Philipp Fries

Philipp Fries (9 August 1882 – 7 December 1950) was a German politician (SPD, USPD, KPD). He sat as a member of the national parliament ("Reichstag") between 1920 and 1924.

Life Philipp Fries was born in Roggendorf (Mechernich), then a village in the Eifel hills southwest of Cologne. His father was a railway official. He attended school in Roggendorf between 1888 and 1896 before training as a tailor. He then spent time as a wandering journeyman. He performed his military service between 1903 and 1905. There having not yet been time to organise elections, seats were allocated to the political parties at the direction of the military occupation forces, allocating seats to democratic parties in the proportions defined by the elections of 1932, which were widely considered to be the last free and fair election in Germany. Fries's own tenure was cut short in April 1947 when he retired from politics on grounds of ill-health.

He died in Cologne on 7 December 1950.