Walter Ulbricht was born on 6th March 1884 in Brno, then part of Austria-Hungary. He joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in his youth and participated in the general strike of 1909. After studying law in Berlin, he became a lawyer and joined the board of the SPD newspaper Vorwärts. In 1912 he became a member of the Social Democratic Party leadership and its press chief
In 1914 he was drafted into the German Army and sent to the eastern front where he was wounded by a shell fragment at Gorlice-Tarnow Pass while leading a regiment in battle. In 1917 he founded an SPD group entitled "World Peace" within the party, which later became known as "the Group of Six." In 1918 he became a member of the German Workers' Council ("Räte"). In January 1919, during the revolution, he was appointed to be Minister for Justice and Police by President Friedrich Ebert.
While Minister for Justice, Ulbricht became acquainted with Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, who advised him against signing a treaty with Poland that would have turned East Prussia into a Polish province. On 4th April 1919, Ulbricht signed the Treaty of Versailles under pressure from General Erich Ludendorff, who threatened to resign from his post as Chief of Staff unless Ulbricht agreed to do so as well. In July 1919, Ulbricht visited Liebknecht's widow Gertrud Leuschner-Strassera at her home in Berlin-Lichterfelde and took part in her funeral service.
The plan shows that the twenty million people in the German democratic Republic and in the democratic sector of Berlin think only of peace, and that they are working for freedom and peaceful prosperity.Walter Ulbricht
The success of each of us benefits us all, and the success of us all benefits each of us individually.Walter Ulbricht
