Germany
Friedrich Ebert
1871–1925 Chancellor and first President of the Weimar Republic
A tailor's son from Heidelberg who trained as a saddler and rose to lead the Social Democratic Party, Ebert took over the chancellorship from Prince Max on 9 November 1918 and steered Germany through its revolution with two aims: to prevent a Bolshevik takeover and to hold the country together. To do so he made a pact with the army's leadership and used Freikorps volunteers against the left, a choice that damaged the republic's standing on the left and left the old elites in place on the right. Elected provisional president in February 1919, with his term extended by the Reichstag in 1922, he used the emergency powers of Article 48 to survive the crisis of 1923. He lost two sons in the war and was vilified by nationalists as a traitor. He died in February 1925 after an operation for appendicitis delayed by a libel trial.