German President

The symbolic head of state of the Federal Republic of Germany .

He does not lead politics, but he has the following authority as the head of state.

According to the current basic law , the term of office is 5 years and can be reappointed only once. Instead of being directly elected by the people , members of the Federal House of Representatives , members of the Federal Senate and members of each state form an electoral college and are elected. Most German presidents are politicians , but as soon as they are elected, they customarily suspend their party membership and take office. Upon taking office, they are awarded the Grand Cross of the German Order of Merit .

As it is a country with a parliamentary system , the president does not have much power, but he can recommend and appoint a federal prime minister candidate to the Federal House of Representatives, appoint federal ministers upon the federal prime minister's recommendation, and order the dissolution of the lower house (and an early general election) in response to the federal prime minister's special move , a request to dissolve the House of Representatives. However, up to this point, in reality, it does not exert much power because it almost always approves the Prime Minister's request.

In particular, the reason why the German president is particularly powerless is because he does not even have formal military commander-in-chief. Even in a parliamentary system, the head of state is granted at least a formal military commander-in-chief, but the German president does not even have this as a reflection on World War II, and the commander-in-chief in peacetime is held by the Minister of National Defense, and the commander-in-chief in wartime is held by the prime minister.

Since laws can be implemented only with the approval of the Federal President, the most powerful power in fact can be said to be the exercise of the veto , but this is also not exercised carelessly and in most cases, it is approved as it was passed by the National Assembly. He said that if he happens to exercise his veto, there will be controversy over whether it was an appropriate decision for the president. This veto also takes advantage of the fact that a bill must be signed by the President to 'leave' the bill without signing, and there are cases where the bill was eventually signed later.[2]

As a result, it can be seen that it has little real power and only plays a role in visiting foreign VIPs, giving well-wishers to the people , and keeping a limited check on the monopoly of the executive branch ( cabinet ). It is literally the same role as the King of England .

The reason why the president remained only a symbolic head of state without real power was because the president's emergency powers were abused during the Weimar Republic and eventually contributed to the establishment of Nazi Germany . You can see this by looking at the history paragraph at the bottom. In order to end the Nazi era, Germany is constructing a political system that ensures that power is never concentrated in one person or faction .

In terms of etymological similarity, the German presidency can be traced back to the North German Federal Chairman (Bundespräsidium), but since it lasted only for an extremely short period of time and it is difficult to view the North German Confederation as a single country , in reality, it is first seen as the presidency of the Weimar Republic . At this time, the name of Germany was Deutsches Reich , so the president was also called Reichpräsident.

During the Weimar Republic, the term of office of the national president was seven years, and he was elected directly by the people ( runoff vote ) and was eligible for re-election. At this time, unlike the runoff voting for the two people with the most votes in countries with today's runoff voting system, it was unique in that it held a runoff for the three people with the most votes, and there was a possibility that among the three people with the most votes, there would be a person who would give up advancing to the finals. In this case, the opportunity to advance to the finals was given to the candidate who ranked 4th or lower in vote percentage. As can be seen from the example of Adolf Hitler , a naturalized citizen, running for president in 1932 , similar to most European countries, birthright citizenship was not considered. Since the Weimar Republic adopted a parliamentary system , the real power was exercised by the German Chancellor , and the President only had to exercise the ceremonial power of appointing the Chancellor and act as a symbolic head of state.

However, as politics became more unstable, the president functioned not as a leader but as a Kaiser elected through elections . It's because of emergency powers. If a cabinet was not formed in the National Assembly for various reasons, the president could invoke emergency powers and appoint whoever he wanted as prime minister. The cabinet composed solely of the authority of the president, rather than the cabinet formed by the prime minister elected with the confidence of the National Assembly, was called the 'presidential cabinet.'[3]

This authority was intended to prepare for emergencies and was not intended to be used frequently. In the Weimar Republic , until the rise of the Nazi Party, political parties from all spectrums from the extreme right to the extreme left occupied seats in parliament through a completely proportional representation system, and the cabinet did not have a majority. It was a time when people were playing politics with each other to the point of collapse, showing a microcosm of European diplomatic history. As the cabinet was not easily formed, the president often appointed the prime minister with emergency powers in the latter period. Therefore, the president of the Weimar Republic had very strong powers, unlike in a parliamentary system.

When the Great Depression arrived and Chancellor Hermann Müller lost the trust of the National Assembly, he asked then-President Paul von Hindenburg to appoint him as chancellor in the presidential cabinet, but Hindenburg only exercised emergency powers, dismissed him, and appointed Heinrich Brüning as chancellor. However, Prime Minister Brüning was soon kicked out due to a conflict with Hindenburg, who had actually given him power, and even though general elections were held, various political parties occupied a large number of seats and fought in parliament, so a cabinet was still not formed. In the end, the president found someone again, appointed him as prime minister, formed a presidential cabinet... and the country returned to this emergency system. Hindenburg, who was over 80 years old, did not want to be directly involved in politics, so he wanted someone to take over as chancellor and stabilize the political situation, but he did not like Brüning, and Papen and Schleicher were incapable. So, they looked for a talented person who could stabilize the political situation and appointed him as Prime Minister of the Presidential Cabinet, and that was Adolf Hitler ... This ended the Weimar Republic .

When Hindenburg died, Hitler became a ritual referendum and became a president who belonged to him , and soon abolished the presidential position.

When Hitler committed suicide, he resurrected the presidency with a will, and Sarangnits became president, but soon surrendered to the Allied forces , and the presidential office was abolished as the Allied forces decided to blow the Nazi Germany itself.

As the German Federal Republic was established in 1949, he was resurrected by the position of the Federal President, but the authority, such as emergency and military rights , was abolished and served as a symbolic enemy in Germany. The president may recommend the prime minister's candidate, but the candidate recommended by the president is required to vote for the parliament.

It is the only time in German history to wield the real power with the title of the president. And because of this, in the modern German Federal Republic, the president was reduced to a symbolic being.