He brings these documents to a meeting of the Reichstag, accusing Gustav Krupp and his company of bribing officials to release military secrets.

Afterward, while celebrating a friend's wedding, Liebknecht learns of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, recognizing that this is the war the German imperialists were seeking.

Liebknecht immediately begins campaigning among the public, denouncing the war as a means to secure profit for the capitalists.

In the subsequent Reichstag meeting, he votes with the party discipline in favor of the war credits, to the public's surprise.

Liebknecht is the only one of the Reichstag — including 111 SPD representatives — to vote against the war loans, resulting in a number of death threats and work bans.

He is offered the smaller sentence in exchange for a promise not to distribute anti-war propaganda in the future, however, Liebknecht turns this down.

IT WILL SHINE FORTH WITH THE BEAUTY OF HIS COURAGE: LIEBKNECHTWhile there had been earlier films about other German socialist heroes such as Ernst Thälmann, Sohn seiner Klasse (1954) and Führer seiner Klasse (1955), the East German government told the DEFA to begin work a new large-scale project to further document the major personalities of the workers' movement in Germany.

Slatan Dudow was originally slated to be the director until his death in 1963 resulted in the project being taken over by Günter Reisch, who rapidly accelerated production of the film.