page_title: Die Rote Fahne
section_title: 1918-1933
hierarchical_section_title: Die Rote Fahne / History / 1918-1933
caption_attribution_description: Karl Liebknecht
context_page_description: Die Rote Fahne was a German newspaper originally founded in 1876 by Socialist Worker's party leader Wilhelm Hasselmann, and which has been since published on and off, at times underground, by German Socialists and Communists. Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg famously published it in 1918 as organ of the Spartacus League.
  Following the deaths of Liebknecht and Luxemburg during the chancellorship of the Social Democratic Party of Germany's Friedrich Ebert, the newspaper was published, with interruptions, by the Communist Party of Germany. Proscribed by the National Socialist Worker's Party government of Adolf Hitler after 1933, publication continued illegally, underground.
context_section_description: Using the newspaper's subtitle as indicator of its political allegiance, Die Rote Fahne was successively the central organ of:
  Spartacus League: 9 November 1918 to 30 December 1918
  Communist Party of Germany: 1 January 1919 to 19 September 1920 (reflecting the KPD's submission to the Comintern on
  Communist Party of Germany: 19 September 1920 to roughly 23 March 1933 (date of passage of the Nazi Enabling Act
  The publication was proscribed from October 1923 to March 1924, as part of the ban on the German Communist Party. The newspaper continued in illegal production and distribution, sometimes renamed "Rote Sturmfahne" ("Red Storm Flag") or "Die Fahne der Revolution" ("The Flag of the Revolution").  In 1926, the newspaper moved into the Karl Liebknecht House, to which it added in July 1928 a rotary press.  On 23 February 1933, Nazi police occupied Karl-Liebknecht-Haus and closed it the following day, anticipating the Nazi ban on all communist and socialist press after the Reichstag fire a few days later (28 February 1933).
  Many prominent Germans and others worked on the newspaper:
  Founders included: Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Paul Frölich
  Publishers included" Hans Marchwitza and Johannes R. Becher
  Editors included: Ernst Meyer (1918-1919), August Thalheimer (1919-?), Julian Gumperz (1920? -- later, second husband of Hede Massing), Werner Scholem (1920--?), Gerhart Eisler (1921-?? already, first husband of Hede Massing), Arkadi Maslow (1921-?), Heinz Neumann (1922-1928?), Max Matern (1925-?), Hans Lorbeer (1928--?), Erika Heymann (1930-1933), Albert Norden (1930-1933), Lutz Łask (1930s and husband of Franz Kafka's lover Dora Diamant), Franz Koritschoner, György Lukács, Wolfgang Harich (1923 – 1995)
  Contributors included: Emil Barth (1918?), Lilly Becher (1921--?), Willi Schlamm (1923--?), Albert Hotopp (1923-1926), Hanns Eisler (1927), Erich Mielke (1928-1931), John Sieg (1928-1933?), Jürgen Kuczynski (1930-1933), Max Zimmering (1935-1938?)
  Artists included: John Heartfield
caption: Karl Liebknecht
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