President of Germany (1919–1945)

The president of Germany (German: Reichspräsident, lit. 'president of the Reich') was the head of state under the Weimar Constitution, which was officially in force from 1919 to 1945, encompassing the periods of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany.

The Weimar constitution created a semi-presidential system in which power was divided between president, cabinet and parliament. The president was directly elected under universal adult suffrage for a seven-year term, although Germany's first president, Friedrich Ebert, was elected by the Weimar National Assembly rather than the people. The intention of the framers of the constitution was that the president would rule in conjunction with the Reichstag (legislature) and that his extensive emergency powers would be exercised only in extraordinary circumstances. The political instability of the Weimar period and an increasingly severe factionalism in the legislature, however, led to the president occupying a position of considerable power, legislating by decree and appointing and dismissing governments at will.

In 1934, after the death of President Hindenburg, Adolf Hitler, who was already chancellor, assumed the powers of the presidency as Führer und Reichskanzler ("Leader and Chancellor"). In his last will in April 1945, Hitler named Karl Dönitz president, thus briefly reviving the presidential office until just after the German surrender in May 1945.

The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany established the office of Federal President (Bundespräsident), which is a chiefly ceremonial post largely devoid of political power.

Constitutional definition

The governmental structure established by the Weimar Constitution was a mix of presidential and parliamentary systems, with a strong president as a kind of "replacement emperor" (Ersatzkaiser). Hugo Preuss, who wrote the initial draft of the constitution, intended the president to be above political parties and a counterweight to the Reichstag.