Talk:President of Germany

message: Who is this Ashton Iommi listed as President from 1919-25? Looks like someone has been vandalizing the page and replaced Friedrich Ebert with some unknown's name.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.143.173.178 (talk) 19:25, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Right, that was vandalism. Friedrich Ebert is the right guy. -- 62.156.56.92 (talk) 05:40, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ashton Iommi? 

message: This is the text of the German wikipedia about Reichspräsident:
unmittelbar nach Hindenburgs Tod übernahm Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler auch das Amt des Reichspräsidenten (durch Volksabstimmung vom 19. August 1934 bestätigt), ersetzte den Titel "Reichspräsident" jedoch durch "Führer";
Means: direct after the death of Hindenburg, Hitler took over the office (Reichspräsident). Confirmed by plebiscite of 19th August 1934. He changed the title "Reichspräsident" into "Führer".
That is the reason for the reverting of the IP edit. --Gabriel-Royce 14:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Never Reichspräsident, reverted Edit

message: Given that, as the article states, Presidents in the Federal Republic are required to be non-partisan and drop their party affiliations, is it right to have parties and party colours featured on the list of Presidents? 172.215.89.16 01:44, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes it is, as this is serious information and not unimportant either. Although German political habit (no law, by the way) requires them to lead a non-partisan policy and to suspend their party membership for the time in office, at least winning the election is an even important political goal for parties, as can be seen in the election of Gustav Heinemann and to a certain extent even in the election to the first term of Horst Köhler. --77.4.66.158 (talk) 21:52, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Parties 

message: Why is Hitler not on the list of Presidents?
:Because he wasn't President but Leader. The Emperors are not on the list either, for the simple reason they were Emperors and not Presidents. Donnog 14:48, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hitler was a President, but a not vor long time. He became the Führer. --88.64.57.176 15:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

text: He was never President he was 'Führer und Reichskanzler'  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.164.245.147 (talk) 18:27, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Hitler

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BetacommandBot (talk) 23:22, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Gustav Heinemann.jpg

message: Why are the Presidents of the FRG given the title "President of Germany" during the period 1949-91, but the Presidents of the DDR are not? Either Germany had two Presidents (or heads of state) during this period (because there were two de facto and internationally recognised states on German soil), or there were none (because both the FRG and the GRD had no de jure status in the absence of a peace treaty). Both are arguable positions, but to say that the FRG was the only legitimate German state during this period is a political opinion. Intelligent Mr Toad (talk) 09:56, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I also think the GDR's status should be taken into account and have its own paragraph, with a link to the main article Leaders of East Germany. Wedineinheck (talk) 10:21, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't have the details readily to hand, but I believe the situation in Germany after 1949 was that while both the FRG and the GDR initially claimed to be the sole legitimate German state and legal successor to the pre-1945 Germany, the GDR ultimately dropped this claim and thereafter saw itself as distinct,separate entity. I can't remember which year this was, but it was linked to one of the constitutional changes. The FRG of course never dropped its claim to be the legal successor to the German Reich, a position which is now not disputed. To be entirely acuurate then, the list of German presidents from 1949 would need to have two lines, up until the pooint the GDR dropped its claim to be the successor to the Reich, or the office of President was dropped in the GDR - whichever was the earlier.   P M C 20:05, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: the Federal Republic still exists178.210.114.106 (talk) 10:09, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: FRG and DDR

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thread_title: Image copyright problem with Image:Theodor Heuss.jpg

message: Christian Wulff has been elected today, but his inauguration will be on Friday, July 2. I have corrected this in the top box, but do not know how to correct the timeline (cannot find the template).--SiriusB (talk) 19:53, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried to correct it in the text of the article. It's kind of hard to do when so many people try to edit.--Pbro en (talk) 19:56, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

text: @SiriusB: a) Fixed the timeline (FRIST!!11! :) b) You can change the timelines by changing the templates. The template used is given by double curly brackets in the article source code, here it is , which you can edit by going to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Timeline_President_and_Chancellor_of_Federal_Republic_of_Germany (generally: Put "Template:" before template name. HTH --Pbro en (talk) 20:13, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Sometimes it pays to read up before editing. Had I only done that. The Bundespräsidentenwahlgesetz (BPraesWahlG, Law on the Election of Federal Presidents) states in Paragraph 10: "Das Amt des Bundespräsidenten beginnt mit dem Ablauf der Amtszeit seines Vorgängers, jedoch nicht vor Eingang der Annahmeerklärung beim Präsidenten des Bundestages." Rough translation: The term of the federal president starts on the end of the term of his predecessor, but not before his declaration of acceptance is received by the president of the federal parliament. The term ended, and Parliament President Lammert has received his declaration of acceptance, so Wulff IS now president. Grmbl. But upside: I learned something today. --Pbro en (talk) 20:49, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Election vs. Inauguration 

