Philipp Scheidemann

Philipp Scheidemann, 1918

Philipp Heinrich Scheidemann (born July 26, 1865 in Kassel , † November 29, 1939 in Copenhagen ) was a German social democratic politician and publicist .

In the first quarter of the 20th century he was one of the outstanding protagonists and representatives of his party and the Weimar Republic . During the November Revolution, Scheidemann announced the collapse of the German Empire on November 9, 1918 from a balcony in the Reichstag building and proclaimed the German Republic . In 1919 he was elected Prime Minister of the Reich by the National Assembly meeting in Weimar . After resigning in the same year, he was Lord Mayor of his native Kassel until 1925 .

Life

Early years

Philipp Scheidemann came from a family of craftsmen. His parents were the Kassel upholsterer and upholsterer Friedrich Scheidemann and his wife Wilhelmine, née Pape. In Kassel he attended elementary, community and secondary schools. After his school education he completed an apprenticeship as a typesetter and printer from 1879 to 1883 . Up to the age of thirty he worked in the printing trade as a typesetter's assistant and "factor" (typesetting master) in the printing works of the Gotthelft brothers in Kassel, which among others. the Casseler Tageblatt published.

As a convinced socialist, Scheidemann had already joined the SPD in 1883, which was banned by Bismarck's socialist laws. To this end, he had joined the free trade union book printers association. Between 1888 and 1895 he was an honorary district director of the book printers' association in Marburg . There he also took part in further training at the university. The philosopher Hermann Cohen , who teaches there, is said to have made a lasting impression on him.

In 1889 Scheidemann married Johanna Dibbern (1864–1926) in Kassel. From this marriage the daughters Lina (1889–1933), Liese (1891–1955) and Hedwig (1893–1935) emerged.

From 1895 he gave up his learned profession and worked for various social democratic newspapers. First he worked as an editor for the Mitteldeutsche Sonntagszeitung in Gießen , from 1900 for the Franconian Daily Post in Nuremberg , from 1902 for the Offenbacher Abendblatt ( Offenbach am Main ) and finally from 1905 for the Casseler Volksblatt in his hometown.

In addition to political articles, Scheidemann published there under the pseudonym Henner Piffendeckel on Sundays from 1909 onwards, “Little dialect stories”. He also published several books in Kasselaner (Kassel dialect).

Advancement in party and parliamentary group in the Reichstag

Berlin memorial plaque on Lenbachstrasse 6a in Berlin-Steglitz

In the Reichstag election in 1903 , Scheidemann entered the Reichstag for the first time ( constituency Düsseldorf 3 (city of Solingen and district of Solingen )). He was re-elected in the Reichstag elections in January 1907 and January 1912 . From 1906 to 1911 he also held a mandate as a city ​​councilor in his hometown of Kassel. When he was elected to the party executive committee in 1911, to which he belonged until 1918, he resigned his municipal mandate because the election was connected with moving to Berlin. After the death of August Bebel (1913) Scheidemann took over the chairmanship of the SPD parliamentary group together with Hugo Haase . He held this position until 1918. Scheidemann was the first social democrat to be elected in 1912 as one of the vice-presidents of the Reichstag. But since he refused the inaugural visit to the emperor, who has always been frowned upon in the party, “going to court”, he was unable to take up the post. It was only from June to October 1918 that he actually held the office.

In contrast to Friedrich Ebert , Scheidemann had a talent for rhetoric; he could speak convincingly in front of large mass gatherings as well as in front of a small audience. Wilhelm Keil , friend and party member of the two, describes the difference between the two leaders of the SPD in such a way that Scheidemann, in contrast to Ebert, who always appears serious, dignified and energetic, was a “brilliant rhetorician with a little boyish manners” at times it was doubtful what percentage of the apparently holy fire should be transferred to the account of theatrics ”.

Scheidemann's bourgeois manners, his sense of humor, his unshakable cheerful nature also earned him recognition beyond the borders of the party. His political style is presented as more pragmatic. Whenever possible , he avoided hopeless conflicts . He only campaigned for a cause when it was foreseeable that he would be successful with it.

