President of Germany

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The President of the Federal Republic of Germany (in German, Präsident der Bundesrepublik Deutschland or simply Bundespräsident), better known as President of Germany, is the head of state of Germany. He is elected for a maximum of two five-year terms by the Bundesversammlung (Federal Assembly), a mixed body of the Bundestag and an equal number of members sent by the parliaments of the federal states ( Landtage ).

Tasks

The Basic Law confers on the presidency fundamentally representative powers to prevent the problems that arose during the Weimar Republic. In the election of the federal chancellor, the federal president can propose a candidate; however, this proposal is not binding on parliament. Any official act of the president requires the approval of the Federal Government and, unlike the Reichspräsident during the Weimar Republic, he cannot issue emergency decrees.

According to the Basic Law, the federal president is the representative of the entire State and, therefore, has to suspend his membership if he belongs to a party (which was the case for all federal presidents up to the former president Joachim Gauck, who was already an independent when he was elected). He is head of state and not of government, allowing a clear division of state and government, also maintaining political neutrality and to a minimum, real powers of action and decision, unlike the head of government, the Chancellor of Germany.

The federal president is in charge of signing laws so that they can be published in the Bundesgesetzblatt (Official State Gazette) and come into force. He can refuse to sign a law if he doubts its constitutionality; however, in this case, the other constitutional bodies (Bundestag, Bundesrat and Federal Government) could appeal to the Constitutional Court to decide the case. If the Constitutional Court decided the constitutionality of the law, the federal president would have to sign it or resign. Since 1949, only five times has a federal president refused to sign a law; and in none of these cases was the decision appealed before the Constitutional Court.

Only in some specific exceptional situations does the federal president have genuine political powers. He can dissolve the Federal Parliament (Bundestag) in two cases: If in the election of the federal chancellor no candidate achieves an absolute majority after three votes, the federal president can decide between appointing the candidate with the most votes to form a minority government, or dissolve the Bundestag and call new elections (art. 63 GG). However, since 1949, this case has never occurred.

In addition, the federal president can dissolve the Bundestag if the chancellor is faced with a vote of confidence and loses (art. 68 GG). To date, this has happened three times (1972, 1983 and 2005). However, all these dissolutions had been provoked on purpose by the Federal Government to make early elections possible, since the German parliamentary system does not provide for any other way to dissolve the Bundestag.

History

Weimar Republic (1918-1933)

Friedrich Ebert, first president of Germany

After the forced abdication of Emperor Wilhelm II and the proclamation of the German Republic on November 9, 1918, the head of state of Germany had the title Reichspräsident (literally, "President of the Empire"). According to the Weimar Constitution, he was directly elected by the population and had a large number of powers, including calling elections, appointing the chancellor, dissolving parliament and, above all, promulgating emergency decrees (Notverordnungen ) with immediate legislative value, although revocable by Parliament.

While the first President of the Reich, the Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert made discreet and moderate use of these powers, after his death in 1925, the elderly and politically inexperienced man was elected president Paul von Hindenburg, who had been chief of the German General Staff during World War I and declared himself a monarchist. When, as a result of the world economic crisis, in 1930 the grand coalition government between the democratic parties broke down, Hindenburg went to appoint Heinrich Brüning (Centre Party) chancellor who did not have a parliamentary majority, and began to govern through emergency decrees, dissolving parliament each time it threatened to revoke one of these decrees. Therefore, between 1930 and 1933, the real power of government in Germany rested with the so-called Hindenburg clique of advisers.

In 1932, Hindenburg was re-elected in the presidential election, defeating Adolf Hitler, his main challenger. However, in January 1933 Hindenburg appointed him chancellor.

After Hindenburg's death in 1934, Hitler also assumed the position of head of state under the title of Führer und Reichskanzler ("Leader and Chancellor of the Reich"), thus consolidating its power of totalitarian government. After Hitler's suicide, at the end of World War II, he succeeded Admiral Karl Dönitz for three weeks, until he was arrested by British troops.

Between 1945 and 1949, there was no formal German state, so there was no head of state either.

German Democratic Republic (1949-1990)

Standard of the President of the GDR State Council (1960-1990)

In the German Democratic Republic, the socialist state created in East Germany, the office of head of state only existed until 1960. After the death of the first and only president of the GDR, Wilhelm Pieck, in 1960 the Council of State (Staatsrat) as a collective body of head of State, following the model of the USSR.

The first President of the Council of State was Walter Ulbricht, who at the same time was First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. After his death in 1973, Willi Stoph was elected president of the Council of State, although he played a rather weak role against Erich Honecker, who had controlled the party since 1971. In 1976, Honecker also assumed the position of president of the Council of State, with which there was once again a personal union between the highest party and state officials.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the socialist regime under the short term of Egon Krenz, Manfred Gerlach, a prominent leader of one of the small parties tolerated by the socialist regime and a prominent leader of the socialist regime, was elected president of the Council of State. one of the first leaders who had demanded reforms.

After a constitutional change, the dissolution of the Council of State and free elections in 1990, Sabine Bergmann-Pohl was elected president of the Chamber of the People (Volkskammer), the parliament of the GDR, and as such also acted as head of state. However, her activity practically only consisted of administering the reunification of the GDR with the Federal Republic of Germany, carried out on October 3, 1990.

German Federal Republic since 1949

Although the position of federal president gives few possibilities for political management, the different presidents throughout the history of the Federal Republic did take advantage of their moral authority to set the political climate.

Villa Hammerschmidt, official residence of the federal president in Bonn until 2008

The first federal president was Theodor Heuss (1949-1959), a liberal who had already been a parliamentarian during the Weimar Republic. He marked the post in his supra-partisan guise and tried to win back foreign confidence in the new liberal-democratic West Germany. He refused to obtain a third term, for which a constitutional change would have been necessary, to avoid the creation of a "lex Heuss" and the personalization of the position.

