It should not be said that Madame Dr. Luxemburg was arrested because after she held meetings she could not be located. Gentlemen, I know that only by using all her strength, ill as she was, could she fulfill her duty to the interests of the German people, to the interests of the entire international proletariat. But, gentlemen, who wants to make us believe that this action was taken without any connection with what she did? ("Very true," from the Soc.-Dem.) The political aspect of what she said was the determining factor for the authorities which "do not recognize parties any longer." If she had only joined in buying the usual market commodity labeled "Patriotism," then not only would she have been spared from this remarkable attack but probably amnesty would have been forced upon her. ("Very true," from the Soc.-Dem.) But, gentlemen, she tried by summoning all her strength, to act in the proletarian and socialistic cause against the frenzied slaughter of peoples. This does not suit the dominant power, and that is why the arrest took place.
But the worst feature is that it was not sufficient to arrest my friend Luxemburg in this way, but that they also tried to stigmatize her honor by stating that she had shown intentions of flight.
Gentlemen, Madame Dr. Luxemburg wanted to travel to a friend in Holland, and for this purpose she asked for a foreign passport from the police in her district, who were naturally informed about her sentence, and then she addressed herself to the Berlin police headquarters, also well informed about her sentence, before the permission for a passport could be had; as suspicion was aroused at the Berlin police headquarters, she addressed herself, one day before she was arrested, with my help, to the District Attorney of Frankfort-on-the-Main,—the official who was to have executed the sentence, and had asked from him permission to take the trip to Holland. The order to make this motion to the District Attorney was given to her lawyer in Frankfort on the afternoon of February 17th. Gentlemen, I do not need to tell you that a woman such as Madame Dr. Luxemburg does not belong to the class who try to escape from a sentence,—that a woman such as Madame Dr. Luxemburg is brave enough to look her enemies in the eye and would not think of leaving Germany in times like these, where there is being waged such an important part of the struggle against international reaction,—against imperialism. It is necessary to be a real Prussian police spirit in order not to understand that.
Considering the facts of which I just spoke, considering the possibilities of passing the frontier in these times without the will of the authorities, the talk about escaping can be characterized only as an attempt to stigmatize the honor of this really persecuted woman, exactly after the Russian method, which is not satisfied to punish politically disagreeable subjects, but tries also to insult their honor as much as possible. In fact, it happened that the military authorities arranged that Madame Luxemburg should not be able to be active outside of Germany in a manner not to the liking of the German ruling powers. Why don't you say so openly and honestly, instead of hiding behind such obscure phrases? Just as we have only one counterpart for your denial of the suffrage reform, for the continuance of the exceptional laws, for your refusal of any interior reform, namely the political ignorance and animosity against the people of the Government of the Czar, so this action against my friend Luxemburg is a counterpart to the arrest of the Russian Duma Deputies, our admired and excellent friends in the struggle for the freedom of the people and for the restoration of the peoples' peace, trying in common with us to serve,—each in his own country,—in universal opposition against its own government, for the benefit of its own people and the good of the other people, the good of the international proletariat, the good of humanity. And so sure as it is that the arrest of the Duma deputies in Russia opened the eyes of hundreds of thousands of blind ones, so sure are we that the action against our comrade Luxemburg will awaken many a dreamer ("Very true" from Soc.-Dem.), and that they will demand a struggle for a free Prussia and a struggle for the ending of the mass murder of the people. ("Bravo!" from the Soc.-Dem.)
LIEBKNECHT CALLED TO ARMY SERVICE
On March 23, 1915, Liebknecht was ordered to place himself at the disposal of the German military authorities.
From this day on he was under military law as a member of a Landsturm regiment.