Editing Philipp Scheidemann (section)

=== Political life after 1919 ===
In the elections of 6 June 1920, Scheidemann was re-elected to the Reichstag, this time for [[Hesse Nassau|Hesse-Nassau]].<ref name="Bio" /> From 1920 to 1925 he was also mayor of Kassel.<ref name="DHM" /> He remained a member of the Reichstag until 1933. For many years he was also a member of the SPD parliamentary party executive. He made frequent appearances outside of parliament, especially after leaving his post as mayor of Kassel in 1925.<ref>{{Cite web |date=12 July 1925 |title=Scheidemanns Rücktritt. In: Vossische Zeitung, p. 3 |trans-title=Scheidemanns Resignation |url=https://zefys.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/kalender/auswahl/date/1925-07-12/27112366/?no_cache=1 |website=Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin ZEFYS |language=de}}</ref> In 1921, as one of the keynote speakers at the MSPD's [[Görlitz]] Party Congress, he called on his party to declare safeguarding the Republic its foremost concern: "We will not be surpassed by anyone in love for our fatherland and for our people."{{Sfn|Osterroth|1963|p=263}} Later he became one of the most sought-after speakers at events of the SPD-affiliated [[Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold]] (''Reich Banner'' ''Black, Red, Gold''), to whose Reich committee he belonged.

After leaving the government, Scheidemann increasingly became the spokesman for those in his party who were dissatisfied with the actions of its representatives and government officials. He became one of the most outspoken advocates of the resolution adopted in 1919 at the Weimar Party Congress of the MSPD which emphasized the party's unrestricted independence with respect to the government and the government representatives it appointed. Based on it, Scheidemann took the position that, in cases of tension between government action on the one hand and party's political line and basic direction on the other, the latter should be given preference. He thought that loyalty to one's own government representatives had its limits where fundamental principles of the party and elementary interests of the people were violated.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mühlhausen |first=Walther |title=Friedrich Ebert 1871–1925: Reichspräsident der Weimarer Republik. |publisher=Dietz |year=2006 |location=Berlin |pages=21 |language=de |trans-title=Friedrich Ebert 1871–1925: Reich President of the Weimar Republic}}</ref>

In November 1923 Scheidemann admitted in a newspaper article in the {{Lang|de|Casseler Volksblatt}} that the course he had followed a year earlier, which had led to the end of [[Joseph Wirth]]'s (Centre Party) second government, had been a grave and irreparable mistake.{{Sfn|Mühlhausen|2006|p=18}} At that time, in deference to the former USPD members who had just returned to the mother party, they had refused any cooperation with the right-liberal [[German People's Party]] (DVP), which had ultimately brought the non-partisan [[Wilhelm Cuno]], who was close to the DVP, into the government as Reich chancellor.{{Sfn|Winkler|1998|pp=184 f}}

In April 1921 Scheidemann called on Reich President Friedrich Ebert to resign because his office compelled him to use his Social Democratic name in support of the center-right minority government formed after the MSPD withdrew following its loss of 62 seats in the [[1920 German federal election|1920 election]]. Scheidemann's call had been preceded by many expressions of displeasure from within the party against Ebert because he had not resisted the request of Centre Party Chancellor [[Constantin Fehrenbach]]'s center-right government to invoke Emergency [[Article 48 (Weimar Constitution)|Article 48]] of the Reich Constitution. It had allowed the government to bypass parliament and impose restrictions on the right to strike (November 1920) and to introduce special courts to suppress the communist-led [[March Action]] uprising (1921) in central Germany. Scheidemann's call had been immediately preceded by the adoption, approved by Ebert, of the flag ordinance introduced by the Fehrenbach government. It used symbols of the empire to a far greater extent than had originally been provided for in the constitution and could therefore be understood as a signal directed against the Republic.{{Sfn|Mühlhausen|2006|pp=21 ff}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=Akten der Reichskanzlei – Frage der Gestaltung der Reichskriegsflagge |trans-title=Files of the Reich Chancellery – Question of the design of the Reich war flag |url=https://www.bundesarchiv.de/aktenreichskanzlei/1919-1933/0000/feh/feh1p/kap1_2/kap2_113/para3_1.html |website=Bundesarchiv |language=de}}</ref> Ebert did not heed Scheidemann's request to resign.

During his tenure in the Reichstag, Scheidemann wrote political treatises that were widely read<ref name="Bio" /> and in parliament made several speeches that had significant consequences. After the [[Kapp Putsch]] in 1920, he sharply attacked his party colleague Gustav Noske in the National Assembly, which had fled to Stuttgart due to the putsch, although he did not explicitly mention his name. Scheidemann held the Reichswehr minister partly responsible for the coup attempt, saying that the democratization of the military had been neglected. He demanded a thorough purge of the troops, the disarmament of all mutineers, and the dismissal of all officers who were not loyal to the republic. Noske was eventually forced to resign.

In 1926 Scheidemann revealed in the Reichstag the illegal [[Reichswehr#Secret cooperation with the Soviet Union|collaboration between the Reichswehr and the Soviet Army]] in an attempt to rebuild the German armed forces beyond the limitations of the Versailles Treaty. The revelation led to the fall of the [[Third Marx cabinet|third government of Wilhelm Marx]] (Centre Party).<ref name="DHM" />