In the former states of Baden and Württemberg-Hohenzollern, defunct since 1952, the heads of state held the title State President (Staatspräsident).
Nevertheless, in Germany, it is common to refer to all sixteen heads of the states as minister-presidents, if they are referred to collectively. For example, the regular meetings of the sixteen office-holders are called Conference of minister-presidents (Ministerpräsidentenkonferenz).
Constitutional roles and powers
As the German constitution (Basic Law) defines the Federal Republic of Germany as a federation, each German state enjoys sovereignty, limited only by the Basic Law. The Basic Law gives the states a broad discretion to determine their respective state structure, only stating that each German state has to be a social and democratic republic under the rule of law (Article 28.1). In practice all German states have adopted some form of a mixed parliamentary republican system: Despite some differences between the individual state constitutions, the minister-presidents have both typical powers of an executive leader (for example appointing and dismissing cabinet members or defining the political guidelines of the cabinet) and typical powers and functions of a head of state (for example the power to grant pardons on behalf of the state and to perform certain ceremonial duties). As such, their powers and functions resemble those of an executive president, but in contrast to a presidential system, they are not directly elected and depend on the confidence of the respective state parliament. Thus, the constitutional position of a minister-president differs from that of the Chancellor of Germany at the federal level, who only holds the role of a chief executive leader, while the President of Germany performs the more ceremonial powers and functions of the federal head of state.
Even though all sixteen Minister-presidents hold roughly the same position in their states, there are also some important differences between the provisions of the state constitutions with regard to the head of state and government. This begins with the election procedure: All Minister-presidents are elected by the state parliament, but while in some states a majority of parliament members is needed for a successful election, in other states a simple majority (a plurality of votes cast) is sufficient. The same goes for recall procedures: In some states, the parliament may simply vote an officeholder out of office, while in other states the parliament has to elect a new officeholder at the same time (Constructive vote of no confidence). In Bavaria, the constitution does not allow a recall of the minister-president at all.
In fifteen states, the state constitution defines the minister-president as the leader of the cabinet, giving him or her the right, to determine the cabinet's political guidelines, but this is not the case in Bremen, where the President of the Senate and Mayor only has a ceremonial precedence over the other cabinet members. There are also differences regarding the Minister-president power, to shape his or her cabinet: While in some states the office-holder is free to appoint or dismiss cabinet ministers at his or her discretion, in other states there are limits to this power, while the constitution of Bremen does not give the President of the Senate and Mayor any power, to directly influence the composition of his or her cabinet.
vote of no confidence, but if the state parliament does not elect a new Governing Mayor within 21 days, the former officeholder is reinvested automatically
majority of members (first and second ballot), plurality (third ballot)
constructive vote of no confidence
guideline competence
full
yes
18 (de facto)
By virtue of their position in the Bundesrat, the Minister-presidents can exert considerable influence on national politics within the federal structure. Along with several of their ministers, they commonly represent their state in the Bundesrat (the German Federal Council). Each state government is represented in the Bundesrat by three to six delegates, depending on the state's population.
Deputies
The minister-presidents appoint one (or in some states two) member(s) of their cabinet as their deputies. In most states the deputy of the minister-president holds the title Deputy Minister-president. Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Schleswig-Holstein have a higher ranking First Deputy Minister-president and a lower ranking Second Deputy Minister-president. Bavaria has a higher ranking Deputy Minister-president and a lower ranking Additional Deputy Minister-president. Berlin has two equally ranking Mayors deputizing for the Governing Mayor, while Bremen has a Mayor deputizing for the President of the Senate and Mayor and Hamburg has a Second Mayor deputizing for the First Mayor.
