in front of Alexander's former home, Cimbernstraße 13, in
Berlin-Nikolassee Eduard Ludwig Alexander was born in
Essen in the
Prussian Rhine Province (now
North Rhine-Westphalia); his father was an office manager. He attended the Royal Gymnasium at Burgplatz zu Essen, where he received his
Abitur in 1900. He then studied at the
Humboldt University of Berlin, at the
Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, and at the
Université de Lausanne Jura, working from 1911 as a
Rechtsanwalt and Justiziar in Berlin. In 1917 Alexander was involved in the formation of the
Spartacus League and joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) together with his wife upon the founding of the party in the Communist Party in 1918 and 1919. Between 1921 and 1925, he was a city councillor in Berlin while simultaneously serving, under the pseudonym Eduard Ludwig, as head of the press service of the KPD and financial editor of
Die Rote Fahne. At Pentecost in 1923, he and his wife Gertrud participated in the Marxist Work Week (
Marxistische Arbeitswoche) and founded the Frankfurt
Institute for Social Research. In 1927 he was a co-founder of the
Marxist Workers' School, where he taught with
Hermann Duncker,
Jürgen Kuczynski,
Georg Lukács and
Karl August Wittfogel among others. In the
1928 election, Alexander was elected to the Reichstag, but was not allowed to run in the
1930 election as a member of the so-called
Conciliator faction. In 1931, he was elected mayor of the city of
Boizenburg with the support of both the KPD and SPD, but was not able to assume office due to a breakdown of the party alliance. Following the
Nazi rise to power in 1933, Alexander was
disbarred on the grounds that he was allegedly half-Jewish. Later the same year, he was appointed as an arbitrator for trade affairs of the German-Russian trading association. ==Personal life==