Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: Who was the first German president?
The presidential election ("Reichspräsidentenwahl") of 1919 was the first election to the office of President of the Reich ("Reichspräsident"), Germany's head of state during the 1919-1933 Weimar Republic. The constitution that stipulated a direct popular vote was not completed before 11 August 1919. Because a head of state was needed immediately the 1919 presidential election was held indirectly, by the National Assembly, on 11 February 1919. The winner was SPD chairman Friedrich Ebert, who beat former (Imperial) Secretary of the Interior Arthur von Posadowsky-Wehner in the first round of voting by 277 to 49 votes. Ebert was supported by the SPD, the German Centre Party and the German Democratic Party (DDP), the parties of the "Weimar Coalition", which held more than 77 per cent of the seats in the National Assembly. He became president of Germany.
It was only during the 1871 Unification of Germany that the newly unified German Empire was first assigned an official capital. Since Berlin was the capital of Prussia, the leading state of the new Reich, it became the capital of Germany as well. Berlin had been the capital of Prussia and its predecessor, Brandenburg, since 1518. Berlin remained the capital of the united Germany until 1945. However, for a period of a few months following the First World War, the national assembly met in Weimar because civil war was ravaging Berlin. In 1945, Germany was occupied by the Allies as the outcome of World War II, and Berlin ceased to be the capital of a sovereign German state.
Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in Germany in September 1919 when Hitler joined the political party known as the "Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" – DAP (German Workers' Party). The name was changed in 1920 to the "Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" – NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party, commonly known as the Nazi Party). This political party was formed and developed during the post-World War I era. It was anti-Marxist and opposed to the democratic post-war government of the Weimar Republic and the Treaty of Versailles; and it advocated extreme nationalism and Pan-Germanism as well as virulent anti-Semitism. Hitler's "rise" can be considered to have ended in March 1933, after the Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act of 1933 in that month. President Paul von Hindenburg had already appointed Hitler as Chancellor on 30 January 1933 after a series of parliamentary elections and associated backroom intrigues. The Enabling Act—when used ruthlessly and with authority—virtually assured that Hitler could thereafter constitutionally exercise dictatorial power without legal objection.
Only after Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck gradually built a unified German state under the Prussian royal house of Hohenzollern did "Kleinstaaterei" largely end in 1871 with the founding of the German Empire. (The only surviving petty states—Luxembourg and Liechtenstein—lie at the periphery of the German-speaking world.) The founding of the German Empire created a largely German nation-state. While the German Empire excluded the partly German but multinational Habsburg domains of Austria–Hungary, it included a substantial Polish minority in parts of eastern Prussia and other minorities along its northern and western borders. The unification of the German Empire put Germany on the map as a major European power, albeit too late to become a major colonial presence. Internally in the nation some of these fragmented boundaries and small political units continued to exist until the modern States of Germany were established in the Federal Republic after World War II.
In the German states, revolutions began in March 1848, starting in Berlin and spreading across the other states which now make up Germany. The heart of the revolutions was in Frankfurt, where the newly formed National Assembly, the Frankfurt Parliament, met in St Paul's Church from May 1848, calling for a constitutional monarchy to rule a new, united German nation. To form the Assembly, near-democratic elections had taken place across the German states; the majority of the members were Saxon democrats. On 28 March 1849 the Assembly passed the first "Reichsverfassung" (constitution) for Germany, and in April 1849, Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia was offered the crown.
On 1 August 1934, a new law stated that on Hindenburg's death the presidency would be abolished, and its powers merged with those of the Chancellor. From that day onward, Hitler would be known as Führer and Reich Chancellor. As head of state, Hitler became supreme commander of all armed forces. Hindenburg died the following day. (The new office was confirmed by a plebiscite on 19 August 1934.) Blomberg, on his own initiative, introduced the Oath of 2 August 1934: "I swear by God this sacred oath that I will render unconditional obedience to the Führer of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, the commander in chief of the armed forces, and, as a brave soldier, will be prepared at all times to stake my life for this oath." (In 1939, God was removed from the oath.) The Reichswehr was reorganized as the Wehrmacht on 21 May 1935, bringing the army, navy and air force under unified command.
