page_title: History of the Social Democratic Party of Germany
section_title: German Empire (1863–1918)
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Social Democratic Party of Germany / German Reich / German Empire (1863–1918)
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. August Bebel ADN-ZB 27.3.1952 August Bebel geb. 22.2.1840 in Köln-Deutz gest. 13.8.1913 in Passugg(Schweiz) Mitbegründer und einer der bedeutendsten Führer der deutschen Sozialdemokratie und der II. Internationale. (Aufnahme 1898) Abgebildete Personen: Bebel, August: Gründer der sozialdemokratischen Arbeiterpartei, MdR, Deutschland (GND 118507893) Information added by Wikimedia users.English: Workers' leader August Bebel
context_page_description: The foundation of the Social Democratic Party of Germany can be traced back to the 1860s, and for much of the 20th and 21st centuries it has represented the centre-left in German politics. Nevertheless from 1891 to 1959 the Party at least theoretically espoused Marxism.
  The SPD has been the ruling party at several points, first under Friedrich Ebert in 1918. The party was outlawed in Nazi Germany but returned to government in 1969 with Willy Brandt. Meanwhile, the East German branch of the SPD was merged with the ruling KPD.
  In the modern Federal Republic of Germany, the SPD are the second largest party after the CDU and are currently in government as a junior coalition partner to Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU. The SPD last held the chancellorship under Gerhard Schröder from 1998 to 2005.
context_section_description: The party was founded on 23 May 1863 by Ferdinand Lassalle under the name Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein (ADAV, General German Workers' Association). In 1869, August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht founded the Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei (SDAP, Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany), which merged with the ADAV at a conference held in Gotha in 1875, taking the name Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAPD). At this conference, the party developed the Gotha Program, which Karl Marx criticized in his Critique of the Gotha Program. Through the Anti-Socialist Laws, Otto von Bismarck had the party outlawed for its pro-revolution, anti-monarchy sentiments in 1878; but in 1890 it was legalized again. That year - in its Halle convention - it changed its name to Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD), as it is known to this day.
  Anti-socialist campaigns were counterproductive. 1878–90 was the SPD's 'heroic period'. The party's new program drawn up in 1891 at Halle was more radical than 1875's Gotha program. From 1881 to 1890 the party's support increased faster than in any other period. In 1896, the National Liberals and Conservatives in Saxony replaced the democratic vote with a Prussian-style three-tiered suffrage, upper class votes counting the most. They did this to drive out the local SPD which lost its last seat in 1901. However, in the 1903 election the number of socialist deputies increased from 11 to 22 out of 23.
  Because Social Democrats could be elected as list-free candidates while the party was outlawed, SPD continued to be a growing force in the Reichstag, becoming the strongest party in 1912 (in imperial Germany, the parliamentary balance of forces had no influence on the formation of the cabinet). During this period, SPD deputies in the Reichstag were able to win some improvements in working and living conditions for working-class Germans, thereby advancing the cause of its policies in a general way and securing material benefits for its supporters.
  In the Landtag, the SPD was able to extract some concessions from time to time in areas for which the assembly was responsible, such as education and social policy. In Hesse, the party was successful in demanding that church tax be listed separately in assessments, and it was able to secure improvements in judicial procedure. The SPD also had occasional successes in raising wages and improving the working conditions of municipal labourers.
  SPD pressure in the Reichstag in the late nineteenth century supported an expansion in the system of factory inspection, together with a minor reform in military service under which the families of reservists, called up for training or manoeuvres, could receive an allowance. In the 1880s, SPD deputies in Saxony successfully agitated in support of improved safety for miners and better control of mines.
  In 1908, the same year the government legalized women's participation in politics, Luise Zietz became the first woman appointed to the executive committee of the SPD.
  Despite the passage of anti-socialist legislation, the SPD continued to grow in strength in the early twentieth century, with a steady rise in membership from 384,327 in 1905/06 to 1,085,905 in 1913/14. SPD was seen as a populist party, and people from every quarter of German society sought help and advice from it. With its counseling service (provided free of charge by the mostly trade union maintained workers’ secretarial offices), the German social democratic movement helped large numbers of Germans to secure their legal rights, primarily in social security. There also existed a dynamic educational movement, with hundreds of courses and individual lectures, theatre performances, libraries, peripatetic teachers, a central school for workers’ education, and a famous Party School, as noted by the historians Susanne Miller and Heinrich Potthoff:
  With all of this, the SPD and the Free Trade Unions were not only delivering the necessary tools for the political and social struggle, but were also a cultural movement in the widest sense of the term.
  Growth
caption: August Bebel in 1863, co-chairman from 1892 to 1913
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