Chancellors of Germany (Fall Grün)

From Alternative History

The title of Chancellor of Germany was officially Reichskanzler. In the 1871 German Empire, the Chancellor served both as the Emperor's first minister, and as presiding officer of the Bundesrat, the upper chamber of the German parliament. He was neither elected by nor responsible to Parliament (the Reichstag). Instead, the Chancellor was appointed by the Emperor.

This was only changed on October 29, 1918, with an amendment to the 1871 constitution. However, the change could not prevent the outbreak of the revolution a few days later. The new constitution of the 1919 Weimar Republic said that the Chancellor was appointed by the German President, but that the parliament had the right to dismiss a chancellor or any of the ministers. In fact many of the Weimar governments depended highly on the cooperation of the President, due to uncertain circumstances in the parliament.

Contents 1 Chancellors of the German Empire (1871–1919) 2 Revolutionary period 1918/19 3 Chancellors of the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) 4 Chancellors of Nazi Germany (since 1933)

[edit] Chancellors of the German Empire (1871–1919)

	Name	Took Office	Left Office	Party
1	Prince Otto von Bismarck	March 21, 1871	March 20, 1890
2	Count Leo von Caprivi	March 20, 1890	October 26, 1894
3	Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst	October 29, 1894	October 17, 1900
4	Prince Bernhard von Bülow	October 17, 1900	July 14, 1909
5	Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg	July 14, 1909	July 13, 1917
6	Georg Michaelis	July 14, 1917	November 1, 1917
7	Count Georg von Hertling	November 1, 1917	September 30, 1918
8	Prince Maximilian of Baden	October 3, 1918	November 9, 1918
9	Friedrich Ebert	November 9, 1918	November 11, 1918	Social Democratic Party of Germany

[edit] Revolutionary period 1918/19

On November 9, 1918, Chancellor Max von Baden handed over his office to Friedrich Ebert. Ebert continued to serve as Head of Government during the three months between the end of the German Empire in November 1918 and the first gathering of the National Assembly in February 1919, but did not use the title of Chancellor.

During that time, Ebert also served as Chairman of the Council of the People's Delegates, until December 29, 1918 together with the Independent Social Democrat Hugo Haase.

[edit] Chancellors of the Weimar Republic (1919–1933)

The Weimar Republic was established in February 1919 in defeated Germany and lasted until March 1933, when the state's interior was replaced with Hitler's so-called "Third Reich" (see Nazi Germany).

This first attempt to establish a liberal democracy in Germany happened during a time of civil conflict, and failed due to tensions between the right-wing and left-wing extremes, inflation and dissent among the general population because of the aftermath of their defeat in World War I and the Treaty of Versailles, which forced them to cede large amounts of territory to the creation of new states in Europe.

Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor on the morning of January 30, 1933. By early February, a mere week after Hitler's assumption of the chancellorship, the government had begun to clamp down on the opposition. Meetings of the left-wing parties were banned, and even some of the moderate parties found their members threatened and assaulted. Measures with an appearance of legality suppressed the Communist Party in mid-February and included the plainly illegal arrests of Reichstag deputies.

The Reichstag Fire on February 27 was blamed by Hitler's government on the Communists, and Hitler used the ensuing state of emergency to obtain the assent of President von Hindenburg to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree the following day. The decree invoked Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution and suspended a number of constitutional protections of civil liberties, allowing the Nazi government to take swift action against political meetings, arresting and killing the Communists.

The passing of the Enabling Act gave Hitler and his government sweeping powers to legislate without the Reichstag's approval, and to make foreign policy decisions and deviate from the constitution where they saw fit. Hitler would use these powers to remove all opposition to the dictatorship he wished to create. The decrees issued by Hitler's cabinet within succeeding weeks rapidly stripped Germans of their rights, removed all non-Nazi members of the Civil Service, and banned all other political parties and unions, ushering in the Third Reich.

