Talk:List of presidents of Germany

Partitioned germany /Reunited germany

I´m not happy with this problematic division of the list, because it suggests reunited germany is a new formed state. Formally in 1990 the six new states only joined the federal republic, which kept on existing as before (just like the united states remained the united states when new states joined the union). The subdivision in "Bonn Republic" and "Berlin Republic" is only a (very controversial!) historico-cultural narrative, which has no constitutional foundation (and the caesura would be 1999 and not 1990!). I would propose the following structure of the article:

Contents 1 Weimar Republic (1919–1933) 2 Nazi Germany (1933–1945) 3 German Democratic Republic (1949–1990) 4 Federal Republic (1949–present)

The old structure follows a false and unscientific conception of german history, that should not be supported in an encyclopedia. I hope, I find your agreement to revise the article in the proposed form. Alektor89 (talk) 21:32, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Hitler

I don't think Hitler should be included in this list, because he abolished the title President. His official title translates into English as "Leader and Reich Chancellor" - "President" is nowhere to be seen. The page should be amended to suit this. 82.19.94.146

Although Hitler never claimed the office of Reich President, he did assume its duties following the merger of that office with that of Reich Chancellor (Reichskanzler) upon the death of Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg on 2 August 1934. After the merger of the two offices, a "Präsidialkanzlei" (Presidential Chancellery) under the direction of Staatsminister (Minister of State) Dr. Otto Meissner (who was formerly the top aide to von Hindenburg) was created to assist Hitler in the performance of his duties as head of the German state. Hitler was the German head of state de facto and de jure (due in part to the passage of the Enabling Act by the Reichstag in 1933, which authorized Hitler to, among other things, issue a law combining the offices of President and Chancellor) and it is therefore appropriate to include Hitler in this list, at least in mentioning the technical vacancy of the office of Reichspräsident between von Hindenburg's death in 1934 and the appointment of Karl Dönitz by Hitler in 1945. Cvieg 04:35, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you that Hitler's reign must be reflected. A list with an eleven year gap hardly makes sense and Hitler was "de jure" head of state (there's no such thing as "de facto head of state).

However, your explanation above contains one mistake after the other.

• Hitler did NOT combined the offices of Chancellor and President - he merely assumed the duties of the President, leaving the office (which also was not abolished) itself remained vacant.
• The Enabling Act did not authorise Hitler (more correctly, the cabinet) to combine the offices. In fact, the Enabling expressly forbad laws that would impair the existence of the President, the Reichstag or the Reichsrat. Str1977 ^(talk) 21:43, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Colour

Who keeps changing the color of Hindenburg into dark red (communist)? The appropriate color for a conservative politician is blue.

Moving this article

Two points about recent events involving this article:

1. It's not appropriate to move an article from one title to another by doing a cut-and-paste. You lose the article history and so it's against Wikipedia policy. (Moves should also be discussed on this talkpage first in case there are objections.)
2. I see no reason to exclude the information about presidents from the GDR. From 1949-1990 the East German heads of state are just as relevant as the presidents of the FRG. Leaders of the German Democratic Republic overlaps but it covers a slightly different topic because it's about all leaders of the GDR, not just heads of state.

Iota (talk) 02:02, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Why does this list even exist?