Before the First World War , Scheidemann, who, as a regular speaker on budget and army issues, kept a certain distance from the openly revisionist minority of the Reichstag parliamentary group, was more of a representative of the so-called party center . When he directed sharp attacks against the Hohenzollerns in the Reichstag in 1912 , Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg and the members of the Federal Council who were present left the room in protest.

Scheidemann represented the German social democracy several times at congresses abroad. Advertising trips took him to France , Switzerland and the USA .

A speech given by Scheidemann in Paris in 1912, which was published in Germany in a distorted form, in order to defame him and social democrats in general as a "traitor to the fatherland" caused a great deal of public attention. In a Reichstag debate on December 3, 1912, Scheidemann's party colleague Eduard David felt compelled to reproduce the actual wording of Scheidemann's incriminated statements:

“We will defend ourselves with the courage of desperation against those who try to plunge us into this bestiality of a European war. The German workers and socialists also respect and love the French proletarians and socialists like brothers. […] Our enemy is… somewhere else. Where yours is also. That is capitalism. Let us fight together, comrades, for the advancement of humanity, for the freedom of work, for world peace. "

First World War

During the First World War, Scheidemann represented a middle line between the right and left wing of the party . Basically, he supported the approval of the war loans . But Scheidemann turned against the propaganda for a victory peace and advocated a mutual agreement without annexations . His statement "What is French should stay French, what is Belgian should stay Belgian, what is German should stay German" was described as treason by militaristic-nationalist circles . In particular, representatives of the Fatherland Party announced that they wanted to "hang up" Scheidemann.

As early as January 1915, Scheidemann was outraged by elements in the SPD who could not hear the word fatherland . This was preceded by the demonstrative breach of parliamentary group discipline by Karl Liebknecht , his defense by Haase and numerous expressions of sympathy for it from his own party. The concept of a mutual agreement (“Scheidemann Plan”) could no longer prevent the break and the emergence of the USPD . The SPD constituency organization in Solingen also converted to the USPD and asked Scheidemann - without success - to resign from the Reichstag mandate. From October 1917 ( Würzburg party congress, October 14-20), Scheidemann was party chairman of the SPD alongside Friedrich Ebert.

In view of the worsening social hardship of the workers due to the war, the SPD has been pressing vehemently for the promises of political reorganization to be honored since the beginning of 1917. Negotiations began between Scheidemann, Conrad Haussmann and Gustav Stresemann to form a “left” parliamentary majority with the aim of parliamentarizing the empire. Scheidemann was very accommodating to the bourgeois parties in that he thought he could imagine a parliamentary system with a monarch at the head if necessary. One result of these negotiations was the Reichstag's peace resolution of July 19, 1917. Before that, in June 1917 he headed the MSPD delegation to the unsuccessful international socialist conference in Stockholm.

To prevent internal radicalization, Scheidemann, Ebert and Otto Braun joined the strike leadership during the January strikes of 1918. This earned them the hatred of the political right.

Scheidemann was not insignificantly involved in the overthrow of the Hertling government (under Georg von Hertling ) as parliamentary group leader and leading figure of his party in the intergroup committee. There were, however, different opinions between him and Ebert about how to proceed. When politicians of the Progressive Reich Party brought up Prince Max von Baden as Reich Chancellor, Scheidemann said that the Social Democrats could not be expected to put a prince at the head of the government. Even on October 3, 1918, Scheidemann was still opposed to the participation of the Social Democrats in government "at the moment of the worst conditions". It was Friedrich Ebert who finally got the majority of the parliamentary group to approve the entry of the SPD into the cabinet.

Despite his reservations, Scheidemann and other leading politicians in the parliamentary majority became state secretaries with no portfolio in the Baden cabinet . These were the real policy makers; Max von Baden represented mainly to the outside world. As a member of the government, Scheidemann initiated an amnesty for political prisoners. In particular, he personally enforced the release of Karl Liebknecht against the resistance of the War Ministry and the military judiciary, as well as against the concerns of the Reich Chancellor .

