Word: scheidemann
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1920-1929
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Startling to many a German and others in Berlin last week, was a blazingly candid newspaper article How I Accidentally Proclaimed the German Republic, by Philipp Scheidemann, first Chancellor of the Republic...
With meticulous exactitude Socialist Scheidemann writes that he was eating a bowl of "thin 1918 soup" in the Reichstag Restaurant when members of his party plunged in, grabbed him by the arm, and declared that he must appear on a balcony of the Reichstag to address a large, incipiently revolutionary throng...
...tired of making speeches," growled Scheidemann over his soup, but nonetheless he mounted the balcony...
Vaguely he began an extemporaneous address, urging the people to be calm and ignore firebrands who wanted to proclaim a Soviet State. Gradually the magnetic fervor of the crowd fired Socialist Scheidemann. Suddenly he found himself shouting: "Long live the German Republic...
Though a roar of approval went up, Herr Scheidemann attached to it so little importance that he soon went back to his bowl of soup. He did not realize what he had done until jovial Freidrich Ebert, later first President of the Republic, rushed in flushed with indignation and exclaimed: "What have you done? I hear you have proclaimed a Republic! Don't you know you had no right to do that...