Chancellor of Germany

The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, is the head of government of Germany. The chancellor is elected by the Bundestag on the proposal of the federal president and without debate (Article 63 of the German Constitution). During a state of defence declared by the Bundestag the chancellor also assumes the position of commander-in-chief of the Bundeswehr.

Ten people (nine men and one woman) have served as chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, the first being Konrad Adenauer from 1949 to 1963. (Another 26 men had served as "Reich chancellors" of the previous German Empire from 1871 to 1945.) The current officeholder is Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democratic Union, sworn in on 6 May 2025.

History of the office (pre-1949)

The office of chancellor has a long history, stemming back to the Holy Roman Empire (c. 900–1806). The title of chancellor (Latin: cancellarius) was given to the head of the clerics at the Imperial chapel. The chapel's college acted as the emperor's chancery issuing deeds and capitularies. Eventually, the office of imperial archchancellor was given to the archbishops of Mainz.

In 1559, Emperor Ferdinand I established the agency of an imperial chancellery (Reichshofkanzlei) at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, headed by a vice chancellor under the nominal authority of the archbishop of Mainz. Upon the 1620 Battle of White Mountain, Emperor Ferdinand II created the office of court chancellor for the Archduchy of Austria. This office was in charge of the internal and foreign affairs of the Habsburg monarchy. From May 1753 to August 1792, the office of an Austrian state chancellor was held by Prince Kaunitz. The imperial chancellery lost its importance, and from the days of Queen Maria Theresa and Holy Roman emperor Joseph II, merely existed on paper.

After the 1806 dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire by Napoleon, Prince Klemens von Metternich served as state chancellor of the Austrian Empire. Likewise Prince Karl August von Hardenberg acted as chancellor of the Kingdom of Prussia (1810–1822). At the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna established the German Confederation as a replacement for the Holy Roman Empire, but this organisation did not have a government or legislature, only the Bundestag that represented the member states.

The modern office of chancellor was established with the beginning of the North German Confederation in 1867, after the Prussian Army's decisive victory in the brief Austro-Prussian War of 1866 over the rival Austrian Empire. Unlike its predecessor the German Confederation, the North German Confederation did have an office of Bundeskanzler (federal Chancellor), which was given to the Minister-President of Prussia Otto von Bismarck. In 1871 the North German Confederation transformed into the German Empire, with the federal chancellor becoming Reichskanzler (imperial chancellor). The office of Reichskanzler continued during the Weimar Republic (1918–1933).

In Nazi Germany the office of Reichskanzler was never formally abolished, but instead combined with the office of Reichspräsident. On 1 August 1934, the day before Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg's death, the Hitler cabinet passed a law merging the offices of Reich Chancellor and Reich President in the person of Hitler. This law came into force upon Hindenburg's death.

In May 1949, four years after the End of World War II in Europe, the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany, aka West Germany, revived the office of Bundeskanzler.

The reunification of Germany (3 October 1990) continued the Basic Law of the Federal Republic for the reunited German state, including the office of chancellor.

The role of chancellor has varied during different eras. From 1867 to 1918, the chancellor was the only responsible minister at the federal level. He was appointed by the Bundespräsidium, (i.e. the King of Prussia; the Emperor of Germany from 1871). The state secretaries (Staatssekretäre) were civil servants subordinate to the chancellor and similar to ministers. Besides his executive duties, the constitution gave the chancellor only one function: presiding over the Bundesrat (Federal Council), the representative organ of the various German states. The chancellor was also nearly always Minister President of Prussia, which was the largest and dominant state in the Empire. Indirectly, this gave him the power of the Bundesrat, including to dissolve the parliament and call for elections.

Although effective government was possible only in cooperation with the Reichstag, the results of the elections had at most an indirect influence on the chancellorship. By October 1918 on the verge of disastrous defeat in the First World War, was the Empire's 1871 constitution changed and reformed, to require that the chancellor have the confidence of parliament (as in the UK House of Commons and other European parliamentary democracies).

