Ralf Bosen had this story in Deutsche Welle:

At the end of 1918, Germany was at a crossroads. Its defeat in World War I had been sealed. Kaiser Wilhelm II fled into exile in the Netherlands in the course of the November Revolution, which began with a sailors’ uprising. Countless people were starving. Traumatized, war-disabled soldiers came back from the front, desperately looking for their place in a shattered world.

In this time of confusion and upheaval, the son of a tailor played a decisive role in shaping political fate: Friedrich Ebert, born on February 4, 1871, in Heidelberg, the seventh of nine children.

Ebert’s life represented the dream of social advancement: A trained saddlery journeyman who traveled for years after completing his apprenticeship and had a stint as a pub owner, his diligence, organizational talent and a sense of duty finally brought him to the top of the political establishment as chair of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

Read the full story here.