Klara Zetkin

Born in 1857 in Saxony, Klara Zetkin became one of the best-known voices of the socialist movement in Germany. Trained as a teacher, she turned to political writing and organizing, and spent part of her life in exile because of anti-socialist laws. Her work brought together questions of class, labor, and women's rights in a way that made her influential far beyond Germany.

Zetkin edited the socialist women's newspaper Die Gleichheit for many years and became a leading figure in the international socialist women's movement. At a 1910 conference of socialist women in Copenhagen, she proposed an annual women's day to press for political rights, a step that later developed into International Women's Day. She also served in the Reichstag and remained active in left-wing politics during the turbulent years of the Weimar Republic.

She died in 1933, the year Adolf Hitler came to power. Today she is remembered as a major political organizer and writer whose life sat at the crossroads of socialism, anti-war activism, and the struggle for women's political equality.