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.
| Name | Years | Type | Other Names | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Otto von Bismarck | 1871-1890 | chancellor | (Eduard, Leopold) |  |
| Leo von Caprivi | 1890-1894 | chancellor | (Georg) | |
| Chlodwig of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst | 1894-1900 | chancellor | (Carl, Viktor) | |
| Bernhard von Bülow | 1900-1909 | chancellor | (Heinrich, Karl, Martin) | |
| Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg | 1909-1917 | chancellor | | |
| Georg Michaelis | 1917 | chancellor | | |
| Georg von Hertling | 1917-1918 | chancellor | (Friedrich) | |
| Maximilian of Baden | 1918 | chancellor | (Alexander, Friedrich, Wilhelm) | |
| Philipp Scheidemann | 1919 | chancellor | | |
| Gustav Bauer | 1919-1920 | chancellor | (Adolf) | |
| Hermann Müller | 1920; 1928-1930 | chancellor | | |
| Constantin Fehrenbach | 1920-1921 | chancellor | | |
| Joseph Wirth | 1921-1922 | chancellor | (Karl) | |
| Wilhelm Cuno | 1922-1923 | chancellor | (Carl, Josef) | |
| Gustav Stresemann | 1923 | chancellor | | |
| Wilhelm Marx | 1923-1925; 1926-1928 | chancellor | | |
| Hans Luther | 1925-1926 | chancellor | | |
| Heinrich Brüning | 1930-1932 | chancellor | | |
| Franz von Papen | 1932 | chancellor | (Joseph, Hermann, Michael, Maria) | |
| Kurt von Schleicher | 1932-1933 | chancellor | | |
| Adolf Hitler | 1933-1945 | chancellor | | |
| Joseph Goebbels | 1945 | chancellor | (Paul) | |
| Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk | 1945 | chancellor | (Johann) | |
| Konrad Adenauer | 1949-1963 | chancellor | (Hermann, Joseph) | |
| Ludwig Erhard | 1963-1966 | chancellor | (Wilhelm) | |
| Kurt Georg Kiesinger | 1966-1969 | chancellor | | |
| Willy Brandt | 1969-1974 | chancellor | (Herbert, Ernst, Karl) | |
| Helmut Schmidt | 1974-1982 | chancellor | (Heinrich, Waldemar) | |
| Helmut Kohl | 1982-1998 | chancellor | (Josef, Michael) | |
| Gerhard Schröder | 1998-2005 | chancellor | (Fritz, Kurt) | |
| Angela Merkel | 2005-2021 | chancellor | (Dorothea) | |
| Olaf Scholz | 2021- | chancellor | | |
| Friedrich Ebert | 1918-1919; 1919-1925 | chancellor; president | | |
| Walter Scheel | 1974; 1974-1979 | chancellor; president | | |
| Paul von Hindenburg | 1925-1934 | president | | |
| Theodor Heuss | 1949-1959 | president | | |
| Heinrich Lübke | 1959-1969 | president | (Karl) | |
| Gustav Heinemann | 1969-1974 | president | (Walter) | |
| Karl Carstens | 1979-1984 | president | | |
| Richard von Weizsäcker | 1984-1994 | president | (Karl) | |
| Roman Herzog | 1994-1999 | president | | |
| Johannes Rau | 1999-2004 | president | | |
| Horst Köhler | 2004-2010 | president | | |
| Christian Wulff | 2010-2012 | president | (Wilhelm, Walter) | |
| Joachim Gauck | 2012-2017 | president | | |
| Frank-Walter Steinmeier | 2017- | president | |