Career
He served as a stretcher bearer in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. He worked as a journalist on several newspapers after 1875. He joined the Social-Democratic Party of Germany (Social Democratic Party of Germany) in 1891.
He had a romantic relationship with Lou Andreas-Salome between 1892 and 1894.
During that period, Ledebour was sentenced and jailed for a year for a political offence. He was one of the leaders of the German Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) after the split in the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1917.
The Social Democratic Party of Germany broadly supported the German government"s war aims, and the USPD was opposed to the government. In 1918-1920, the leadership of the Social Democratic Party of Germany wanted to restrain the German revolution as much as possible, even to the extent of relying on the right-wing enemies of the democratic revolution and government, while the USPD wanted to carry through the revolution and weaken or remove anti-democratic forces.
This was poorly organised and was quickly defeated by the units of the German army and the Freikorps, and notably led to the murder of both Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.
He went into exile in Switzerland after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, and died in Bern in 1947 after a long illness.
