Editing Philipp Scheidemann (section)

=== World War I ===
During World War I Scheidemann represented a middle line between the right and left wings of the SPD. In principle he supported the approval of war credits, but he opposed a victorious peace and advocated a negotiated peace without annexations. His statement "What is French shall remain French, what is Belgian shall remain Belgian, what is German shall remain German"<ref name="Flemming 57">{{Cite book |last=Flemming |first=Jens |title=Männer der Revolution |pages=57}}</ref> was called high treason in militarist-nationalist circles. Representatives of the [[German Fatherland Party]] in particular declared that they wanted to "hang" Scheidemann.{{Sfn|Keil|1948|p=440, Vol. 1}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-00015, Friedrich Ebert (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|199x199px|Friedrich Ebert]]
In January 1915 Scheidemann expressed his anger at elements in the SPD who could not bear to hear the word "fatherland". His statement was preceded by [[Karl Liebknecht]]'s breach of party discipline when in December 1914 he voted against a war loan bill. Hugo Haase defended Liebknecht at the time, and he received numerous expressions of sympathy from within the SPD.{{Sfn|Keil|1948|p=323, Vol. 1}} The idea of a negotiated peace ("Scheidemann Plan"), however, could no longer prevent a split within the SPD on the issue of continued funding for the war. In April 1917 the party's antiwar left wing formed the [[Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany]] (USPD), while the SPD itself was renamed the [[Majority Social Democratic Party of Germany]] (MSPD). In Scheidemann's constituency of Solingen, the SPD organization joined the USPD and called on Scheidemann – without success – to resign his Reichstag seat. From October 1917, with the [[Würzburg]] Party Congress, Scheidemann was MSPD party chairman alongside Friedrich Ebert.<ref name="DHM" />

In view of the worsening social hardships of the working class caused by the war, the SPD had been pressing since the beginning of 1917 to fulfill its promise of a political reorganization of Germany. Negotiations began between Scheidemann, [[Conrad Haußmann|Conrad Haussmann]] of the center-left [[German Democratic Party]] and [[Gustav Stresemann]] of the [[National Liberal Party (Germany)|National Liberal Party]] to form a left-wing parliamentary majority with the goal of giving the Reich a true parliamentary form of government with ministers responsible to it rather than the emperor. Scheidemann accommodated the bourgeois parties to the point of saying that he believed he could if necessary envision a parliamentary system with a monarch at its head.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Loth |first=Wilfried |title=Das Kaiserreich. Obrigkeitsstaat und politische Mobilisierung |publisher=Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag |year=1996 |isbn=3-423-04505-1 |location=Munich |pages=153 |language=de |trans-title=The Empire. The Authoritarian State and Political Mobilization}}</ref> One result of the negotiations was the passage of the [[Reichstag Peace Resolution]] of 19 July 1917 by 212 votes to 126. It called for peace negotiations without demands for annexations.

To prevent radicalization at home, Scheidemann, Friedrich Ebert and [[Otto Braun]] joined the leadership of the [[German strike of January 1918|January strikes of 1918]] in which over a million workers demanded better living and working conditions, an end to the war and a democratization of the constitution. Their action earned the three men the hatred of the political right.{{Sfn|Nipperdey|1992|p=847}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R04103, Prinz Max von Baden(cropped).jpg|thumb|236x236px|Prince Maximilian von Baden]]
As parliamentary group chairman and leading figure of his party in the inter-party committee, Scheidemann played a significant role in ousting the government of Reich Chancellor [[Georg von Hertling]] in September 1918. Scheidemann and Ebert, however, had differing opinions about how to proceed. When politicians from the [[Progressive People's Party (Germany)|Progressive People's Party]] brought Prince [[Maximilian von Baden]] into the discussion as Reich chancellor, Scheidemann said that the Social Democrats could not be expected to put a prince at the head of the government. On 3 October 1918, "at the moment when the circumstances were the worst possible", Scheidemann opposed Social Democratic participation in the government. Friedrich Ebert finally persuaded the majority of the parliamentary group to agree to the MSPD's entry into von Baden's cabinet.{{Sfn|Winkler|1998|p=24}} It was the first time members of the SPD had served in the imperial government, although since 1912 the party had had the most seats in the Reichstag of any party.

Despite his reservations, Scheidemann and other leading politicians in the parliamentary majority became state secretaries without portfolio in the von Baden cabinet. Scheidemann was chosen for the position instead of Friedrich Ebert due to his greater popularity.<ref name="Bio" /> The ministers were the true political decision-makers; Max von Baden was primarily representative to the outside world.{{Sfn|Loth|1996|p=164}} Scheidemann as a member of the government initiated an amnesty for political prisoners. In particular, he personally pushed through the release of Karl Liebknecht in the face of opposition from the War Ministry and military courts, as well as objections from the Reich chancellor.<ref name="Flemming 57"/>{{Sfn|Müller-Franken|1928|p=276}}