message: The redirection should be from President of Germany to Federal President of Germany, thus the other way around from the current status. As said in the first sentence in the article, the official title in German is Bundespräsident, which means Federal President. There ist nothing such as the President of Germany, it is the German Federal President. -- Chtrede (talk) 06:02, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Federal President of Germany 

message: As there is no precedent it might be confusing, but Wulff became the 10th President of Germany upon accepting the election since the post was vacant. Previously, the election took place well in advance of the end of term (30 June since Lübkes resignation), leaving enough time to organize the transition (usually 1 July). (See §10 Bundespräsidentenwahlgesetz vom 12. Juli 2007). --Dodo19 (talk) 07:09, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  President elect 

message: The German constitution does not know the position of an interim or acting president. Seehofer is solely the president of the Bundesrat. As such, he carries out the duties of the President. But he is neither president, nor head of state. That may be a common misconception. This office is vacant. It is not justified to put a big picture of Seehofer in the infobox, because then it lokes like Seehofer were somehow the incumbent President of Germany. But he is not. Not by any means. Not even acting. --RJFF (talk) 19:14, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the Bundesratspräsident does fulfill the definition given in Acting president, even though he's not formally called thus. He's in almost exactly the same position as e.g. an Acting president of the U.S.. So I think Seehofer's picture there is acceptable, though I wouldn't mind if it is removed (or decreased in size) either. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 19:36, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I have not studied US constitutional law, so I don't know whether it's "almost exactly the same position". But I do know that it's exactly the same position as if the incumbent were abroad, or ill or in any other wise indisposed for some days. Do you then remove the picture of the incumbent and put the picture of the President of Bundesrat for three days, because he is "acting president"? No. --RJFF (talk) 19:46, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. The picture of Seehofer does not belong here - for that reason.--Boson (talk) 22:25, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture of Seehofer 

message: It seems odd to see the Chancellor referred to as the de facto chief executive.  The Chancellor's authority is clearly set out by the Basic Law, articles 64 and 65.  There is divided executive authority between the President and the Chancellor, but the Chancellor's authority is constitutional in nature;  not de facto. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 18:35, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The Basic Law (BL) gives both the Chancellor and the President many powers "de jure", but in practice only the Chancellor exercises these powers, while the president uses only the "reserve powers" while interpreting his/her other powers as formal. For example the BL gives the Chancellor only the right to propose ministers, while the President may appoint or reject them. In practice it is established custom that the President appoints any appointee and never rejects one. This makes the Chancellor the de facto executive leader in practice, while a hypothetical President exercising all his or her theoretical powers at his own discretion would take this status in question. Alektor89 (talk) 21:32, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: And the thing is, also that while the President is indeed usually counted among the "executive branch", it could also be seriously argued that this is in the main politicotheoretical tradition and that in fact his functions, such as he does have, have more to do with "hovering over the ordinary three powers legislative, executive, judicative" than with belonging to any of them. He does have executive functions; but he does also have legislative functions (signing laws, calling for the Election, declaring a "state of legislative emergency") and, sort of, judicial functions (giving a firsthand estimation on whether laws are constitutional; investing judges).--138.245.1.1 (talk) 15:55, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why "de facto"? 

message: As the recent edits to the article have been solely focused around the usage of pronouns on the page (with edits changing he/she to they or he to they and vice versa). To resolve this, and prevent a edit warring, I think it would be better to reach a consensus here. The views seem to be that, either:
*Gender-neutral pronouns (singular they/their) should be used, as per MOS:GNL, considering that there are no restrictions (as far as I'm aware) based on gender in relation to the presidency; or
*Male pronouns (he/him) should be used, due to fact that in the German constitution only male pronouns are used to describe the president.
I'm in favour of the former, but I'd prefer to reach a consensus, rather than undo changes which may leave people feeling disgruntled. So, what's the consensus? - ATeaAddict (talk) 09:10, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronoun usage