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Friedrich Ebert (4 February 1871 – 2 April 1928) was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and a leading social democrat through the 1910s and 1920s.
Ebert was elected chairman of the SPD on the death of August Bebel in 1913. A year later, shortly after assuming leadership, the party became deeply divided over Ebert's support of war loans to finance the German war effort in the Weltkrieg. A moderate social democrat, Ebert was in favour of the Burgfrieden, a political policy that sought to suppress discord over domestic issues among political parties in order to concentrate all forces in society on the conclusion of the war effort. He tried to isolate those in the party opposed to war and advocated a split.
Faced with the growing threat of revolution, Ebert sought to maintain stability by working closely with catholics and liberals, supporting the Reichstag Peace Resolution of 1917, and opposing radical leftist uprisings like the September Insurrections. He helped influence key institutional reforms, most notably the March Constitution of 1920, while also securing his party’s presence in major cabinets such as those of Brockdorff, Solf, and Erzberger. Ebert’s pragmatic approach ultimately positioned his party as a moderating force in German politics, and marked the split of German social democracy with revolutionary socialism.
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