Honestly people, this list makes absolutely no sense at all. Comparing a Reichspräsident to a Bundespräsident is just as moronic as comparing a Roman Emperor to a Holy Roman Emperor. Yes, the titles may sound similar, but they're so very much not the same. In fact the fathers (and mothers) of the modern day German constitution went to great length to make sure that a Bundespräsident had virtually nothing at all to do with a Reichspräsident, much like the modern day Bundeskanzler doesn't have a lot in common with his Reichskanzler predecessors. Furthermore no - and I can't stress this point enough - absolutely, completely, totally NO German constitutional expert would ever draw a line from the offices of the Weimar Republic to those of the Federal Republic of Germany (or, for that matter, those of the GDR). Why? Because the Weimar Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany are two completely different political entities with absolutely no ties whatsoever. So could somebody please stop creating legal and/or historical continuity where it doesn't exist? Because if not, I swear to you: I'll start an article called "America" and put absolutely everything in there, claiming continuity from the native american chieftains to the British King and the President of the United States. Sounds crazy? Well, so is this list! --Eisenmaus (talk) 22:11, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Putting similarly named heads of state of the same state seems (and yes, that is the dominant view of German constitutional law - that there ist one nation state that existed since 1871), whose offices developed out of each other (which can be clearly deduced from the origins of the Basic Law of 1949), into one list seems way less moronic than shouting about it. Have fun with editing America. Str1977 ^(talk) 11:35, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Tell a German constitutional expert that there are "no ties whatsoever" to the legal system of the Weimar Republic... And I'd even think it making sense to make a list from Julius Caesar the Elder down to Blessed Charles of Austria and Hungary, and I think that Joseph Roth might emphatically agree. With a side note to the Greeks after 800. The French - though this may be a stereotype - wouldn't be all foreign to the idea of calling President Sarkozy a successor to not only St. Louis, Henry le Bon, Louis XVI or Hugo Capet, but even Charles the Great, Chlovis and Vercingetorix; and they as well wouldn't entirely be wrong. --93.133.219.196 (talk) 23:13, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Acting???

What does it mean "acting" next to the names of Hans Luther and Walter Simons??? 95.35.228.144 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 08:07, 30 March 2010 (UTC).

That they weren't presidents but merely filled in during a vacancy, the former being Chancellor, the latter being Chief Justice. Str1977 ^(talk) 21:45, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Should we include acting presidents in the main list? For the sake of completeness, I feel that we should. There is a separate table of acting presidents at the bottom of the page, but they are much easier to place if listed in their chronological place in the full list. I propose including them in the list like this. I suspect that RJFF may disagree. BartBassist (talk) 21:52, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I disagree. "Acting presidents" are no presidents. They don't belong in the list of "proper presidents". It's ok to have them in a separate list. --RJFF (talk) 19:45, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd like an opinion on this point (including acting presidents in the main list) from User:Sundostund, the list expert. BartBassist (talk) 21:54, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear I'm supposed to be the list expert :) If you want my opinion, I personally prefer to have all officeholders (regular and acting) to be included in the main list (better to say, main lists because in this case we have 4 of them: Weimar Republic, West Germany, East Germany and reunified Federal Republic of Germany after 1990). --Sundostund (talk) 22:26, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Excellent. Sorry, RJFF, two votes to one. I'm doing it. I'll colour-code it accordingly, to make the acting status quite clear. BartBassist (talk) 11:46, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but Wikipedia is not a democracy. We don't vote on content. Even if we would, a poll with only three participants would hardly be valid. Sundostund only argues with his/her personal opinion ("If you want my opinion, I personally prefer to..."). I argue with German constitutional law. The position of the "acting president" (he isn't even officially called thus) is too different from the one of "regular" presidents to feature them in one list. One more argument: while having them all in one list might benefit the completeness, it has an adverse effect on the lucidity. Readers will usually look for "regular" presidents and not for "acting presidents" whose time in office (legally speaking, they aren't even "in office") is only some days or weeks. The question on top of this thread illustrates that some readers might not properly understand the position of "acting presidents" and therefore confuse them with "regular" presidents if they are included in one list.--RJFF (talk) 16:44, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

RJFF, You're right, Wikipedia is not a democracy but it is a consensus. You can't push your own point of view when other editors reached a consensus to change an article, no matter do you like those changes or not. You must respect that fact. Next, I don't argue here just with my personal opinion, but with examples of other lists on WP which are modeled to include both regular and acting officeholders in one, main list (I wouldn't even bother to list here those examples, you can find them in all sort of lists on WP). Next, as you said according to German constitutional law, the position of the acting president is different from the one of regular presidents, but no one here try to present in the same way regular and acting presidents. Confusion about that can arose only if we don't have clear, understandable words in a list to distinguish regular officeholders from acting ones. As you can see, I remodeled the list to clearly distinguish regular from acting officeholders by naming their position as part of the list. Now there's no way that some readers might not properly understand the position of acting presidents and therefore confuse them with regular presidents. It is very clearly defined now, and I think it pretty much conclude this discussion. --Sundostund (talk) 23:14, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

