Friedrich Ebert

The Social Democratic Party leader, trained as a saddler, who became the first President of the Weimar Republic.

Life

Saddler

Ebert came from a tailor's family in Heidelberg. He learned saddle-making, joined the trade union movement and the Social Democratic Party, and gradually rose to become party leader.

November Revolution

When revolution broke out in Germany in November 1918 and the emperor abdicated, he became Chairman of the Council of People's Deputies. Working with the army, he crushed the left-wing Spartacist uprising (January 1919), during which Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were killed.

Weimar president

In 1919 the Weimar National Assembly elected him president and drew up the Weimar Constitution. His term saw the Kapp Putsch, the Ruhr crisis and hyperinflation, and he died of illness in office in 1925.

Legacy

Ebert laid the institutional foundations of Germany's first democratic republic, but his reliance on the old army to suppress the left remains controversial to this day.

Did you know? The political foundation of Germany's Social Democratic Party is named after him.

Key dates

• 1913Chairman of the Social Democratic Party
• 1918Chairman of the Council of People's Deputies
• 1919Elected President; Weimar Constitution promulgated
• 1923Hyperinflation and the Ruhr crisis
• 1925Dies in office