The Scheidemann cabinet, headed by Minister President Philipp Scheidemann of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), was Germany's first democratically elected national government. It took office on 13 February 1919, three months after the collapse of the German Empire following Germany's defeat in World War I. Although the Weimar Constitution was not in force yet, it is generally counted as the first government of the Weimar Republic.

It was formed from members elected in January 1919 to the Weimar National Assembly, which was to act as Germany's interim parliament and adopt a constitution for the new republic. The cabinet was based on the Weimar Coalition of three centre-left parties: the SPD, the Centre Party and the German Democratic Party.

During its time in office, Scheidemann's cabinet had to deal with leftist uprisings, most notably in Berlin, the Ruhr and Bavaria, and with separatist movements in the occupied Rhineland and in eastern provinces of Prussia such as Posen and Silesia. By far its biggest challenge, however, was responding to the Armistice of 1918 and the Paris Peace Conference. The tension between the outrage at the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and the potential repercussions of rejecting the treaty led to the breakup of the cabinet. Scheidemann, who had called the treaty "intolerable", resigned in protest against it on 20 June 1919.

Gustav Bauer, also of the SPD, headed the Bauer cabinet that replaced Scheidemann's.

Following the collapse of the German Empire and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Germans voted in elections for the Weimar National Assembly on 19 January 1919. At the time, the country was governed by the Council of the People's Deputies, a revolutionary government made up of members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), which had been the largest party in the Imperial Reichstag following the last elections in 1912. The January elections returned a smaller than expected share of the vote for the socialists (38% for the SPD and 7% for the more radical Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD); the German Communist Party (KPD) boycotted the elections.

The National Assembly, meeting in Weimar because conditions in the capital Berlin were deemed too chaotic for the deliberations and because Weimar was associated with Weimar Classicism, acted as a unicameral legislature and the constituent assembly for the new republic. After its inaugural session on 6 February it passed a provisional constitution called the Law on Provisional Reich Power. Friedrich Ebert (SPD), chairman of the Council of the People's Deputies, was elected as temporary president, or head of state, on 11 February. That same day, Ebert asked his fellow deputy Philipp Scheidemann (SPD) to form the new government, referred to in the law as the Reich Ministry.

At that point, coalition negotiations had been going on for some time. The SPD was talking to the DDP and the Centre Party. It was making cooperation conditional on the acceptance by the "bourgeois" parties of a republican form of state, a fiscal policy that would "severely" target wealth, and a socialisation of "suitable" industries. Although the SPD did approach the USPD, Ebert reportedly said that he had conducted talks with the extreme left only so that they would bear the responsibility for the talks' failure. For their part, the DDP would not have accepted a coalition with the USPD.

The negotiations were difficult and lengthy. The presidency of the National Assembly was in particular hotly contested and almost caused the talks to fail. It was finally agreed that Eduard David (SPD), who was the Assembly's first president, would resign and in compensation join the cabinet, making way for the former president of the Imperial Reichstag, Constantin Fehrenbach (Centre Party) to head the Assembly.