German Chancellors and Presidents

This list is comprised of German Chancellors and Presidents. The Chancellor is the head of the government. Germany was unified in 1871, with the Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck becoming the first Chancellor.

The President is the official head of state. The office was established in 1919 during the Weimar Republic and re-established in 1949 in West Germany.

In German the Chancellor was originally called Reichskanzler meaning "imperial chancellor". Since 1949 the title is Bundeskanzler meaning "federal chancellor" (the first female chancellor, Angela Merkel, has the title Bundeskanzlerin). Likewise, the President was originally Reichspräsident and then Bundespräsident after 1949.

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NameYearsTypeOther Names
Otto von Bismarck1871-1890chancellor
Leo von Caprivi1890-1894chancellor
Chlodwig of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst1894-1900chancellor
Bernhard von Bülow1900-1909chancellor
Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg1909-1917chancellor
Georg Michaelis1917chancellor
Georg von Hertling1917-1918chancellor
Maximilian of Baden1918chancellor
Friedrich Ebert1918-1919; 1919-1925chancellor; president
Philipp Scheidemann1919chancellor
Gustav Bauer1919-1920chancellor
Hermann Müller1920; 1928-1930chancellor
Constantin Fehrenbach1920-1921chancellor
Joseph Wirth1921-1922chancellor
Wilhelm Cuno1922-1923chancellor
Gustav Stresemann1923chancellor
Wilhelm Marx1923-1925; 1926-1928chancellor
Paul von Hindenburg1925-1934president
Hans Luther1925-1926chancellor
Heinrich Brüning1930-1932chancellor
Franz von Papen1932chancellor
Kurt von Schleicher1932-1933chancellor
Adolf Hitler1933-1945chancellor
Joseph Goebbels1945chancellor
Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk1945chancellor
Theodor Heuss1949-1959president
Konrad Adenauer1949-1963chancellor
Heinrich Lübke1959-1969president
Ludwig Erhard1963-1966chancellor
Kurt Georg Kiesinger1966-1969chancellor
Gustav Heinemann1969-1974president
Willy Brandt1969-1974chancellor(Frahm)
Walter Scheel1974; 1974-1979chancellor; president
Helmut Schmidt 1974-1982chancellor
Karl Carstens1979-1984president
Helmut Kohl1982-1998chancellor
Richard von Weizsäcker1984-1994president
Roman Herzog1994-1999president
Gerhard Schröder1998-2005chancellor
Johannes Rau1999-2004president
Horst Köhler2004-2010president
Angela Merkel2005-2021chancellor(Kasner)
Christian Wulff2010-2012president
Joachim Gauck2012-2017president
Frank-Walter Steinmeier2017-president
Olaf Scholz2021-chancellor