Wilhelm Liebknecht

Wilhelm Martin Philipp Christian Ludwig Liebknecht (29 March 1826 – 7 August 1900) was a German social democrat and one of the principal founders of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). His political career was a pioneering project combining Marxist revolutionary theory with practical, legal political activity. Under his leadership, the SPD grew from a tiny sect to become Germany's largest political party. He was the father of Karl Liebknecht and Theodor Liebknecht.

Life and work

Born in Gießen in 1826 as the son of Hessian public official Ludwig Christian Liebknecht and Katharina Elisabeth Henrietta (née Hirsch), Liebknecht grew up with relatives after the death of his parents in 1832. From 1832 to 1842, he went to school at the Gymnasium of Gießen, then began studying philology, theology and philosophy in Gießen, Berlin and Marburg. After some trouble with the authorities as a result of participating in student radicalism, Liebknecht decided to emigrate to the USA.

While on a train to a port city, quite by chance, he met the headmaster of a progressive school in Zurich, Switzerland, and Liebknecht impulsively decided to accept an offer to be an unpaid teacher at that school. Thus he found himself in Switzerland in 1847 as a civil war began in that country. He reported these events for a German newspaper, the "Mannheimer Abendzeitung", beginning a career in journalism that he would pursue for the next five decades.