Nonetheless, a few former SPD members held high posts in the East German government. Otto Grotewohl served as East Germany's first prime minister from 1949 to 1964. For much of that time he retained the perspective of a left-wing social democrat, and publicly advocated a less repressive approach to governing during the time of the crackdown on the East German uprising of 1953. Friedrich Ebert, Jr., son of former president Ebert, served as mayor of East Berlin from 1949 to 1967; he'd reportedly been blackmailed into supporting the merger by using his father's role in the schism of 1918 against him.