Their duties and functions mirror roughly those of the Vice Chancellor of Germany on federal level. Most importantly, the Deputy Minister-president (or equivalent) temporarily act as Minister-president in case of the office-holder's death or incapacity until the end of the incapacity or the election of a successor by the state parliament. An exception to this are the regulations in the state constitution of Bavaria (Art. 44.3), which designates both the Deputy Minister-president (for internal affairs) and the President of the Landtag (for the external representation) as acting successors. Resigning minister-presidents normally stay in office as acting minister-presidents (or equivalent) themselves until a successor is elected. This is however not the case, if the reason for the resignation is some form of constitutional, legal or traditional incompatibility with an office, on which the resigning office-holder has entered: The Basic Law prohibits the President of Germany from holding office in a state government at the same time (Art. 55.1). According to the Federal Constitutional Court Act, the same applies to judges on the Federal Constitutional Court (§ 3.3). Simultaneous membership in the Bundestag or the federal government is not prohibited for a Minister-president (or other members of a state government) under federal law, but in some states (for example North Rhine-Westphalia) it is forbidden by the state constitution and generally it is not in line with political tradition. Therefore, office-holders elected or appointed to such office usually resign and refrain from continuing to hold the office of Minister-president on an acting basis, leaving that role to their deputy.[18]
Normally, such full replacements last only a few days or even a few hours, but there have also been cases in which such acting Minister-president have had to remain in office for a longer period because the election of a new regular incumbent had proved difficult; this occurred for example in Schleswig-Holstein in 1987/88: The state election on 13 September 1987 had resulted in a stalemate between the centre-right bloc of CDU and FDP, which supported the incumbent Uwe Barschel, and the centre-left parties SPD and SSW, each with 37 seats. Due to the weak election results for the CDU and above all the Barschel affair, a supposed election-fraud scandal, Barschel declared his resignation with effect from 2 October and died a few days later in a hotel in Geneva under circumstances that have not been clarified to this day. As a result, the previous deputy Henning Schwarz became acting Minister-president. Attempts to elect a new Minister-president in the state parliament failed because of the stalemate, so the parliament dissolved itself and early state elections were held on 8 May 1988. The SPD emerged from these with an absolute majority of seats and its leading candidate Björn Engholm was elected Minister-president on 31 May. Schwarz thus held office as acting Minister-president for 242 days.
Deputy Minister-President Max Streibl and President of the Landtag Franz Heubl (both CSU) served together as acting Minister-Presidents from 3 to 19 October 1988.
13 March 2018 resigned appointed Federal Minister of the Interior
9 years, 140 days
CSU
Deputy Minister-President Ilse Aigner and President of the Landtag Barbara Stamm (both CSU) served together as acting Minister-Presidents from 13 to 16 March 2018.
^Walter Momper was the last Governing Mayor of West Berlin. Due to the German Reunification Treaty, from 3 October 1990 on, he and the Lord Mayor of East Berlin were equal, collegial heads of state government for a transitional period until the formation of a new state government after the first state election in reunified Berlin. The Lord Mayors of East Berlin during this period were Tino Schwierzina (SPD, 3 October 1990–11 January 1991) and Thomas Krüger (acting, SPD, 11–24 January 1991). Since the unification of the previously divided city of Berlin in 1990 was, in terms of constitutional law, an accession of East Berlin to the area of application of the West Berlin state constitution, there is a formal continuity of the Governing mayors of (West) Berlin before and after 1990/91, while the office of Lord Mayor of East Berlin was separate from it and ceased to exist in 1991.
^On 1 January 1957, Saarland joined the Federal Republic of Germany as its 10th state. Therefore, Ney was both the last minister-president of the partly sovereign Saar Protectorate and the first of Saarland as a German state.
Anke Rehlinger, Minister-President of Saarland (incumbent since 2022)
One person has managed to become Minister-President of two different states, which did not merge into one another:
Bernhard Vogel, Minister-President of Rhineland-Palatinate (1976–1988) and Minister-President of Thuringia (1992–2003)
Two persons have been minister-presidents of two states before and after they had merged into one another:
Reinhold Maier, Minister-President of Württemberg-Baden (1945–1952), Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg (1952–1953)
Gebhard Müller, State President of Württemberg-Hohenzollern (1948–1952), Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg (1953–1958)
So far, there has been already one Minister-President from a recognized national minority: Stanislaw Tillich, who served as Minister-President of Saxony between 2008 and 2017, is of Sorbian origin and speaks Sorbian and German as his mother tongue.
David McAllister, who served as the Minister-President of Lower Saxony between 2010 and 2013, has been the first office-holder with dual nationality (Germany and United Kingdom).
The vast majority former minister-presidents have been members of Germany's two biggest political parties, the center-right CDU (or, in Bavaria, its sister party CSU) and the center-left SPD. However, several other parties (including all parties currently represented in the Bundestag, apart from the AfD and BSW) have at least once provided a minister-president.
^According to the Bremen state constitution, the Senate (the Bremen state government) includes two mayors, one of whom also holds the position of President of the Senate. The President of the Senate is the head of government (de facto), whose role corresponds to that of a minister-president in the other german states, while the other mayor is his or her deputy. Regardless, in informal contexts or in the media, the President of the Senate is often simply called 'mayor', although what actually matters is the title of President of the Senate.
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