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Short Biography

Friedrich Ebert (1871 - 1925), a learnt saddler from Heidelberg, started an early political and trade-union activist carrier in Bremen. Since 1905 member of the party executive board of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Berlin, he became a member of the Reichtag in 1912 and one of two chairmen of the SPD fraction in the German Reichstag in 1916. Already back in 1913, after the decease of August Bebel, he had been elected party chairman of SPD.

After the victory of the 1918 revolution, Friedrich Ebert took over the chaimanship of the revolutionary government, "Council of the People’s Deputies (Rat der Volksbeauftragten)”. He was decisively opposed of the "Dictatorship of the Proletariate" and a council system of soviet-russian style, supported parliamentary democracy and pushed through the general elections to the Weimar National Assembly which elected him President of the Reich on February 11, 1919.
During his term of office, he aimed at a political and social reconciliation between working class and bourgeoisie. He was opposed even in parts of the social democrate movement for his refusal of class struggle politics but it was the right that targeted him with slander and denigration which damaged the Republic and played their role in the early death of this first democratically electe Head of the German State.

It is only today, in a stable democracy, that his political activity has won recognition across party boundaries.

For more information, please have a look at the detailed biography of Friedrich Ebert (in German only).

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Curriculum Vitae

1871
Friedrich Ebert is born on February 4 in Heidelberg

1891
Ebert arrives in Bremen. He works as saddler and editor.
Temporary president of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Bremen

1894 - 1900
Ebert owns and works in a bar in Bremen.

1900
Elected Social Democratic (SPD) representative in the Bremen municipal assembly.
Bremen trade-union official (until 1905).

1905
Ebert becomes Secretary in the SPD executive board and moves to Berlin.

1912
Ebert is elected to the German Reichstag (until 1918).

1913
Successor to August Bebel as SPD party chairman (until 1919, together with Hugo Haase).

1916
Co-chairman of the SPD fraction in the German Reichstag (together with Philipp Scheidemann).

1918
On November 9, the revolution reaches Berlin. Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates and goes into exile in the Netherlands. Prince Max of Baden entrusts Ebert with managing the affairs of state as Chancellor of the Reich

1919
On February 11, the National Assembly elects Friedrich Ebert President of the Reich.

1922
On October 24, the Reichstag votes to prolong Friedrich Ebert's presidency til 1925.

1925
President Ebert dies on February 28 in Berlin.

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Gallery

The SPD executive board in 1909. From left: top: Luise Zietz, Friedrich Ebert, Hermann Müller, Robert Wengels; bottom: Karl Alwin Gerisch, Paul Singer, August Bebel, Wilhelm Pfannkuch, Hermann Molkenbuhr.

A portrait of Friedrich Ebert, c. 1918.

Opening Speech at the National Assembly, 06.02.1919. Friedrich Ebert at the lectern.

Friedrich Ebert and family, c. 1922. From left: Friedrich Ebert, Friedrich Ebert junior, Luise Ebert and Karl Ebert.

President of the Reich Friedrich Ebert in a talk with famous German poet Gerhart Hauptmann, c. 1922

A portrait of Friedrich Ebert, c. 1924.

Friedrich Ebert during a speech, c. 1924

Probably the last official photograph of Friedrich Ebert, taken on 15.02.1925 at his desk in the Presidential Cabinet.

The President of the Reich Friedrich Ebert on his deathbed, 01.03.1925

Funeral of Friedrich Ebert. Here the funeral procession in Heidelberg, 04.03.1925.

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