Bebel, BAY buhl, August (1841-1913), was a leading German socialist of the 1800's and early 1900's. Bebel was born into a working-class family on Feb. 22, 1841, in Cologne, Germany, and orphaned early in life. He became a woodworker and settled in Leipzig. There, Wilhelm Liebknecht, a German socialist, introduced him to the ideas of Karl Marx, the founder of Communism.