A GERMAN pathologist claims to have discovered the body of communist campaigner Rosa Luxemburg, 90 years after she was killed in Berlin.
A corpse found by chance in the cellar of Berlin’s Charité hospital has similarities with the Polish-born campaigner, who was abducted and murdered by the remnants of Germany’s imperialist army in January 1919.
Two weeks after she co-founded the German Communist Party, Luxemburg was arrested, killed and her body dumped in Berlin’s Landwehr canal. Five months later a body said to be Luxemburg’s was put in the empty coffin that had already been buried.
The newly discovered body found in the Berlin hospital is missing its head, hands and feet but has otherwise been well-preserved in the dark, cool cellar.
It has been dated to 1919 and, according to Charité chief pathologist Michael Tsokos, shares important traits with Luxemburg: signs of arthritis in the joints and different leg lengths.
Luxemburg biographer Jörn Schütrumpf said the German authorities knew after an autopsy that the body they found was not that of Luxemburg.
However, after five months of speculation about her disappearance and continued clashes between communists and a pro-government militia in the new German republic, he said they were anxious to “get any body under ground as soon as possible”.
An analysis of the body buried in Luxemburg’s grave is no longer possible: it was desecrated by the Nazis and the bones removed.
Mr Tsokos is seeking any living relatives of the communist leader to compare DNA with the body.