Hugo Haase

Tomb of Hugo Haase in Berlin.

Hugo Haase (September 29, 1863 – November 7, 1919) was a German politician, jurist and pacifist.

Biography

Haase was born in Allenstein (Olsztyn), Province of Prussia, the son of Jewish shoemaker and small businessman, Nathan Haase, and Pauline Anker. He studied law in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) and established himself as a lawyer. He was the first Social Democrat in the Stadtrat in Königsberg and became a deputy in the Reichstag in 1897. In multiple legal cases, he defended the Social Democrats against various political attacks.

Haase belonged to the so-called revisionist wing of the party, which in contrast to the Marxists, supported gradual reforms and no longer saw the best path to social and political change in revolution. In 1911 he became along with August Bebel a SPD chairman, in 1912 next to Philipp Scheidemann a SPD chairman in the Reichstag. After Bebel's death, Haase and Friedrich Ebert were chosen as the party chairmen.

In July 1914, he organized the anti-war rally of the SPD and on July 31 and August 1 fought against a decision for an increase in the war credit in the SPD faction. However, he failed to accomplish this because the opposition of Friedrich Ebert and the faction majority. Due to party discipline, Haase had to defend the SPD action in the Reichstag session. In response to his comment "We won't abandon the Fatherland in the hour of danger", the imperial government created its so-called Burgfrieden policy.

After the collapse of German war plans at the end of 1914, Haase became more and more vocal against the policies of the SPD faction. He was forced to resign as faction leader in 1915 and as a party chairman in 1916. In March 1916, he took over the leadership of the Sozialdemokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft, which the war critics in the SPD had founded together. In 1917 he became chairman of the newly founded Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany, which split the so-called "Majority Social Democrats" group and advocated immediate peace negotiations.

In the course of the German Revolution (November), he created along with the majority Social Democrats' leader Friedrich Ebert the provisional government, the Rat der Volksbeauftragten, of whose acting chairman he took over. After the violent response to the revolutionary Volksmarinedivision during Christmas 1918, Haase and the two other USPD representatives Wilheim Dittman and Emil Barth abandoned the government on December 29.

The Haase-led USPD only achieved 7% of the vote for the Weimar Nationalversammlung on January 19, 1919.

On October 8, 1919, Haase was shot by Johann Voss, an apparently mentally ill leather worker. He was severely injured and died on November 7.

He was married to Thea Lichtenstein and had three children: one son Ernst Haase, a psychiatrist, who immigated to Chicago via England--and two daughters: Hilde Meisels (Jerusalem) and Gertrud Dressel (Tel Aviv).

Chancellors of Germany
German Empire (1871–1918)	Otto von Bismarck · Leo von Caprivi · Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst · Bernhard von Bülow · Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg · Georg Michaelis · Georg von Hertling · Prince Maximilian of Baden
Revolutionary period (1918–1919)	Friedrich Ebert
Weimar Republic (1919–1933)	Philipp Scheidemann · Gustav Bauer · Hermann Müller · Konstantin Fehrenbach · Joseph Wirth · Wilhelm Cuno · Gustav Stresemann · Wilhelm Marx · Hans Luther · Wilhelm Marx · Hermann Müller · Heinrich Brüning · Franz von Papen · Kurt von Schleicher
Third Reich (1933–1945)	Adolf Hitler · Joseph Goebbels · Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk
Federal Republic of Germany (since 1949)	Konrad Adenauer · Ludwig Erhard · Kurt Georg Kiesinger · Willy Brandt · Helmut Schmidt · Helmut Kohl · Gerhard Schröder · Angela Merkel

Chairmen of the Social Democratic Party of Germany
SPD (1890-1933)	Paul Singer/Alwin Gerisch · August Bebel/Paul Singer · August Bebel/Hugo Haase · Hugo Haase/Friedrich Ebert · Friedrich Ebert · Friedrich Ebert/Philipp Scheidemann · Otto Wels/Herman Müller · Arthur Crispien/Otto Wels/Herman Müller · Arthur Crispien/Otto Wels · Arthur Crispien/Otto Wels/Hans Vogel
SPD-in-exile (SoPaDe) (1933-1945)	Otto Wels/Hans Vogel · Hans Vogel
SPD (since 1946)	Kurt Schumacher · Erich Ollenhauer · Willy Brandt · Hans-Jochen Vogel · Björn Engholm · Johannes Rau · Rudolf Scharping · Oskar Lafontaine · Gerhard Schröder · Franz Müntefering · Matthias Platzeck · Kurt Beck

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