The January revolt for the formation of a communist soviet republic is bloodily suppressed. The Spartacists Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht are dragged away by members of a Freikorps, tortured and finally murdered. The government propagates the myth that Liebknecht was shot while fleeing and Luxemburg had been lynched by an unknown mob. Einstein, along with many other well-known members of Weimar society, signs an appeal against the murder of defenseless citizens without due process, and in protest of the government’s evident misrepresentation.