Throughout the history of Nazi Germany, the "Luftwaffe" had only two commanders-in-chief. The first was Hermann Göring, with the second and last being "Generalfeldmarschall" Robert Ritter von Greim. His appointment as commander-in-chief of the "Luftwaffe" was concomitant with his promotion to "Generalfeldmarschall", the last German officer in World War II to be promoted to the highest rank. Other officers promoted to the second highest military rank in Germany were Albert Kesselring, Hugo Sperrle, Erhard Milch, and Wolfram von Richthofen.
Following the defeat in World War I, influence of German-speaking elites over Central and Eastern Europe was greatly limited. At the Treaty of Versailles Germany was substantially reduced in size. Austria-Hungary was split up. The former German-speaking areas of Austria-Hungary was reduced to a rump state called the "Republic of German-Austria" (German: "Deutschösterreich"). On November 12, the National Assembly declared the rump state a republic and Social Democrat Karl Renner as provisional chancellor. On the same day, it drafted a provisional constitution which stated that "German-Austria is a democratic republic" (Article 1) and "German-Austria is an integral part of the German reich" (Article 2) with the hope of joining Germany. The name "German-Austria" and union with Germany were forbidden by the Treaty of Saint-Germain and the Treaty of Versailles. German-Austria lost the territories of the Sudetenland and German Bohemia to Czechoslovakia, South Tyrol to Italy, and southern Carinthia and Styria to Yugoslavia and the rump state was renamed "Republic of Austria". With these changes, the era of the First Austrian Republic began. These events are sometimes considered to be a pre-"Anschluss" attempt.
Founded in the 1st century BC as a Roman settlement, Bonn is one of Germany's oldest cities. From 1597 to 1794, Bonn was the capital of the Electorate of Cologne, and residence of the Archbishops and Prince-electors of Cologne. Composer Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1770. From 1949 to 1990, Bonn was the provisional capital of West Germany, and Germany's present constitution, the Basic Law, was declared in the city in 1949. Berlin was re-affirmed by the Bundestag in Bonn as the capital of Germany, though due to the country's division a seat of government was maintained there - only in the eastern half - solely by the German Democratic Republic. From 1990 to 1999, Bonn served as the seat of government – but no longer capital – of reunited Germany.
Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I (Franz Joseph Karl; 18 August 1830 – 21 November 1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, and monarch of many other states of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, from 2 December 1848 to his death. From 1 May 1850 to 24 August 1866 he was also President of the German Confederation. He was the longest-reigning Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, as well as the third-longest-reigning monarch of any country in European history, after Louis XIV of France and Johann II of Liechtenstein.
Heidegger was elected rector of the University on 21 April 1933, and joined the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) Party on 1 May. In his inaugural address as rector on 27 May he expressed his support of a German revolution, and in an article and a speech to the students from the same year he also supported Adolf Hitler.
Albert Leopold "Friedrich Christian" Sylvester Anno Macarius, Prince of Saxony, Duke of Saxony, Margrave of Meissen (31 December 1893 – 9 August 1968) was the second son of Frederick Augustus III, the last reigning king of Saxony before the abolition of the monarchy in 1918. Upon his father's death in 1932, he became the head of the Royal House of Saxony. He was Captain à la suite in the Royal Bulgarian Infantry, and Grand Master of the Order of the Rue Crown, and also a Knight in the Order of the Black Eagle and Knight Grand Cross in the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. As head of the House of Wettin after 1932, he styled himself as "Friedrich Christian, Margrave of Meissen".
