The Presidents of Germany: Difference between revisions
Steinmeier
m (added Category:Politicians using HotCat) |
Max Sinister (talk | contribs) (Steinmeier) |
||
Line 18:
* Richard von Weizsäcker—Christian Democrat. Former grand mayor of [[West Berlin]]. Compared to "a mixture of banker and church congress president". Proved to be very popular among all democratic parties, even the Greens, and was reelected unopposed. Presided during the reunification of Germany.
* Roman Herzog—Christian Democrat. Former head of the German Supreme Court. Became the candidate after Helmut Kohl's candidate Steffen Heitmann (who'd have been the first president from [[East Germany]] in [[The Berlin Republic]]) proved to be too conservative. Took three rounds to be elected, but he proved to be quite popular. Most famous for his "Ruck-Rede" (roughly: tug speech), criticizing the Germans for being too indolent.
* Johannes Rau—Social Democrat. Grandson-in-law of his predecessor Gustav Heinemann, in fact. And like him, a former member of the GVP. (His opponent from the Left Party was his wife's aunt - how ironic.) First German politician to speak in the Knesset, the parliament of [[Israel]].
* Horst Köhler—Christian Democrat. Former head of the IMF (International Monetary Fund).<ref>A position reserved for Europeans despite the [[Washington DC]] HQ, and an excellent shortcut to respectability; former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn was launching a Presidential bid in [[French Political System|France]] for much the same reason, and it seemed to be working: he seemed to be the only Socialist candidate consistently capable of beating the Sarkodile - but you know the rest.</ref> First president who wasn't a politician. Reelected in 2009, but quit just one year later for being tired - the first president to do so.
* Christian Wulff—Christian Democrat. Former minister president of Lower Saxony. He was accused of getting a loan from a businessman for better conditions, which tripped an avalanche of other accusations. When it got so bad that he might have lost his immunity, he abdicated after less than two years in office.
* Joachim Gauck—Independent. Former Lutheran pastor from [[East Germany]],<ref>which means that
* Frank-Walter Steinmeier—Social Democrat. Formerly Germany's Foreign Minister.
[[East Germany]] had a president until 1960 (only one office-holder, Wilhelm Pieck), then replaced that office with a collective council of state, which had a chairman.
| |||