Friedrich Ebert junior

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Friedrich "Fritz" Ebert (September 12, 1894 – December 4, 1979) was the son of Germany's first President Friedrich Ebert. He was a Social Democrat like his father before him, but is best known for his role in the origins of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, whom in he served in various positions.

[edit] Early life

Born in Bremen, Fritz Ebert underwent an apprenticeship as a printer from 1909 to 1913. In 1910 he joined the Socialist Workers' Youth and in 1913 the SPD. From 1915 to 1918 he fought in the First World War. During the Weimar Republic, he worked for various socialdemocratic newspapers.

In 1933, he was arrested for illegal political activity and detained for eight months in various concentration camps, e.g. Oranienburg and Börgermoor. In 1939 he was conscripted into the army. In 1940 he worked at the Reichsverlagsamt (publishers' office). Until 1945 he was under constant police surveillance.

[edit] Career in East Germany

After the demise of the Third Reich, he was elected chairman of the SPD in the Prussian province of Brandenburg. Being the son of a former President made Ebert one of the foremost political leaders in East Germany. His role in this phase can be compared with that of Jan Masaryk in post-war Czechoslovakia. Ebert was courted by the leaders of the Communist Party (KPD), who aimed at a unification of the much larger SPD with the smaller KPD and used his father's supposed role in the breaking-up of the unity of the German working class in 1918 to get the young Ebert's support for the unification.

In 1946 the unification of the two parties' branches in the Soviet Occupation Zone was effected under Soviet pressure. After the creation of the new party, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), Ebert was elected to the Central Committee and since 1949 also was a member of the Politburo.

After the end of Allied cooperation and breaking up of the administration of Berlin, Ebert became mayor of the East Berlin, which he remained until 1967.

He was a member of the Deutscher Volksrat, a preliminary parliament that drew up the first constitution of the GDR, and after 1949 of the People's Chamber, the parliament of the GDR. Between 1949 and 1971 he served as the chamber's deputy president. In 1971 he was elected chairman of the SED faction in the People's Chamber.

Since 1960 he also was a member of the Council of State and since 1971 its deputy chairman. As such he was acting head of state in 1973 between Walter Ulbricht's death and the election of Willi Stoph.

Ebert was decorated with the Order of Karl Marx, the Vaterländischer Verdienstorden and the Großer Stern der Völkerfreundschaft. After his resignation as mayor, the magistrate of East Berlin awarded him with an honorary citizenship, which was however revoked in 1992.