Gustav Bauer

Gustav Bauer

Gustav Adolf Bauer (6 January 1870 – 16 September 1944) was a German Social Democratic Party leader and Chancellor of Germany from 1919 to 1920. He served as Chancellor for a total of 219 days.

Born in Darkehmen (now Ozyorsk, Kaliningrad Oblast) near Königsberg in East Prussia, Bauer, who rose to notice through his leadership of a white-collar trade union, served from 1908 to 1918 as chairman of the General Commission of Trade Unions for all of Germany. A member of the Reichstag, Bauer entered Prince Max of Baden's government in October 1918 as Minister of Labour, a role which he continued to hold in the government of Philipp Scheidemann after the war. When Scheidemann resigned in June 1919 to protest the Treaty of Versailles, Bauer became Chancellor, serving until March 1920, when he resigned shortly after the failure of the Kapp Putsch.

Bauer resigned from the Social Democratic Party and the Reichstag in disgrace in February 1925, after it appeared that he had accepted improper payments in the Barmat Scandal and then lied about it, but was reinstated in 1926.

Bauer later served in the governments of Hermann Müller and Joseph Wirth.