In 1949, with sovereignty regained the country split up into West Germany and East Germany. Berlin was also divided, into West Berlin and East Berlin. Originally, Frankfurt was to be the provisional capital of West Germany. However, West German authorities intended to make Berlin the capital if Germany were ever reunified. They feared that since Frankfurt was a major city in its own right, it would ultimately be accepted as a permanent capital and weaken West German support for reunification. For this reason, the capital was located in the smaller university city of Bonn as a more obviously provisional solution. Another factor was that Bonn is close to Cologne, the hometown of West Germany's first chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. East Germany claimed East Berlin as its capital, even though Berlin as a whole was still legally occupied territory, and would remain so for 45 years.
On 15 January 1990, the Stasi's headquarters was stormed by protesters. Modrow became the de facto leader of East Germany until free elections were held on 18 March 1990—the first held in that part of Germany since 1933. The SED, renamed the Party of Democratic Socialism, was heavily defeated. Lothar de Maizière of the East German Christian Democratic Union became Prime Minister on 4 April 1990 on a platform of speedy reunification with the West. The two Germanies were reunified on 3 October 1990.
Notable German physicists before the 20th century include Hermann von Helmholtz, Joseph von Fraunhofer and Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit, among others. Albert Einstein introduced the special relativity and general relativity theories for light and gravity in 1905 and 1915 respectively. Along with Max Planck, he was instrumental in the introduction of quantum mechanics, in which Werner Heisenberg and Max Born later made major contributions. Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays. Otto Hahn was a pioneer in the fields of radiochemistry and discovered nuclear fission, while Ferdinand Cohn and Robert Koch were founders of microbiology. Numerous mathematicians were born in Germany, including Carl Friedrich Gauss, David Hilbert, Bernhard Riemann, Gottfried Leibniz, Karl Weierstrass, Hermann Weyl, Felix Klein and Emmy Noether.
The capital of Germany is the city state of Berlin. It is the seat of the President of Germany, whose official residence is Schloss Bellevue. The Bundesrat ("federal council") is the representation of the Federal States ("Bundesländer") of Germany and has its seat at the former Prussian Herrenhaus (House of Lords). Though most of the ministries are seated in Berlin, some of them, as well as some minor departments, are seated in Bonn, the former capital of West Germany.
The Fifth Republic, France's current republican system of government, was established by Charles de Gaulle under the Constitution of the Fifth Republic on 4 October 1958. The Fifth Republic emerged from the collapse of the Fourth Republic, replacing the former parliamentary republic with a semi-presidential, or dual-executive, system that split powers between a Prime Minister as head of government and a President as head of state. De Gaulle, who was the first French President elected under the Fifth Republic in December 1958, believed in a strong head of state, which he described as embodying ("the spirit of the nation").
In November 1918, with internal revolution, a stalemated war, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire suing for peace, Austria-Hungary falling apart from multiple ethnic tensions, and pressure from the German high command, the Kaiser and all German ruling princes abdicated. On 9 November 1918, the Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed a Republic, in cooperation with the business and middle classes, not the revolting workers. The new government led by the German Social Democrats called for and received an armistice on 11 November 1918; in practice it was a surrender, and the Allies kept up the food blockade to guarantee an upper hand. The war was over; the history books closed on the German Empire. It was succeeded by the democratic, yet flawed, Weimar Republic.
German reunification in 1990 made Berlin the nominal capital of Germany again. This decision did not mandate that the republic's political institutions would also move. While some argued for the seat of government to move to Berlin, others advocated leaving it in Bonn — a situation roughly analogous to that of the Netherlands, where Amsterdam is the capital but the Hague is the seat of government. Berlin's previous history as united Germany's capital was strongly connected with the German Empire, the Weimar Republic and more ominously with Nazi Germany. It was felt that a new peacefully united Germany should not be governed from a city connected to such overtones of war. Additionally, Bonn was closer to Brussels, headquarters of the European Economic Community. Former chancellor Willy Brandt caused considerable offence to the Western Allies during the debate by stating that France wouldn't have kept the seat of government at Vichy after Liberation.