On 9 November 1918, Chancellor Max von Baden declared the abdication of the emperor Wilhelm II without having been authorized to do so by Wilhelm.

Wilhelm had left Berlin on 29 October to travel to Spa, Belgium where the Oberste Heeresleitung resided.

On 10 November, one day after the republic in Germany had been proclamated, Wilhelm fled to the Netherlands

and asked for asylum (that Queen Wilhelinma granted him two days later).

At the end of November 1918, his wife emperess Auguste Victoria left Berlin and travelled to the Netherlands.

Following the defeat a new post-war democratic Republican government was set up by the popularly elected Weimar National Assembly, which met in Weimar (Thuringia in 1919/20. According to the Weimar constitution, the chancellor was head of a collegial democratic government. The chancellor was appointed by the new president of Germany (Reich President), as were the subordinate ministers of various portfolios (departments / agencies) on the chancellor's recommendation. The chancellor or any minister had to be dismissed if Reichstag demanded it. As today, the chancellor had the prerogative to determine the policy direction of his government. In reality this power was limited by the needs of coalition governments of the several major political parties (and numerous smaller minor ones) plus the powers of the Reich President. Cabinet decisions were taken by majority vote. Under the circumstances, much like his French counterpart, the Weimar-era chancellor was as much the chairman of the cabinet as he was its leader.

On 30 January 1933 (seizure of power day), Adolf Hitler of the Nazi Party, the biggest party in parliament, was appointed chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg. Subsequently, the 1919 Weimar Constitution was de facto set aside. After Hindenburg's death on 2 August 1934, Hitler arrogated to himself the powers of the president. He chose the official title Führer und Reichskanzler (meaning "Leader and Chancellor of the Reich").

The 1949 constitution gave the chancellor greater powers than during the Weimar Republic of the 1920s and early 1930s, while strongly diminishing the role of the president of Germany. Germany has often been referred to as a "chancellor democracy", reflecting the role of the chancellor as Germany's chief executive.

Since 1867, over 30 people have served as chancellor of the North German Confederation, the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, West Germany and the current Federal Republic of Germany.

In communist East Germany (1949–1990), the position of chancellor did not exist. The equivalent position of head of government was called either Minister President (Ministerpräsident) or Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Vorsitzender des Ministerrats), which was the second most powerful position after General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (See Leaders of East Germany).

North German Confederation (1867–1870) and German Empire

The North German Confederation was created on 1 July 1867. According to the constitution of this federal state, the king of Prussia served as Bundespräsidium (in fact a head of state) and appointed a Bundeskanzler. This chancellor was the only member of the executive, the only responsible minister. Legislation was the task of two organs:

the Bundesrat, the federal council, as the representative organ of the German states that had joined the federal state;

the Reichstag, the federal parliament, representing the voters (male suffrage).

A law could only pass with the consent of both organs. The federal council was not considered to be a parliament or parliament chamber, as its members were not elected for a fixed period of time, but appointed representatives of the states' governments. Though, the two organs can also be described as upper house and lower house since they shared the task of legislation.

After the south German states had joined the federal state in 1870/71, during the war against France, the North German Confederation transformed into the Deutsches Reich or German Empire. At this occasion, the term Bundeskanzler was recoined as Reichskanzler, and the king of Prussia was given the title of emperor additionally. The political system remained largely the same.

Otto von Bismarck was (from 1862) Prime Minister of Prussia, the largest state in the Confederation. He retained this office and used it to set up the new federal state; he was not interested in a fully developed federal executive with cabinet ministers acting independently. But Bismarck also had another reason to remain Prime Minister of Prussia.

According to the constitution, the chancellor was only a federal minister and presided over the Bundesrat. As chancellor, his powers were limited because he could not introduce bills, speak in parliament or dismiss parliament (which the Prussian government could do in Prussia, for example). As chairman of the Bundesrat, he had no voting rights.

