 In 1905 the family moved to Ulm, and it was here than between 1911 and 1924 Roberta Gropper was employed in a cigarette factory.In 1915 she joined a worker's youth ("Arbeiterjugend") organisation, and became a member of a trades union in 1918.She was 20 in 1917, when the Social Democratic Party split, largely because of disagreements in respect of support for the government over the war, and she joined the breakaway Independent Social Democratic Party ("Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands" / USPD).