The NSDAP movement had rapidly passed the power of the majority Nationalist Ministers to control. Unchecked by the police, the S.A indulged in acts of terrorism throughout Germany. Communists, Social Democrats, and the Centre were ousted from public life everywhere. The violent persecution of Jews began, and by the summer 1933 the NSDAP felt itself so invincible that it did away with all the other parties, as well as trades unions. The Nationalist Party was among those suppressed. The NSDAP ruled alone in Germany. The Reichswehr had, however, remained completely un-touched by all these occurrences. It was still the same State within a State that it had been in the Weimar Republic. Similarly, the private property of wealthy industrialists and landowners was untouched, whilst the administrative and judicial machinery was only very slightly tampered with.

	Name	Took Office	Left Office	Party
1	Philipp Scheidemann (Reichsministerpräsident)	February 13, 1919	June 20, 1919	Social Democratic Party of Germany
2	Gustav Bauer (Reichskanzler since August 14)	June 21, 1919	March 26, 1920	Social Democratic Party of Germany
3	Hermann Müller (1st term)	March 27, 1920	June 8, 1920	Social Democratic Party of Germany
4	Konstantin Fehrenbach	June 25, 1920	May 4, 1921	Centre Party of Germany
5	Joseph Wirth	May 10, 1921	November 14, 1922	Centre Party of Germany
6	Wilhelm Cuno	November 22, 1922	August 12, 1923
7	Gustav Stresemann	August 13, 1923	November 30, 1923	German People's Party
8	Wilhelm Marx (1st term)	November 30, 1923	January 15, 1925	Centre Party of Germany
9	Hans Luther	January 15, 1925	May 12, 1926
10	Wilhelm Marx (2nd term)	May 17, 1926	June 12, 1928	Centre Party of Germany
11	Hermann Müller (2nd term)	June 28, 1928	March 27, 1930	Social Democratic Party of Germany
12	Heinrich Brüning	March 30, 1930	May 30, 1932	Centre Party of Germany
13	Franz von Papen	June 1, 1932	November 17, 1932
14	Kurt von Schleicher	December 2, 1932	January 28, 1933
15	Adolf Hitler	January 30, 1933	August 2, 1934	National Socialist German Workers Party

[edit] Chancellors of Nazi Germany (since 1933)

At the death of president Paul von Hindenburg on August 2, 1934, the Nazi-controlled Reichstag merged the offices of Reichspräsident and Reichskanzler and reinstalled Hitler with the new title Führer und Reichskanzler. Until the death of Hindenburg, the army did not follow Hitler, partly because the paramilitary SA was much larger than the German Army (limited to 100,000 by the Treaty of Versailles) and because the leaders of the SA sought to merge the Army into itself and to launch the socialist "second revolution" to complement the nationalist revolution which had occurred with the ascendence of Hitler. The murder of Ernst Röhm, leader of the SA, in the Night of the Long Knives, the death of Hindenburg, the merger of the SA into the Army, and the promise of other expansions of the German military wrought friendlier relations between Hitler and the Army, resulting in a unanimous oath of allegiance by all soldiers to obey Hitler. The Nazis proceeded to scrap their official alliance with the conservative nationalists and began to introduce Nazi ideology and Nazi symbolism into all major aspects of life in Germany. Schoolbooks were either rewritten or replaced, and schoolteachers who did not support Nazification of the curriculum were fired.

The inception of the Gestapo, police acting outside of any civil authority, highlighted the Nazis' intention to use powerful, coercive means to directly control German society. Soon, an army estimated to be of about 100,000 spies and informants operated throughout Germany, reporting to Nazi officials the activities of any critics or dissenters. Most ordinary Germans, happy with the improving economy and better standard of living, remained obedient and quiet, but many political opponents, especially communists and Marxist or international socialists, were reported by omnipresent eavesdropping spies and put in prison camps where many were tortured and killed. It is estimated that tens of thousands of political victims died or disappeared in the first few years of Nazi rule.

	Name	Took Office	Left Office	Party
1	Adolf Hitler	January 30, 1933	-	National Socialist German Workers Party