Proclamation of the Republic

→ Main article : Proclamation of the republic in Germany

Proclamation of the Republic on November 9, 1918: Philipp Scheidemann speaks from the west balcony of the Reichstag building .

In view of the impending military collapse and the impending revolutionary development, Scheidemann declared on November 5, 1918 that he hoped that the front could be held. The Bolshevism appeared to him as a greater threat than the external enemy. With this he agreed with the Supreme Army Command . Communist propaganda and historiography later attributed the severance of relations with the Soviet Union that was carried out by the Reich government on that day to Scheidemann and declared him the "originator of the anti-Soviet provocation directed against the Spartakusbund".

In contrast to the military, Scheidemann had meanwhile come to the view that a successful fight against the extreme left would only be possible if the emperor abdicated . However, Ebert and Scheidemann put the fundamental question of monarchy or republic on hold for the time being. Scheidemann had already formulated the party's course on November 6th: “Now it's time to take the lead in the movement, otherwise there will be anarchist conditions in the Reich.” The SPD parliamentary group put pressure on with an ultimatum and was able, among other things, to do so enforce the parliamentarization of Prussia without being able to stop the revolution in Berlin.

In fact, the SPD managed to lead the movement on November 9th when it called the general strike . Scheidemann announced his resignation as State Secretary at 10 a.m. After the first negotiations to form a government with the USPD had already started , Scheidemann stepped onto the balcony of the Reichstag in the early afternoon and proclaimed the republic from there . This happened without Friedrich Ebert, who had meanwhile been declared Chancellor of the Reich by Max von Baden, having authorized this step. Ebert wanted to leave the decision on the form of government to a national assembly. For Scheidemann it was clear that the legitimation of the new leadership through Max von Baden's declaration alone could not be sufficient. The demonstrating workers and soldiers in particular expected a demonstrative break with the previous system.

So Scheidemann stepped onto the balcony of the Reichstag at around 2 p.m. His words “The old rotten has collapsed; the militarism is done ”met the mood of the audience and developed the desired symbolic effect. On the other hand, Karl Liebknecht did not arrive two hours later when he proclaimed the "free socialist republic of Germany".

Reich Minister President

→ Main article : Scheidemann cabinet

First cabinet meeting of the Scheidemann cabinet on February 13, 1919 in Weimar. From left:
Ulrich Rauscher , Head of Press of the Reich Government
Robert Schmidt , Nutrition
Eugen Schiffer , Finance
Philipp Scheidemann, Reich Chancellor
Otto Landsberg , Justice
Rudolf Wissell , Economics
Gustav Bauer ,
Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau , Foreign
Eduard David , without portfolio
Hugo Preuss , Interior
Johannes Giesberts , Post
Johannes Bell , colonies
Georg Gothein , treasure
Gustav Noske , Reichswehr

In the further course of the November Revolution, Scheidemann became a member of the Council of People's Representatives together with Ebert and Otto Landsberg from the SPD and Hugo Haase , Wilhelm Dittmann and Emil Barth from the USPD. Scheidemann was primarily responsible for financial policy.

During the Christmas battles of 1918, Scheidemann backed Ebert's decision to use military force against the occupation of the Berlin City Palace by the left-wing People's Navy Division. This made him hated by the radical left. "We are suing Ebert, Landsberg and Scheidemann for the murder of the sailors," was placarded on signs that were carried along on the occasion of the funeral of the fallen sailors.

Scheidemann was elected a member of the Weimar National Assembly in January 1919 . He wanted to persuade his party chairman Ebert, who was striving for the office of Reich President , to take over the office of the Reich Chancellery, as he was convinced that Ebert's strengths lay more in practical than in representative work. Therefore, he ran against Ebert in the presidential election in February 1919 , but received only one of the 379 valid votes. Ebert, elected with a large majority, then commissioned Scheidemann to form a government, which took place on February 13, 1919. From then on, Scheidemann served as Reich Minister-President until June 20, 1919 (the name given to the head of government until the Weimar Constitution was adopted ).

