Friedrich Ebert
Friedrich Ebert, a saddler's son who rose to lead the Social Democratic Party, became the first president of Germany's Weimar Republic. On 9 November 1918 — the day the Kaiser abdicated — he proclaimed the republic from a window of the Reich Chancellery and struck the deal with the military (the Ebert-Groener Pact) that allowed the army to suppress the radical left but tied the SPD to the old military establishment. He used the Free Corps — right-wing paramilitaries — to crush the Spartacist uprising of January 1919, ordering the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, acts that permanently alienated the communist left. His brief presidency (he died in 1925) was marked by governing by emergency decree, the hyperinflation crisis, and the Munich Putsch. Ebert's compromises created the foundations of the republic and its fatal weaknesses simultaneously.
- Lived: 1871 CE – 1925 CE
- Nationality: German
- Roles: president, labour leader
