  | 1895-1917 member of SPD
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  | 1915-1917 soldier in World War I
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  | 1917 desertion; member of the Spartacus League; 1918 exile in Holland 1918 co-founder of the KPD
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  | 1919-1946 member of the central committee of the KPD
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  | 1921-1928, 1932/33 delegate to the Prussian state diet
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  | 1928-1933 member of the Reichstag
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  | 1928-1932 member of the executive committee of Comintern
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  | 1933-1945 exile in France and the USSR
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  | 1935 chairman of the KPD in exile
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  | 1945 chairman of the KPD of the Soviet Occupation Zone ("SBZ")
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  | 1946-1954 chairman, with Otto Grotewohl, of the SED
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  | 1949-1960 State President of the GDR
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