He was in front of a cabinet of the Weimar coalition made up of the SPD, the center and the DDP . The relatively conflict-free work of the coalition government is attributed by historians to its moderating rather than really leading administration. Such assessments are sometimes interpreted as signs of weak leadership and a lack of assertiveness. Gustav Noske, who was involved in the government as Reichswehr Minister, describes the government's actions as an expression of the democratic sentiments of the social democratic leaders, to whom "the idea of ​​rape of those who think differently seemed criminal". Out of respect for the election result, after which there was no longer a Social Democratic majority since February 1919, the coalition governments “never raped” their bourgeois colleagues.

The most difficult domestic political challenge for the cabinet was the strike movement in the first months of 1919. The main aim was to raise real wages, which had fallen due to inflation. In the Ruhr area in particular, this was combined with demands for the socialization of mining . Since hard coal mining was the central key factor of the entire economy, the Scheidemann government reacted in part with the deployment of voluntary corps , but also with negotiations. Scheidemann sent Carl Severing to the station for this purpose. There were also unrest in central Germany. When a general strike there in February 1919 struck three quarters of all workers, Scheidemann had the city of Halle occupied by the Reichswehr , but at the same time announced steps to democratize the economy. The unrest with which the Scheidemann government was confronted in Berlin was of a completely different nature. There, the communist-led movement was not concerned with economic, but political goals. These included the recognition of the workers 'and soldiers' councils , the implementation of the resolutions of the Reichsrätekongress on military policy and the resumption of political and economic relations with Soviet Russia . The government used military force against the movement in the March fighting in Berlin . There were also mass strikes in Upper Silesia , Württemberg and Magdeburg .

In terms of foreign policy, the decision to accept or reject the Versailles Treaty was made during Scheidemann's reign . He himself had spoken out clearly against the signature. Before the constituent German National Assembly, which met for the first time in Berlin in the auditorium of the university , he said on May 12, 1919: "Which hand must not wither that puts this bondage on itself and us?" of the population, but also in the political circles to stand behind the rejection and Scheidemann's exclamation became a winged word. Realpoliticians such as Matthias Erzberger , Gustav Noske or Eduard David drew attention to the fact that if they were rejected, the occupation of all of Germany by the Allies could be threatened. The still existing Supreme Army Command pushed for acceptance of the treaty, as did Reich President Ebert. In addition, the majority of its own parliamentary group was in favor of the adoption. However, since no agreement could be reached between the government factions and no unified statement from the government cabinet could be achieved - several ministers were clearly against the acceptance of the treaty - Scheidemann saw only the possibility of resigning.

Political life after 1919

Philipp Scheidemann speaks on May 1, 1919.

Scheidemann then remained a member of the Reichstag until 1933 . For many years he was a member of the SPD parliamentary group. In addition, he appeared more frequently outside of parliament, especially after he resigned as mayor of Kassel in 1925. As early as 1921, as one of the main speakers at the Görlitz party congress of the SPD, he had asked his party to make the safeguarding of the republic their primary concern: "We do not allow ourselves to be surpassed by anyone in love for our fatherland and our people." He later became one of the most sought-after speakers at events of the SPD-affiliated Republic Protection Association Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold , of which he was a member of the Reich Committee.

After leaving government offices, Scheidemann increasingly became the spokesman for those in his party who were dissatisfied with the actions of the representatives and government representatives it provided. He became one of the most prominent advocates of the resolution passed at the SPD's Weimar Congress in 1919 , which emphasized the party's unrestricted independence from the government and the government members it provided. Based on this, Scheidemann took the position that, in the event of tension between government action on the one hand and party-political line and basic orientation on the other, preference should be given to the latter. Loyalty to its own government representatives has its limits where fundamental principles of the party and elementary interests of the people are violated.