The Saar

Since between 1949 and 1990, there were more than one states in Germany, I figure that the third one should be included, so I did...Ericl (talk) 01:29, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. While the Saarland was indeed a separate state of German nationality (just as Bavaria, Lower Saxony, Brandenburg), it did not claim to be Germany. It should not be included. Deposuit (talk) 11:24, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

IT should be included because it was part of Germany prior to 1945 and was again in the 1950s, it was within the 1946 borders of Germany and was part of the French zone of occupation. France did NOT want it to rejoin Germany because they coveted it resources, but they Saarlanders wanted in. There were three separate states within the allotted German territory which constitute the current Federal Republic. The four victorious powers recognized the two Germanies and the Saar in the early 1950s.Ericl (talk) 20:24, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

No it should not be included as - in contrast to the FRG or the GDR - it never claimed to be the state of Germany. The Saar is comparable to other German states like Bavaria or Hamburg that for a while existed without FRG or GDR as well. What you write about French and native wishes is correct but this doesn't make the Saar a third German state. According to your logic, we would have to include all 18 German states that existed prior to 1949 because Germany then was split into that many states.

Furthermore, list it as one would fix matters in regard to other states that at one point in time were part of Germany, then got separated but never returned to the fold. Talk Luxemburg, talk Austria. Should we rigg the list based on the hindsight that nowadays they no longer want to? The current territory cannot be the criterion, given that the list includes the much larger Weimar Republic. Deposuit (talk) 23:27, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Requested move 2010

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was move per request. I do see the point both sides are making on the "German presidents" vs. "of Germany", but discussion on that secondary issue is not extensive enough, so I suggest that if anyone feels strongly about it, a subsequent request should be made, where it can be focused on.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:58, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

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List of German presidents since 1919 → List of German presidents — As a list of all German presidents, including the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, East and West Germany, and Germany after reunification, it doesn't seem necessary to include "since 1919" in the article title. Other than the listed individuals, there have been no other German presidents; before the end of the First World War, Germany was an empire, and before that there wasn't a unified German state. Compare this with List of Presidents of France, a list which comprises French presidents of multiple republics dating back to 1848, when the presidency was created. City of Destruction (The Celestial City) 01:02, 28 July 2010 (UTC) Support per nom. warrior4321 05:34, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

• Support. Makes sense to me, even possibly uncontroversial. We'll see! Andrewa (talk) 07:32, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
• Support Makes sense. It's all going far too well so far! Skinsmoke (talk) 10:04, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Makes perfect sense to me. WP:NC states that article titles should be concise and only as precise as is necessary. "since 1919" is unnecessary as argued above and means the title isn't as concise as it could be. Dpmuk (talk) 13:59, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
• Support, the "since 1919"-part is not needed at all. Flamarande (talk) 18:06, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
• Support - sensible move but I request that this article should be moved to List of Presidents of Germany in line with similar articles such as List of Presidents of France and List of Presidents of the United States. Green Giant (talk) 19:32, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

That wouldn't work here. From the end of the Allied occupation in 1949 to German reunification in 1990 there were two Germam states, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, with two heads of states. Someone like Erich Honecker of East Germany was a a German head of state; he was not, however, President of Germany. City of Destruction (The Celestial City) 19:47, 29 July 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.92.117.93 (talk)