It therefore made sense for Bismarck to hold both offices, at federal and state level:

In Prussia, he was appointed Prussian foreign minister and Prussian minister president at the same time (the minister president was always one of the cabinet ministers responsible for a ministry).

As the most powerful politician in Prussia, he had a decisive influence on Prussian votes in the Bundesrat.

Prussia had 17 votes in the Bundesrat. Although this was not the majority, it was the largest vote of any single state. The Prussian vote usually became the basis for a majority in the Bundesrat, as Prussia only needed a few of the other states to join its position.

Through this bundling of offices, chancellor Bismarck used the power of the federal council to govern. As a member of the federal council, he had speaking rights in the parliament. He de facto introduced draft bills into the legislative process. Thanks to the federal council he could, with the approval of the emperor, dismiss parliament and call for new elections. Likewise, most of Bismarck's successors were chancellor and prime minister at the same time, although the constitution never asked for this combination.

In 1878, a new law (Stellvertretungsgesetz) installed the office of Staatssekretär. The chancellor was given the opportunity to formally install state secretaries to represent him and sign for him (contraseign). The chancellor, though, could overrule any of them any time. The office of State Secretary did not formally evolve into a cabinet minister. In practice, however, state secretaries acted in a similar way to ministers in other countries.

The constitution of the German Empire was reformed on 29 October 1918, when the parliament (Reichstag) was given the right to dismiss the chancellor. The reform was obviously too little too late to prevent the outbreak of revolution (Kiel mutiny) on 3 November 1918.

Revolutionary period (1918–1919)

On 9 November 1918, chancellor Prince Maximilian of Baden handed over his office of chancellor to the leader of the Majority Social Democrats, Friedrich Ebert. Ebert continued to serve as head of government during the three months between the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the end of the German Empire in November 1918, the beginning of the November 11, 1918, Armistice, and the first gathering behind the Western Front battle lines and trenches of the new National Assembly of the German Republic (Weimar Republic) several months later in the town of Weimar, in February 1919, but Ebert only occasionally signed as chancellor.

During that time, Ebert also served as chairman of the "Council of the People's Deputies", until on 29 December 1918 together with the allied Independent Social Democrat party leader Hugo Haase. This council de facto took over the roles of emperor, parliament and federal council.

The council called for the election of a constituent assembly on 19 January 1919.

Weimar Republic (1919–1933)

The office of chancellor (Reichskanzler) was continued in the Weimar Republic. The Weimar Constitution provided for a two-part executive consisting of a Reich president and a government made up of Reich ministers and a Reich chancellor (Article 52) who determined the guidelines of the government's policy (Article 56).

The constitution stipulated that the president appoint and dismiss the chancellor and ministers. The ministers were appointed by the president on the recommendation of the chancellor (Article 53), and members of the government required the confidence of the Reichstag (Article 54). The provisions gave rise to the question of who in fact was responsible for forming the government.

Constitutional law expert Ernst Rudolf Huber said that the constitution had tacitly assumed that the president would have discussions with party leaders in the Reichstag before he made ministerial appointments. Based on these talks, the president would get a sense of which potential chancellor would be able to build a stable majority in the Reichstag. According to the sense of the Weimar Constitution, the president was thus to have the initiative. The task of putting together the Reich government was nevertheless the responsibility of the chancellor. The president could not appoint anyone as minister whom the chancellor had not proposed.

The chancellor alone had to answer to the Reichstag and the president for the policy guidelines, and he determined whether the conduct of business by the individual Reich ministries conformed to the guidelines. The government's decisions required a majority vote of the ministers, who sitting together were known as the National Ministry (Article 58). The chancellor could therefore be outvoted, as could a department minister. The chancellor presided over the government, and he had to conduct business in accordance with given rules of procedure.

In practice the Reich chancellor's power to determine political guidelines was limited by his own party as well as the other parties in the governing coalition. The Weimar chancellors were accordingly men whose strength lay in mediation rather than political initiative. Constitutionally, there was also the fact that the president had certain special rights. The actions of the president required the countersignature of the chancellor or the minister or ministers concerned, but the president always had to be informed about matters of foreign and defence policy.