In November 1923, Scheidemann admitted in a newspaper article he had written in the Casseler Volksblatt that the course followed a year earlier, which had led to the end of the second Wirth government , had been a serious and irreparable mistake. At that time, out of consideration for the former USPD members who had just returned to the mother party, they refused to cooperate with the DVP , which had recently brought the DVP-affiliated Wilhelm Cuno to the government.

Scheidemann in later years

In April 1921 Scheidemann asked his former party chairman and now Reich President Friedrich Ebert to resign from his office because this office forced Ebert to cover the conservative minority government in office with his social democratic name after the SPD withdrew from government responsibility. This was preceded by considerable expressions of displeasure from the party against the Reich President because he had not opposed the request of the conservative government to claim Article 48 of the State Constitution. With this claim, the government was able to enforce restrictions on the right to strike (November 1920) and the introduction of special courts as part of the suppression of the so-called Saxon March Revolution (1921), bypassing parliament . Scheidemann's request was immediately preceded by Ebert's approval of the flag ordinance introduced by the Fehrenbach government . This used symbols of the empire to a far greater extent than was originally intended in the constitution, and could therefore be understood as a signal directed against the republic.

In parliamentary terms, Scheidemann made some spectacular and momentous speeches. After the Kapp Putsch in 1920, he sharply attacked his party friend Gustav Noske in the National Assembly who had fled to Stuttgart , albeit without explicitly mentioning his name. Scheidemann made the Reichswehr Minister jointly responsible for the coup, as the democratization of the military units was neglected. He called for a thorough purge of the troops, the disarming of all mutineers and the dismissal of all unreliable officers who were not loyal to the Republic. In the end, Noske had to resign.

In 1926, Scheidemann revealed the illegal cooperation between the Reichswehr and the Red Army in the Reichstag . This led to the overthrow of the third Marx government .

Lord Mayor of Kassel

Scheidemann was elected Lord Mayor of Kassel on December 19, 1919 as the successor to Erich Koch . He held office until 1925. Under his aegis, the Städtische Gemäldegalerie was opened in Kassel in the summer of 1921, the city's first museum for contemporary art. From the beginning of his term of office he had to defend himself against allegations from the bourgeois parties in Kassel. They denied the craftsman's son the qualification for the office and accused him of neglecting his job in Kassel because of his mandate in the Reichstag. Finally, similar criticism came from the SPD. In the local elections on May 4, 1924, the SPD suffered a heavy defeat. The bourgeois parties now made up the majority in the city parliament. A motion of no confidence against Scheidemann was successful, but was not legally binding. The conflict continued, so that the district president finally had to intervene. After his mediation, Scheidemann left office on October 1, 1925. Since then he has concentrated on his mandate in the Reichstag. He also wrote various writings , some of which were widely used. Among them was his autobiography in two volumes: Memoirs of a Social Democrat (1928).

Scheidemann as the enemy of opponents of the republic

Philipp Scheidemann was on the first expatriation list published by the Nazi regime on August 25, 1933.

Scheidemann was an embodiment of the "Weimar system" for extreme right and left. Taking advantage of the ambiguity of his surname, the term "Scheidemänner" was used as an insult for supporters of the republic. After this had already become common in right-wing, militaristic-nationalist circles during the World War, the Spartacus group took it over at the latest with their appeal to the workers and soldiers of Berlin on November 10, 1918, in which government socialists were defamed as "Scheidemannner" who the workers in "chased" the war.

On Pentecost Sunday, June 4, 1922 - during his tenure as Lord Mayor of Kassel - Scheidemann was murdered . During a walk with his daughter, Hans Hustert and Karl Oehlschläger splashed prussic acid on Philipp Scheidemann's face. The third man who accompanied the attack is said to have been Erwin Kern . Scheidemann survived the attack: strong winds prevented the perpetrators from targeting him so that the poison could not get into his mouth and nose. After Scheidemann had repeatedly received death threats and his house had been smeared with swastikas , he always carried a pistol with him when he went for a walk in order to be able to defend himself against attackers. The attack is in line with the murders of Matthias Erzberger , Walther Rathenau and others. The perpetrators were members of the Consul organization (as the main organization responsible for the murders), the German National Guard and Defense Association , the Ehrhardt Brigade and the Iron Division . They were caught that same year and sentenced to long prison terms.

Life in exile

Scheidemann's grave in the main cemetery in Kassel

After the takeover of the Nazis on 30 January 1933 Scheidemann, the away the right-wing camp for years as a key "was November criminals had attacked" at risk. A few days after the fire in the Reichstag , he fled to Salzburg at the beginning of March 1933 , where he was received by the Austrian member of the National Council, Josef Witternigg . Scheidemann's extensive records of his political activities, including 26 volumes with diary notes from 1914 to 1919, remained in Germany, where they were confiscated by the political police ; since then they have been considered lost.

After stays in Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, France and the USA, Scheidemann came to Denmark in 1935 . By means of the first expatriation list of the German Reich published on August 25, 1933 , his German citizenship was revoked. Although his health deteriorated, he kept a close eye on developments in Germany and published articles in the Danish working class press under a pseudonym.

Philipp Scheidemann died in Copenhagen on November 29, 1939. In 1953 the city of Copenhagen had Scheidemann's ashes transferred to Kassel. Philipp Scheidemann's grave has been in the old part of Kassel's main cemetery since then and is preserved as an honorary grave by the city of Kassel (compartment 11, grave no. 336). Scheidemann's own wish, however, was to be buried at the side of his wife Johanna, who died in August 1926, in the south-west cemetery in Stahnsdorf near Berlin.

Exile writings

In the last years of his life, Scheidemann made a few minutes in which he attempted to critically examine various aspects of social democratic politics between 1918 and 1933. In 1940, after the German occupation of Denmark, Scheidemann's daughter Louise buried these papers near Copenhagen. She was able to recover them in 1945 and in 1947 gave the SPD executive committee a few copies for inspection. In February 1948, the deputy chairman of the party, Erich Ollenhauer, wrote to Louise Scheidemann that it was “in the interests of the party”, the material “in which your father is sometimes very critical of the party's official policy in the Weimar Republic”. not to publish for the time being. It was not published until 2002.

In his work, Scheidemann accused Friedrich Ebert in particular of having "ruined" the SPD by making serious political mistakes. He describes Ebert as a calculating, rarely explaining loner who was a master in "organizational and tactical questions", who usually avoided direct debates and discussions in official bodies, but who always understood how to communicate with different people through parallel informal agreements Enforce influence groups. Such maneuvers would have made it possible for Ebert, for example, to secure the presidency of the Reich in February 1919, although the majority of the SPD parliamentary group initially wanted to nominate Scheidemann after word had got around that Ebert was outraged on November 9, 1918 at the proclamation of the republic had reacted. Scheidemann states that he soon “bitterly regretted” his retirement from the party leadership in autumn 1919 and his departure to Kassel; the "fight against the politics led by Ebert should have been fought out at the end of the day, because the looming disaster could already be grasped with the hands". Scheidemann judged the behavior of the leading groups of the SPD and ADGB in the summer of 1932 and in the spring of 1933 in a similarly harsh manner there in the history of the international labor movement. ” Scheidemann asked Sopade not to limit his self-criticism to the years 1918 and 1919; What is required is "at least a few lines about the fifteen years that have passed, but at least about July 20, 1932. " authoritative comrades ”had repeatedly assured that at the decisive moment they would“ push the button ”; he believed "in the Berlin slogan because I considered a complete failure of the leadership, in which I had certainly not had much confidence for years, to be impossible."

Honors

Several German cities named streets after Scheidemann.

In Berlin , the street running south of the Reichstag building has been called Scheidemannstrasse since October 1965 .

His native town Kassel named two public places by their former mayor: The downtown located Scheidemannplatz and after the pseudonym under which he published "Geschichderchen" in Kasseläner dialect, the Henner-Piffendeckel Square in front of the community center Philipp Scheidemann House in Kassel Nordstadt.

On July 1, 2015, Deutsche Post AG honored Scheidemann on the occasion of his 150th birthday with a special postage stamp worth € 1.45.

