He was born on 20 September 1875 in Buttenhausen (today part of Münsingen) in the Kingdom of Württemberg, the son of Josef Erzberger (1847–1907), a tailor and postman, and his wife Katherina (née Flad; 1845–1916).

In September 1914, he wrote a memorandum in which he laid out his view on Germany's war aims, advocating the annexation of Belgium and parts of Lorraine, among other territories.

That same day, leading deputies from the Majority Social Democrats (MSPD), the Centre, and the liberal Progressive People's Party agreed to form an Inter-Party Committee as a coordinating body, which was seen as the prelude to the parliamentarization of Germany and accordingly interpreted by conservatives as the "beginning of the revolution".

[citation needed] On 9/10 July Bethmann Hollweg obtained a promise from the Crown Council and Emperor Wilhelm II that equal manhood suffrage would be introduced in Prussia after the war to replace the Prussian three-class franchise which apportioned votes based on taxes paid.

Erzberger nevertheless succeeded in his main purpose in proposing the resolution, namely to persuade the Social Democrats to continue voting for war loans while a negotiated peace was sought.

The fact that he succeeded in creating a majority consisting of the Centre, the Progressive Party, and the Social Democrats is considered one of his greatest achievements, since this represented a fundamental upheaval in German domestic politics.

On the other hand, he became the most hated man among large sections of the upper classes and in circles that did not want to renounce annexations and rejected demands for a change in Germany's social and political structure.

[13][14][15][16] That same July, at a closed conference in Frankfurt, Erzberger revealed the content of a pessimistic secret report from Austria-Hungary's Foreign Minister, Count Ottokar Czernin, to Austrian Emperor Karl I regarding the state of the war effort.

[10] In March 1918, Erzberger was the most influential supporter in government of the candidacy of Wilhelm, Duke of Urach for the proposed throne of the stillborn Kingdom of Lithuania.

When, towards the end of the war, the German Navy mutinied at Kiel, the sailors informed their officers that what they wanted was "Erzberger", by then synonymous with "peace".

[citation needed] On 3 October 1918, Erzberger entered the government of Prince Max von Baden as a state secretary (equivalent to a minister) without a specified portfolio.

[17]: 113 As the head of the German delegation, he signed the armistice ending World War I at Compiègne on 11 November 1918 with the French representative, Marshal Foch.

He fell out with Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau, first Foreign Minister of the Weimar Republic, in early 1919 for advocating the handing over of Karl Radek, the Bolshevik diplomat and agitator, to the Entente following the collapse of the German Revolution.

After the elections for the Weimar National Assembly in January 1919, Erzberger entered the government of the German Republic led by Philipp Scheidemann, again as minister without a specified portfolio, but responsible for matters relating to the armistice.

[1] When Scheidemann resigned over the harsh terms of Treaty of Versailles and a new government led by Gustav Bauer took over on 21 June 1919, Erzberger became finance minister and vice chancellor.

[1] He also reformed and unified the previously independent state railway administrations into the German Reichsbahn,[2] which began to make a profit for the first time and helped pay the war reparations.

In his disputes with the political right, Erzberger set himself in particularly sharp opposition to the German National People's Party (the old conservatives), on whom he laid the responsibility for the war; the result was a personal dispute with the leader of the Nationalists, the war-time state secretary for the treasury, Karl Helfferich, who published a brochure titled "Fort mit Erzberger!"

The court, however, in its judgment of 12 March 1920, took the line that Helfferich's allegations regarding Erzberger's corrupt business practices and untruthful statements were partly justified.

During the trial, Erzberger was wounded in an assassination attempt by a young army ensign named Oltwig von Hirschfeld as he left the court on 26 January 1920.

[3] Hirschfeld, "recently subjected to compulsory demobilisation and determined to 'deal with' the most prominent of the 'Versailles traitors'",[22] fired two shots at Erzberger, the first of which "inflicted a shoulder wound, while the second was deflected by the minister's watch chain.

[22] Erzberger was once more returned to the Reichstag (which replaced the National Assembly) at the general election of June 1920, but in accordance with the wish of his party, he abstained from immediate participation in politics, as proceedings had been instituted against him on a charge of evading taxation.

In 1920, he published a memorandum endeavouring to justify his position during the war, and he followed it up with disclosures regarding the attitude of the Holy See in 1917 and the mission of the papal legate in Munich, Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII).

[3] Erzberger's power in German politics was based on his great influence with the Catholic working classes in the Rhineland, Westphalia, central Germany and Silesia.

In the industrial regions of these districts, the Catholic workers were organized in their own trade unions on lines of very advanced social policy, and Erzberger became the leading exponent of their views in the Reichstag and on public platforms.

[3] These attacks climaxed in Erzberger's murder on 26 August 1921 in Bad Griesbach, a spa in the Black Forest (Baden), while he was out walking with his friend and Centre Party colleague Carl Diez.

Erzberger was instrumental in preparing the German nation for peace and in ensuring that the Catholic Centre Party, the predecessor of today's Christian Democratic Union, retained a modicum of power in an increasingly radicalized Germany.

Despite military pressure on him to sign as soon as possible, this was pointed out for decades afterwards as evidence for the Dolchstoßlegende (stab-in-the-back myth), which portrayed the surrender as betrayal by the civilians on the home front, especially by Socialist politicians for personal gain, undermining the German Army's will to fight.