In 1959, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer first announced his desire to succeed Heuss, though he later backed down and remained in office. In the end, Heinrich Lübke, who had a rather weak presidency, was elected federal president.

The election of the Social Democrat Gustav Heinemann in 1969 was an extremely political act, since he was elected with the votes of the Social Democratic and Liberal parties, a year before these two parties also formed a government coalition under Chancellor Willy Brandt. Heinemann repeatedly stressed Germany's liberal and democratic traditions, becoming one of the most respected federal presidents. In 1974, he stepped down for a second term.

This opened the way for the liberal Walter Scheel, who had previously been foreign minister in Brandt's cabinet. However, Scheel's attempts to politicize the position and meddle in current political issues failed mainly because of resistance from Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.

In 1979 Karl Carstens was elected, whose most important decision was to dissolve parliament after Chancellor Helmut Kohl purposely lost a vote of confidence with the idea of expanding his majority in a snap election in 1983. Although several Deputies complained against this decision, finally the Constitutional Court endorsed the Carstens procedure.

Richard von Weizsäcker (1984-1994) is considered one of the most important federal presidents in history. His speech for the 40th anniversary of the end of the Second World War is remembered above all, in which he defined May 8, 1945 not as the "day of defeat", but the "day of defeat". of liberation" from Germany. This was applauded internationally and by most of German society, although it was also criticized by sectors of the conservative right. In addition, Weizsäcker strongly criticized the great influence of the parties in German politics, something that can also be explained by his personal differences with Chancellor Kohl.

Bellevue Castle, official residence of the Federal President in Berlin, since 1994.

In 1994, Roman Herzog, until then president of the Constitutional Court, was elected federal president.

His successor was Johannes Rau (1999-2004), who started the tradition of making annual speeches on important current political issues (the so-called "Berlin speeches"). In them, he spoke of issues such as the integration of immigrants or the consequences of globalization, while avoiding attacks against active politicians. Furthermore, he was the first head of state to make a speech in German in Israel's parliament.

Horst Köhler, in office from 2004 to 2010, was the first federal president who had never before held a major domestic policy post, as, before being appointed, he had been head of the International Monetary Fund. His comments on daily politics tended towards pro-industrial positions, such as calling "insufficient"; the socio-economic reforms of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and patriotic: the phrase "I love our country", pronounced in his inauguration speech, was considered by many as breaking a taboo. In 2005, he decided to dissolve the Federal Parliament after a deliberately missed confidence vote by Gerhard Schröder, to make early elections possible. As in 1983, some deputies unsuccessfully sued this decision before the Constitutional Court. In addition, Köhler gained some fame for refusing in three cases to sign laws that he considered unconstitutional, something that had rarely happened before. Although the Federal Government, in theory, could have appealed to the Constitutional Court to force Köhler to sign them, it was decided not to pursue them.

After strong criticism that Köhler faced for his statements about Berlin's military commitment in Afghanistan, justifying the German military presence in the need to protect Berlin's commercial interests abroad, he resigned on May 31 of 2010, indicating that he had been misunderstood, and that his words did not refer to the unpopular German mission in Afghanistan.

He was succeeded by Social Democrat Jens Böhrnsen on an interim basis, until Christian Wulff took over after the elections on July 30, 2010. In 2012 Wulff resigned due to a corruption scandal, replacing him on an interim basis -President of Bavaria, Horst Seehofer (CSU). In the 2012 presidential election, the independent Joachim Gauck was elected.

In the 2017 presidential election, Social Democrat Frank-Walter Steinmeier was elected, taking office on March 19, 2017. Steinmeier was re-elected for a second term in the 2022 presidential election.

Presidents of the Federal Republic of Germany (since 1949)

President of the Federal Republic				Home	Fin	Party	Elections
	-		Karl Arnold (1901-1958) Acting President	7 September 1949	13 September 1949	CDU	-
	1		Theodor Heuss (1884-1963) President of the Republic	13 September 1949	12 September 1959	FDP	1949 1954
	2		Heinrich Lübke (1894-1972) President of the Republic	12 September 1959	30 June 1969 (renowned)	CDU	1959 1964
	3		Gustav Heinemann (1899-1976) President of the Republic	1 July 1969	30 June 1974	SPD	1969
	4		Walter Scheel (1919-2016) President of the Republic	1 July 1974	30 June 1979	FDP	1974
	5		Karl Carstens (1914-1992) President of the Republic	1 July 1979	30 June 1984	CDU	1979
	6		Richard von Weizsäcker (1920-2015) President of the Republic	1 July 1984	30 June 1994	CDU	1984 1989
	7		Roman Herzog (1934-2017) President of the Republic	1 July 1994	30 June 1999	CDU	1994
	8		Johannes Rau (1931-2006) President of the Republic	1 July 1999	30 June 2004	SPD	1999
	9		Horst Köhler (1943-) President of the Republic	1 July 2004	31 May 2010 (renowned)	CDU	2004 2009
	-		Jens Böhrnsen (1949-) Interimly assumed presidential functions	31 May 2010	30 June 2010	SPD	-
	10		Christian Wulff (1959-) President of the Republic	30 June 2010	17 February 2012 (renowned)	CDU	2010
	-		Horst Seehofer (1949-) Interimly assumed presidential functions	17 February 2012	18 March 2012	CSU	-
	11		Joachim Gauck (1940-) President of the Republic	18 March 2012	17 March 2017	Independent	2012
	12		Frank-Walter Steinmeier (1956-) President of the Republic	18 March 2017		SPD	2017 2022

Timeline since 1949