Eduard David
| Eduard David | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Minister of the Interior | |
|
In office 21 June 1919 – 3/4 October 1919 |
|
| Chancellor | Philipp Scheidemann |
| Preceded by | Hugo Preuß |
| Succeeded by | Erich Koch-Weser |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
11 June 1863 Ediger-Eller |
| Died | 24 December 1930 (aged 67) Berlin |
| Nationality | German |
| Political party | Social Democratic Party of Germany |
| Alma mater | University of Giessen |
| Occupation | Teacher |
Eduard Heinrich Rudolph David (11 June 1863 – 24 December 1930) was a German politician. He was an important figure in the history of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and of the German political labour movement. After the German Revolution of 1918-19 he was Minister of the Interior in the Cabinet Bauer from June 1919 to October 1919 and served as Minister without Portfolio in other cabinets, including the very first democratically elected government of the Weimar Republic. David was also briefly the first president of the Weimar National Assembly which drew up the Weimar Constitution and ratified the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.
Eduard David was born on 11 June 1863 in Ediger/Mosel as the son of Johann Heinrich David, a Prussian civil servant, and his wife Wilhelmine Elisabeth (née Werner). After completing a four-year commercial apprenticeship (kaufmännische Lehre), David studied at the university at Gießen where he was introduced to socialist ideals. He then became a teacher at a Gymnasium and in 1893 founded the Mitteldeutsche Sonntagszeitung, a newspaper. His support for the Social Democratic Party (SPD) led to his dismissal from the civil service in 1894.
David was married twice. In 1896, he married Gertrud Swiderski (one daughter) and in 1911 Hermine Schmidt (one son).
In the 1890s, David became a proponent of agricultural policies favouring small holdings, arguing for their viability in a series of articles in the Sozialdemokrat in August and September 1894 (later expanded into his major work Sozialismus und Landwirtschaft of 1903). It was the first socialist assault on the universality of the Marxist teaching that small holdings would increasingly be replaced by large estates, making David the first Revisionist of his party.
From 1896, David was a member of the Landtag of Hesse and after 1903 a member of the Reichstag for the SPD. He was one of the leading politicians of the "Majority" SPD when the party split during the First World War and was instrumental in framing his party's policy stand on the war.
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