• I don't see why it wouldn't work. We already list the East German heads of state alongside the West German ones. Honecker might not have had the title of President but we can't ignore Wilhelm Pieck's term as State President. Green Giant (talk) 05:12, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but the point I'm trying to make is that (regardless of his title) Wilhelm Pieck and other East German (and West German) leaders were not heads of state of Germany, but heads of state of a smaller political entity. I just think its simpler to use the wording "German presidents". City of Destruction (The Celestial City) 22:11, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

• Support, don't see how the article got here in the first place. I'm not sure about "German presidents" vs. "presidents of Germany," but I do agree with Green Giant that I don't think the fact that there were two German states really makes the latter untenable. john k (talk) 06:41, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 08 August 2014

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 07:40, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

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List of German presidents → List of German Heads of State since 1919 – Hitler didn't use the title of president. 76.105.96.92 (talk) 00:05, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Oppose incorrect capitalization. I'm not sure an exception of 1 versus the general list is a good idea. You can create a redirect at your proposed name (with the capitalization fixed ) -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 07:40, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. There's no reason to rename the whole article just because one officeholder didn't use the title of President. Hitler's title, different from other officeholders, is clearly noted in the article, so there can't really be any confusion over it. --Sundostund (talk) 11:46, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. Re-titled the article, because of 1 entry? I recommend that we don't. GoodDay (talk) 23:04, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. We have List of English monarchs, not List of English Heads of State to 1707 despite the inclusion of the Cromwells, who weren't kings. The article just notes that they weren't kings, just as this notes that Hitler wasn't president. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Egsan Bacon (talk • contribs) 17:00, 9 August 2014‎

Discussion

Any additional comments:

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Who is the current leader of German Mukama Patrick (talk) 20:19, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 6 November 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved with uppercase President. (closed by non-admin page mover) feminist (talk) 07:20, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

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• List of German presidents → List of Presidents of Germany
• List of Portuguese Presidents by longevity → List of presidents of Portugal by longevity

– to match other list of presidents pages. עם ישראל חי (talk) 19:35, 6 November 2018 (UTC) --Relisting. Steel1943 (talk) 02:07, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

• Use lowercase for "presidents", per MOS:JOBTITLES and List of presidents of the United States by age, Living presidents and vice presidents of the United States, List of prime ministers of Elizabeth II, and various others. —BarrelProof (talk) 21:54, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

the lists of Presidents are mostly capitalized see here only the sublists are so i will change the request to reflect that עם ישראל חי (talk) 22:26, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

That might be true, but Wikipedia has a guideline that covers this – MOS:JOBTITLES – and it's rather clear about the question. Since we have a guideline, we should follow it. The other articles that don't follow the guideline should be changed to follow it (or the guideline should be changed). —BarrelProof (talk) 17:07, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support per nom, but capitalized. The move is needed for the sake of consistency with similar articles (List of Presidents of France and List of Presidents of Italy for instance). As for the capitalization, the President is a specific title and a Wikipedia Article is a proper noun, and in that circumstances capitalization is standard on English Wikipedia. On the other hand, head of state is not a title and it would not be capitalized... Also, I ask all the people who oppose capitalization to bring their "case" to articles such as List of Presidents of the United States and List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom. Once they "win" their argument on those talk pages and rename those two articles, they would have a clear precedent to do the same on every other similar article. --Sundostund (talk) 22:01, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support per BP and Sundostund - Better name however I agree there shouldn't be a capital P. –Davey2010^Talk 22:28, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support Where a specific title is used, then it ought to be capitalized. Collect (talk) 01:09, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
  • "Presidents of Germany" is not a specific title. —BarrelProof (talk) 01:49, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
    • President of Germany is a "specific title". We can have a "List of Oscar winners for Best Picture" but not a "List of oscar winners for best picture". Wanna say "Oscar" is not a proper noun? Collect (talk) 16:50, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
      • No, I think "Oscar" is fine. "Oscar" is a name. "Presidents" is not. The proper form would be "he became President of Germany in 1976", but not "he was one of the Presidents of Germany". —BarrelProof (talk) 23:18, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Why not? Are proper nouns decapitalized when written in plural? If so... why do we write: “Smith” (singular) -> “Smiths” (plural)... or “a European” (singular) -> “some Europeans” (plural)...etc. If “President of Germany” is a proper noun when written in the singular form, why ISN’T “Presidents of Germany” simply the exact same proper noun, only written in plural form? I don’t understand the reason for decapitalization. Blueboar (talk) 01:52, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