Franz Halder (30 June 1884 – 2 April 1972) was a German general and the chief of the "Oberkommando des Heeres" staff (OKH, Army High Command) from 1938 until September 1942, when he was dismissed after frequent disagreements with Adolf Hitler. During the invasion of the Soviet Union Halder insisted on focusing on Moscow, despite Hitler's objections. Until December 1941 Halder's military position corresponded to the old Chief of the General Staff position, which during World War I had been the highest military office in the German Imperial Army. Halder's diary during his time as chief of OKH General Staff has been a source for authors that have written about such subjects as Hitler, World War II, and the Nazi Party. In William Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", Halder's diary is cited hundreds of times.
The Treaty of Saint-Germain of 1919 (for Hungary the Treaty of Trianon of 1920) confirmed and consolidated the new order of Central Europe which to a great extent had been established in November 1918, creating new states and altering others. The German-speaking parts of Austria which had been part of Austria-Hungary were reduced to a rump state named The Republic of German-Austria (German: "Republik Deutschösterreich"). The desire for "Anschluss" (annexation of Austria to Germany) was a popular opinion shared by all social circles in both Austria and Germany. On 12 November, German-Austria was declared a republic, and named Social Democrat Karl Renner as provisional chancellor. On the same day it drafted a provisional constitution that stated that "German-Austria is a democratic republic" (Article 1) and "German-Austria is an integral part of the German reich" (Article 2). The Treaty of Saint Germain and the Treaty of Versailles explicitly forbid union between Austria and Germany. The treaties also forced German-Austria to rename itself as "Republic of Austria" which consequently led to the first Austrian Republic.
The first President of the Bank was Wim Duisenberg, the former president of the Dutch central bank and the European Monetary Institute. While Duisenberg had been the head of the EMI (taking over from Alexandre Lamfalussy of Belgium) just before the ECB came into existence, the French government wanted Jean-Claude Trichet, former head of the French central bank, to be the ECB's first president. The French argued that since the ECB was to be located in Germany, its president should be French. This was opposed by the German, Dutch and Belgian governments who saw Duisenberg as a guarantor of a strong euro. Tensions were abated by a gentleman's agreement in which Duisenberg would stand down before the end of his mandate, to be replaced by Trichet.
At the Heidelberg meeting and the preliminary convention ("Vorparlament") of Frankfurt he deeply impressed the assemblies with the breadth and moderation of his views; with the result that when the German national parliament met (18 May), he was elected its first president. His influence was at first paramount, both with the Unionist party and with the more moderate elements of the Left, and it was he who was mainly instrumental in imposing the principle of a united empire with a common parliament, and in carrying the election of the Archduke John as regent. With the growing split between the Great Germans ("Grossdeutschen"), who wished the new empire to include the Austrian provinces, and the Little Germans ("Kleindeutschen"), who realized that German unity could only be attained by excluding them, his position was shaken.
After being elected to the first German Bundestag, he relinquished his parliamentary mandate on 12 September 1949, when he was elected President by the Federal Convention ("Bundesversammlung") defeating the Social Democrat leader Kurt Schumacher in the second ballot. He took the oath required by article 56 of the Basic Law before a joint session of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat on the same date. By the time he was confirmed as the first democratic German president since Paul von Hindenburg, he refused to be called “Excellency”, preferring instead to be called simply “Herr Heuss”, "Herr Bundespräsident" is the German term of address up to today. Heuss's plans for a new national anthem were aborted by Adenauer, who – in rare accordance with Kurt Schumacher – had the third stanza of the old "Deutschlandlied" established in 1952.
After the election's first round Jarres withdrew in favour of Hindenburg, who was a committed monarchist and popular former general. Although Hindenburg had no interest in seeking public office and was especially uneasy with the prospect of becoming Germany's head of state, he reluctantly agreed to stand, supposedly only after first consulting with the deposed Kaiser. His major supporters were the DVP, the German National People's Party (DNVP) and the Bavarian People's Party (BVP). The DVP, and especially its leader Gustav Stresemann, had reservations about the idea of a Hindenburg presidency because of its possible repercussions for German foreign policy, but eventually came on board.