Image by 51581 on Pixabay · Pixabay License
Key facts
- Serving with
- Hermann Müller (1919–1931) , Arthur Crispien (1922–1933) , Hans Vogel (1931–1939)
- Preceded by
- Friedrich Ebert , Philipp Scheidemann
- Succeeded by
- Hans Vogel
- Constituency
- Frankfurt an der Oder
- Born
- 15 September 1873, Berlin , Prussia, Germany
- Died
- 16 September 1939 (1939-09-16) (aged 66), Paris , France
- Resting place
- Cimetière Nouveau de Châtenay-Malabry, France
- Party
- SPD (1891–1939)
- Spouse
- Bertha Antonie Reske ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1893 )
- Children
- Walter Hugo
- Occupation
- Politician Labor Leader Paper Hanger
- Allegiance
- German Empire
- Branch service
- Imperial German Army
- Years of service
- 1895–1897
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- Otto
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- German Reich
- Place of birth
- Berlin
- Place of death
- Paris
- Occupation
- politician
- Political party
- Social Democratic Party of Germany
- Languages spoken
- German
- Native language
- German
- Image
- Ottowelsportait.jpg
- Work location
- Berlin
Show 5 more facts
- Commons category
- Otto Wels
- date of death
- 1939-09-16
- date of birth
- 1873-09-15
- name in native language
- Otto Wels
- writing language
- German
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~13 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Otto Wels (15 September 1873 – 16 September 1939) was a German politician who served as a member of the Reichstag from 1912 to 1933 and as the chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) from 1919 until his death in 1939. He was the military commander of Berlin in the turbulent early days of the German Revolution of 1918–1919, and during the 1920 Kapp Putsch he was instrumental in organizing the general strike that helped defeat the anti-republican putschists. Near the end of the Weimar Republic's life, however, he saw the futility of calling a general strike against the 1932 Prussian coup d'état because of the mass unemployment of the Great Depression.
His 1933 speech in the Reichstag in opposition to Adolf Hitler and the Enabling Act marked the end of the Weimar Republic prior to the Act becoming law. After the passage of the Act effectively gave Hitler dictatorial power, Wels fled the country and established the SPD exile organization Sopade. He died in Paris in 1939, two weeks after the start of World War II.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Otto Wels” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.