Friedrich Ebert (4 February 1871 – 28 February 1925) was President of the Weimar Republic from 11 February 1919 to 28 February 1925, preceding Paul von Hindenburg. Ebert was a major leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), and he led Germany during a time of political upheaval, revolution, and economic crisis.
Biography[]
Friedrich Ebert was born on 4 February 1871 in Heidelberg, Baden, German Empire, and he worked as a journeyman before joining the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Ebert was elected to the Reichstag in 1912 after several attempted runs, representing Elberfeld-Barmen for the SPD. In 1913, he was elected joint party chairman, and he backed the effort to give more war loans to the empire during World War I, seeing it as a patriotic duty to defend one's country. This led to policy disputes with leftist allies of the party, and he abandoned the alliance in 1917; the rejected politicans became known as "Spartacists".
On 9 November 1918, he became the Chancellor of the new Weimar Republic as a result of the November Revolution, and he led Germany after the fall of the empire and the end of World War I. Ebert led the SPD against the conservative factions, led by Paul von Hindenburg, the far-right Freikorps and voelkisch movements, and the leftist Spartacists. For these reasons, he was hated by both the left and right wings of politics, and he later formed a strange alliance with the conservatives and nationalists. Together, they put down uprisings by the leftists, although the SPD and the leftists shared a common ideology. Ebert's alliance with the right allowed for the right to rise to power after his death in office in 1925, with Hindenburg and his nationalists taking power.