Eb

Ebert, Friedrich (1871-1925)

German Social Democratic leader and first President of the German counter-revolutionary Weimar republic. One of Bebel's closest collaborators, he together with Scheidemann led the SPD after Bebel's death in 1913, and was a prominent social-patriot during the war. In the last days of the Hohenzollern monarchy Ebert entered the government in order to prevent the revolution and save the monarchy. Failing in this effort the German Social Democrats then undertook - successfully - to restore capitalism in Germany on the basis of the bourgeois republic. Ebert was elected President in 1919.