Philipp Scheidemann
Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed the German republic from a window without asking anyone, and spent the rest of his life being blamed for what followed. He was a printer by trade who rose through the Social Democratic press and the Reichstag, and belonged to the party's patriotic wing that voted the war credits in 1914. On 9 November 1918, with the monarchy collapsing and Karl Liebknecht expected to declare a socialist republic within the hour, he went to a window of the Reichstag during lunch and told the crowd that the Hohenzollerns had abdicated and that a German republic now existed. Ebert, who was eating with him and had hoped to keep the question of the monarchy open for a constituent assembly, was furious and said so. He became the first chancellor of the republic in February 1919, elected by the national assembly meeting at Weimar because Berlin was too dangerous. He resigned in June rather than sign the Treaty of Versailles, saying that the hand which signed it should wither - a phrase quoted against the republic for the next fourteen years by people who then signed it themselves. He was a target for the far right for the rest of his career. An attempt was made on his life with prussic acid thrown in his face in 1922, and he survived it. He fled Germany the day after the Reichstag fire in 1933, was stripped of his citizenship, and died in Copenhagen in 1939. His memoirs, written in exile, are largely an argument with the accusation that the republic he announced had stabbed the army in the back.
- Lived: 1865 CE – 1939 CE
- Nationality: German
- Roles: politician, chancellor