My understanding is that a proper noun refers to a single entity (as the article on the topic says, a proper noun "refers to a unique entity", not "a class of entities" or "non-unique instances of a specific class"), so the idea of a plural proper noun seems rather self-contradictory. Terms derived from place names (e.g., "Europeans" or "Madagascan serpent eagle") or personal names (e.g., "Smiths" or "Epstein–Barr virus") are capitalized for a different reason. —BarrelProof (talk) 17:14, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support with capitalization of both. GoodDay (talk) 01:27, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support but lower case for presidents - as Barrelproof states - it's not a specific title and not a proper noun.--Iztwoz (talk) 09:30, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support move - as to the capitalization issue “President” is one of those words that can sometimes be a proper noun, and sometimes not. The question is whether it is (or isn’t) in this situation. Blueboar (talk) 22:37, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support with lower case for presidents per BarrelProof's arguments. --RJFF (talk) 20:08, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support both as proposed. There is a clear consensus to move the pages but not so for the capitalization of Presidents. Both sides have strong arguments on whether to capitalize or not the word but per MOS:JOBTITLES, "President of Germany" is a special title, just like "President of the United States". Comparing with the similar pages, there is a pattern of having "List of Presidents of xxx" capitalized when it's just as simple as that (as in with no subsequent words such as "by age", "by longevity", "of Queen Elizabeth III", etc). It makes sense because when such words are included it makes the title seem more general, thus using the common noun instead of the special title would be more logical. Flooded with them hundreds 18:18, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: "Presidents" or "presidents"?
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Steel1943 (talk) 02:07, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

• Presidents - We have had this question repeatedly at RM after RM, to the point where it is becoming disruptive. The broad community consensus is clearly to capitalize. Go through the titles linked in Lists_of_presidents#UN_member_countries. In almost every article title that takes the form: "List of Presidents of X", we find that the "P" is capitalized. The same is true when this phrasing is used as a section header. The pattern of capitalization is overwhelming. That to me is a clear indication of broad community consensus. Blueboar (talk) 23:21, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
• Presidents – Per what I already said in my earlier comment, and other pro-capitalization arguments. --Sundostund (talk) 00:12, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:List of Presidents of Austria which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 12:46, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Hitler was not a president! No one would ever call Hitler a president, it's not even WP:COMMONNAME

Hitler was not a president!

No one calls Hitler a president, it's not even WP:COMMONNAME.

Altanner1991 (talk) 02:39, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

The article/list doesn't call him president. His proper title is given. It would be rather artificial to leave a 11-year gap instead of list of listing one of the most important (in a very bad way) heads of state. Str1977 ^(talk) 07:33, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Ok yes, and I compare it with List of English monarchs which includes the Commonwealth even though the Cromwells weren't monarchs. Altanner1991 (talk) 20:01, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Numbers of presidents

I think these are useless because they're unsourced and it is hard to count across Nazism etc. They should simply be removed. Altanner1991 (talk) 19:59, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Fully agree that numbers shouldn't be used here, as they aren't commonly used (unlike for US presidents). If someone disagrees, they should show many sources that care about this numbering. —Kusma (t·c) 21:42, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Such numbers are indeed never used. Removing all numbers avoids any temptation for editors to count presidents across the 1945 threshold which would be factually wrong. Heuss was the 1st Federal President of Germany, not the 4th President of Germany. Also, it is quite pointless to number the sole East German President as "1" and it would be factualyl incorrect to then continue numbering, making Walter Ulbricht a "2". Str1977 ^(talk) 10:14, 22 August 2020 (UTC)