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Filipp SheydemanGerman politician
Date of Birth: 26.07.1865
Country:  Germany |
Content:
Biography of Philipp Scheidemann
German politician, social democrat, and the proclaimer of Germany as a republic on November 9, 1918 (as a result of the November Revolution), Philipp Heinrich Scheidemann was born on July 26, 1865, in Kassel, into a family of a furniture maker. After completing school in 1879, he began training as a typesetter and printer. Later, Scheidemann worked as a manager of socialist newspapers' printing houses and eventually became their editor. In 1883, Scheidemann, a convinced socialist, joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDPG). Twenty years later, he was first elected to the Reichstag, where he served as one of the two co-chairs of the socialist faction from 1913 to 1914. In the coalition government of Max von Baden, he held the position of Secretary of State.
Proclamation of the Republic
On November 9, 1918, following the abdication of Wilhelm II, Scheidemann resigned from his position and declared from the Reichstag window: "All that is old and decayed—monarchy has fallen. Long live the new, long live the German Republic!" Scheidemann re-entered the government and joined the so-called Council of People's Representatives, which aimed to prevent further development of the revolution. He was one of the inspirers of an anti-Soviet political course. From February to June 1919, Scheidemann led the first government of the Weimar Republic and later was appointed as the Lord Mayor of Kassel.
Exile and Death
After the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship, Scheidemann, a critic of the National Socialist movement since its inception, had to leave Germany. He died in 1939 in Denmark.