Fonts (selection)

• Social democracy and the standing army. 1910.
• The enemy is on the right! 1919.
• The collapse. 1921.
• Kasseläner boys - dialect stories. (Pseudonym Henner Piffendeckel) Facsimile print of the 1926 edition. Comino-Verlag, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-945831-06-9
• Memoirs of a Social Democrat. Two volumes, 1928. (New edition 2010 by Severus-Verlag, Hamburg, ISBN 978-3-942382-37-3 and ISBN 978-3-942382-54-0 ).
• The historical failure of the SPD. Writings from exile. Edited by Frank R. Reitzle. zu Klampen, Lüneburg 2002.

Movie and TV

• Scheidemann is portrayed by Ernst Fritz Fürbringer in Dieter Meichsner's 1968 television play November Criminal .
• In Hermann Kugelstadt's television play Friedrich Ebert - Birth of a Republic from 1969, Scheidemann is portrayed by Kurt Rackelmann .

literature

• Bernd Braun: The Weimar Chancellor. Twelve résumés in pictures. Droste, Düsseldorf 2011, ISBN 978-3-7700-5308-7 .
• Christian Gellinek : Philipp Scheidemann. Memory and memory. Waxmann, Münster / New York / Munich / Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-8309-1695-6 .
• Manfred Kittel :  Scheidemann, Philipp. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 630 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Thomas Klein : Senior civil servants in the general administration in the Prussian province of Hessen-Nassau and in Waldeck 1867 to 1945 (= sources and research on Hessian history. Vol. 70), Hessian Historical Commission Darmstadt, Historical Commission for Hesse, Darmstadt / Marburg 1988, ISBN 3-88443-159-5 , pp. 200-201.
• Walter Mühlhausen: "Keeping an eye on the big picture". Philipp Scheidemann Lord Mayor of Kassel (1920–1925). Marburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-942225-11-3 .
• Franz Osterroth : Biographical Lexicon of Socialism . Deceased personalities . Volume 1. JHW Dietz Nachf., Hanover 1960, pp. 262-263.
• Martin Schumacher (Hrsg.): MdR The Reichstag members of the Weimar Republic in the time of National Socialism. Political persecution, emigration and expatriation, 1933–1945. A biographical documentation . 3rd, considerably expanded and revised edition. Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5183-1 .

