He was born on 20 September 1875 in Buttenhausen (today part of Münsingen) in the Kingdom of Württemberg, the son of Josef Erzberger, a tailor and postman, and his wife Katherina.In his early life he gained massive weight, which he lost in the course of thirty years.
He attended the seminaries in Schwäbisch Hall and Bad Saulgau, where he graduated in 1894, and started a career as a primary school (Volksschule) teacher.
He began his career as a grade school teacher, but in 1896 became editor of a Catholic newspaper at Stuttgart. Erzberger's real interests, however, lay in politics, and in 1903 he entered the Reichstag as deputy for the Center party from Biberach. His debating skills, burning ambition, vigor, and vitality quickly earned him recognition and leadership of his party's left wing. Above all, Erzberger developed into a fiscal expert; in 1905/1906 he gained national recognition by denouncing the government's colonial policy. Under Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, Erzberger blossomed as champion of the taxation reforms of 1909 as well as of the army budget of 1913. As a South German he strove to reform the constitutional system both in Prussia and in the Reich; as a Catholic he could not bring himself before
the war to cooperate with the Social Democrats (SPD). The Great War propelled Erzberger onto the European stage. Entrusted by the chancellor with organizing German propaganda abroad, the Wiirttemberger used his Catholic and Free Mason ties on behalf of the Reich. And as a spokesman of German heavy industry (Thyssen), Erzberger on September 2, 1914, came out in favor of sweeping annexations, including Longwy-Briey and Belgium. Finally, he worked, albeit unsuccessfully, with former Chancellor Bernhard von Biilow to prevent Italy's entry into the war on the side of the Entente.
But in time Erzberger grew more sober and realistic concerning Germany's role in the war. Specifically, he spoke out vehemently against unrestricted submarine warfare and counseled a mediated peace. Erzberger's methods were not always diplomatic: on July 6, 1917, he shocked his parliamentary colleagues by denouncing the navy's blueprint for victory over Britain by August through the U-boat war and by introducing a peace resolution calling for an end to the war without annexations or indemnities. Seven days later, vainly playing into the hands of Colonel Max Bauer and Crown Prince Wilhelm, Erzberger was instrumental in forcing the kaiser to dismiss Bethmann Hollweg. He had lost confidence in the chancellor and was not above allying with military intriguers for the common cause. Yet, in the end, Erzberger failed to replace Bethmann Hollweg with Biilow, and instead of the desired further parliamentarization he got the "silent dictatorship" of General Erich Ludendorff.
On July 23, 1917, Erzberger followed with yet another political bombshell. At a confidential meeting of the Center party in Frankfurt, he read a pessimistic prognosis of the war penned by the Austro-Hungarian foreign minister, Count Ottokar Czernin, for Emperor Charles. This report was leaked not only to the German public but also to the Entente, and although Erzberger was not personally found liable for this indiscretion, his opponents thereafter steadfastly accused him of having committed treason.
Erzberger had little influence under Bethmann's successors. He favored the peace settlements of Brest- Litovsk and Bucharest early in 1918, and on October 3 entered the government of Chancellor Prince Max von Baden as state secretary without portfolio. Erzberger desired neither the kaiser's abdication nor his flight to Holland. On November 6 he was appointed a member of the German armistice commission and five days later signed the harsh terms at Compiegne.
Domestically, in January 1919, Erzberger pushed Friedrich Ebert and Hugo Haase to use force to put down the Spartacist revolt in Berlin, and the following month he joined the cabinet, again as minister without portfolio. Convinced that failure to sign the Versailles Treaty would lead to further starvation and possible dissolution of the Bismarckian state, Erzberger in June worked both in his party and in the Reichstag for acceptance of the Allied terms, in the process becoming the most visible target for the right wing.
Erzberger served as deputy chancellor and finance minister in the cabinet of Gustav Bauer in the summer of 1919. In this capacity he implemented a drastic reform of the German taxation system, finally according the federal government the right to levy direct taxes such as those on income, inheritance, capital gains, and real property. In a devastating tract entitled "Away with Erzberger!" former Deputy Chancellor Karl Helfferich in 1920 accused the minister of personal as well as professional misconduct, of confusing private and state monies. In a celebrated trial at Berlin-Moabit in January-March 1920, Erzberger was placed in a poor light and as a result relinquished his cabinet post.
Reelected to the Reichstag in June 1920, Erzberger was most intimately associated with the armistice, the Versailles Treaty, and the Weimar Republic: on August 26, 1921, two former naval officers murdered him at Bad Griesbach in the Black Forest. The assassins, who had been recruited by Captain Manfred von Killinger of the Germanic Order, escaped to Hungary.
Matthias Erzberger had not been a politician with a grand design, but rather a shrewd and often ruthless political operator with a certain flair for the grand gesture. A man with boundless energy and ambition, he had for two decades placed his personal imprint not only upon the Center party but also on German national politics.
In 1900, he married Paula Eberhard, daughter of a businessman, in Rottenburg. They had three children (a son and two daughters).