The Reichstag could call for the dismissal of any member of the government, including the chancellor. Under Articles 54 and 59, the Reichstag could also impeach the chancellor as well as the ministers and the president before the State Court for the German Reich (Staatsgerichtshof für das Deutsche Reich), the Weimar Republic's constitutional court.

Nazi Germany (1933–1945)

Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933 by Paul von Hindenburg. On taking office, Hitler immediately began accumulating power and changing the nature of the chancellorship. After only two months in office, and following the burning of the Reichstag building, the parliament passed the Enabling Act giving the chancellor full legislative powers for a period of four years – the cabinet could introduce any law without consent of parliament.

Technically, however, Hindenburg was able to dismiss the chancellor. On 1 August 1934, when Hindenburg was already ill and expected to die in the near future, Hitler used the Enabling Act to pass a new law, which came into force one day later. This law on the head of state stated that the offices of Reich chancellor and Reich president would "merge" and that the powers of the Reich president would be transferred to the "Leader and Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler". This can be interpreted as the abolition of the office of president; a president had to be elected every seven years, which was not in Hitler's interests. Hindenburg died on the same day, 2 August 1934.

In April 1945, Hitler gave instruction that upon his death, the office of the Führer would dissolve and be replaced by the previous system of administration: that of the office of the president separate from that of chancellor. On 30 April 1945, when Hitler committed suicide, he was briefly succeeded as Chancellor by Joseph Goebbels and as President of Germany by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz. When Goebbels also committed suicide, Dönitz did not appoint a successor as Chancellor, instead appointing Count Schwerin von Krosigk as head of government with the title "Leading Minister".

Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (1949–present)

The 1949 German constitution, the Basic Law (Grundgesetz), invests the chancellor (German, Bundeskanzler) with broad powers to initiate government policy. For that reason, some observers refer to the German political system as a "chancellor democracy". Even though the office of chancellor is often considered the most powerful in the German political system and is seen as such within the German public, it is only the third highest office, following the head of state (the president of Germany) and the president of the Bundestag, a position similar to the speaker of the federal parliament.

Whichever major party (historically, CDU/CSU or SPD) does not hold the chancellorship usually calls its leading candidate for the federal election "chancellor-candidate" (Kanzlerkandidat). The federal government (Bundesregierung) consists of the chancellor and cabinet ministers.

Role

The chancellor's authority emanates from the provisions of the Basic Law and in practice from their status as leader of the party (or coalition of parties) holding a majority of seats in the Bundestag (federal parliament). With the exception of Helmut Schmidt and Olaf Scholz, the chancellor has also been chairman of their own party. This was the case with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder from 1999 until he resigned the chairmanship of the SPD in 2004.

The first chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, set many precedents that continue today and established the chancellorship as the clear focus of power in Germany. Under the provisions of the Basic Law giving him the power to set guidelines for all fields of policy, Adenauer arrogated nearly all major decisions to himself. He often treated his ministers as mere extensions of his authority rather than colleagues. While his successors have tended to be less domineering, the chancellor has acquired enough ex officio authority (in addition to their constitutional powers) that Germany is often described by constitutional law experts as a "chancellor democracy".

The chancellor determines the composition of the Federal Cabinet. The president formally appoints and dismisses cabinet ministers, on the recommendation of the chancellor; no parliamentary approval is needed. According to the Basic Law, the chancellor may set the number of cabinet ministers and dictate their specific duties. Chancellor Ludwig Erhard had the largest cabinet, with 22 ministers, in the mid-1960s. Helmut Kohl presided over 17 ministers at the start of his fourth term in 1994; the 2002 cabinet, the second of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, had 13 ministers, and the Angela Merkel cabinet as of 22 November 2005 had 15.

Article 65 of the Basic Law sets forth three principles that define how the executive branch functions: