Hugo Haase

Hugo Haase (1863 to 1919) was a German socialist politician, jurist and pacifist who co-chaired the Council of the People's Deputies with Friedrich Ebert during the German Revolution of 1918 to 1919. Born in Allenstein in East Prussia, he studied law at Königsberg, joined the Social Democratic Party in 1887 and in 1888 set up as a lawyer, the first socialist lawyer in East Prussia, taking clients mainly from the lower classes, journalists and socialist functionaries. He was elected to the Reichstag in 1897 and defended Social Democrats against politically motivated charges, among them the Königsberg secret society trial of 1904 and, in 1907, Karl Liebknecht, who was charged with high treason for his pamphlet Militarismus und Antimilitarismus. He became party chairman with August Bebel in 1911, opposed the war loans, founded the Independent Social Democratic Party in 1917, and left the provisional government on 29 December 1918.