»True to his mission at the most difficult hour«

A military site in the Iserbrook district is renamed after Friedrich Ebert (SPD) on 28 February 1965; the occasion is the 40th anniversary of the death of the first freely elected head of state in German history. In his address, Interior Senator Schmidt emphasises the concept of the »citizen in uniform«, which includes education in democratic traditions for the Federal Armed Forces that were formed a decade earlier. Schmidt cites Ebert’s virtues of »moral courage and human decency« – even in the face of the huge threat to the Weimar constitutional order from forces hostile to the republic. Four-and-a-half years later, Schmidt becomes the first Social Democrat to hold the defence portfolio since Gustav Noske held the role from 1919 to 1920.