Web links

Commons : Philipp Scheidemann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Philipp Scheidemann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Philipp Scheidemann  in the German Digital Library
• Works by Philipp Scheidemann in the Gutenberg-DE project
• Newspaper article about Philipp Scheidemann in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Search for Philipp Scheidemann in the online catalog of the Berlin State Library - Prussian Cultural Heritage . Attention : The database has changed; please check result and SBB=1set
• Philipp Scheidemann in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Biography of Philipp Scheidemann . In: Heinrich Best : Database of the members of the Reichstag of the Kaiserreich 1867/71 to 1918 (Biorab - Kaiserreich)
• Kai-Britt Albrecht: Philipp Scheidemann. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
• Scheidemann, Philipp Heinrich. Hessian biography. (As of October 13, 2019). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Flemming: Men of the Revolution. P. 55
2. ^ ^{A b} Manfred Kittel:  Scheidemann, Philipp. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 630 f. ( Digitized version ).
3. ↑ Thomas Nipperdey: German History 1866-1918. Power state before democracy . CH Beck, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-406-34801-7 , p. 748.
4. ^ Wilhelm Keil: Experiences of a Social Democrat. Volume 2, DVA, Stuttgart 1948, p. 171.
5. ↑ so his long-time companion and party chairman Hermann Müller: Müller-Franken: November Revolution. P. 78.
6. ↑ Winkler: Weimar. P. 72.
7. ↑ Flemming: Men of the Revolution. P.56.
8. ↑ Philipp Scheidemann: Memoirs of a Social Democrat, Volume One, Section Six ( Google Books, p. 113ff. )
9. ^ Wording according to: Schulz (Ed.): Workers' Movement. P. 368f.
10. ↑ Quotation from Flemming: Men of the Revolution. P. 57.
11. ↑ Wedge: Memories. Volume 1, p. 440.
12. ↑ Wedge: Memories. Volume 1, p. 323.
13. ↑ Wilfried Loth : The Empire. Authority and Political Mobilization . Munich 1996, ISBN 3-423-04505-1 , p. 153.
14. ^ Nipperdey p. 847.
15. ^ Heinrich August Winkler : Weimar 1918–1933. The history of the first German democracy . Verlag Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-44037-1 , p. 24.
16. ↑ Loth: The Empire. P. 164.
17. ↑ Flemming: Men of the Revolution. P. 57. Hermann Müller-Franken: The November Revolution. P. 276.
18. ^ Pätzold: Scheidemann. P. 602.
19. ↑ Quoted from Winkler: Weimar. P. 32.
20. ↑ Winkler: Weimar. P. 26f., P. 29f.
21. ↑ Quoted from Manfred Jessen-Klingenberg : The proclamation of the republic by Philipp Scheidemann on November 9, 1918. In: History in Science and Education 19/1968, p. 653.
22. ↑ Winkler: Weimar. P. 33.
23. ↑ Winkler: Weimar. P. 55.
24. ↑ So Noske: Experienced. P. 90, which emphasizes that the camaraderie demonstrated to the outside world by the two top SPD politicians actually covered up existing “considerable differences”.
25. ↑ Winkler: Weimar. P. 72.
26. ↑ Noske: Experienced. P. 90.
27. ↑ Winkler: Weimar. P. 72ff.
28. ↑ Quoted from Winkler: Weimar. P. 91.
29. ↑ Georg Büchmann : Winged words . Practical knowledge, Berlin 1956, p. 308.
30. ↑ Osterroth, Schuster: Chronicle. P. 227.
31. ^ Scheidemann's resignation . In: Vossische Zeitung , July 12, 1925, Sunday edition; P. 3.
32. ↑ Osterroth, Schuster: Chronicle. P. 263.
33. ^ Mühlhausen: Ebert. P. 21.
34. ^ Mühlhausen: Ebert. P. 18.
35. ^ At the end of the Wirth II government: Winkler: Weimar. P. 184f.
36. ^ Mühlhausen: Ebert. P. 21ff .; For the design of the war and trade flag, see the files of the Reich Chancellery (further linked).
37. ↑ Osterroth, Schuster: Chronicle. P. 237.
38. ↑ Representation of the city of Kassel .
39. ↑ printed in Ritter, Miller: Revolution. P. 82ff.
40. ↑ Michael Hepp (ed.): The expatriation of German citizens 1933-45 according to the lists published in the Reichsanzeiger, Volume 1: Lists in chronological order . De Gruyter Saur, Munich 1985, ISBN 978-3-11-095062-5 , pp. 3 (reprinted 2010).
41. ↑ Quoted from Philipp Scheidemann (ed. By Frank R. Reitzle): The historical failure of the SPD. Writings from exile. Lüneburg 2002, p. 8. See also Sebastian Ullrich: The Weimar complex. The failure of the first German democracy and the political culture of the early Federal Republic. Göttingen 2009, p. 97.
42. ^ Philipp Scheidemann: Critique of the German social democracy and its leadership. In: the same: The historical failure. Pp. 75-160, p. 107.
43. ^ Scheidemann: Critique, p. 91.
44. ↑ See Scheidemann: Critique, pp. 118f.
45. ^ Scheidemann: Critique, p. 140.
46. ^ Philipp Scheidemann: Escape from the beasts. In: the same: The historical failure. Pp. 27-73, p. 38.
47. ^ Scheidemann: Bestien, p. 85.
48. ↑ Scheidemann: Bestien, p. 30f.
49. ↑ Scheidemannstrasse. In: Street name dictionary of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
50. ^ Philipp Scheidemann / Henner Piffendeckel: Kasseläner boys - dialect stories. Facsimile print of the 1926 edition. Comino-Verlag, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-945831-06-9