamphlets printed. This brought him into the focus of the political police. His undoing came at a meeting of the group on March 24, 1918, which came to the attention of the investigating officers, who arrested all the participants. Jogiche's imprisonment lasted almost nine months, until a detachment of the Workers' and Soldiers' Army freed him from prison in Berlin-Moabit in the course of the revolution on Nov. 9, 1918.

After his imprisonment, Jogiches, together with Luxemburg and Liebknecht, formed the core of the Spartacus group. All three were also involved in the founding of the KPD at the turn of the year 1918/19. But their political activities did not last long. Luxemburg and Liebknecht were murdered by Freikorps regiments as a result of the January uprising. Jogiches then continued the work of the Spartacus League until he too was arrested in early March. Without a trial, he was murdered on March 10, 1919, in Moabit Prison by Kriminalwachtmeister Ernst Tamschick.