The Free Democratic Party is a liberal political party in Germany.
Curt Ernst Carl Schumacher, better known as Kurt Schumacher, was a German politician and resistance fighter against the Nazis. He was chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany from 1946 and the first Leader of the Opposition in the West German Bundestag in 1949; he served in both positions until his death.
Otto Ernst Heinrich Hermann Suhr was a German politician as a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). He served as the Governing Mayor of Berlin from 1955 until his death.
Federal elections were held in West Germany on 14 August 1949 to elect the members of the first Bundestag, with a further eight seats elected in West Berlin between 1949 and January 1952 and another eleven between February 1952 and 1953. They were the first free federal elections in West Germany since 1933 and the first after the division of the country.
The Mayor of Frankfurt is the highest-ranking member of city government in Frankfurt, Germany. The mayor was traditionally elected by the city council. This system was replaced in 1995, and the position has been directly elected. Three people have won election since then: Petra Roth (CDU), Peter Feldmann (SPD) and Mike Josef (SPD). In November 2022, following a successful recall election against Feldmann, Nargess Eskandari-Grünberg (Green) was the interim mayor of Frankfurt for six months. Current mayor Mike Josef (SPD) assumed the office in May 2023 following the election with 51.7% of the votes against the CDU candidate Uwe Becker.
Eberhard Diepgen is a German lawyer and politician who served as Mayor of West Berlin from 1984 to 1989 and again as Mayor of (united) Berlin, from 1991 until 2001, as member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
Walter Momper is a German politician of the SPD and former Governing Mayor of Berlin. Whilst Governing Mayor, he served as President of the Bundesrat in 1989/90. He was at the opening of the Brandenburg Gate on 22 December 1989 and, on 3 October 1990, became the first mayor of a reunited Berlin.
Ernst Rudolf Johannes Reuter was the mayor of West Berlin from 1948 to 1953, during the time of the Cold War. He played a significant role in unifying the divided sectors of Berlin and publicly and politically took a stand against the totalitarianism of the Soviet Union.
Louise Dorothea Schroeder was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) party. She was among the 41 female members of the Weimar National Assembly, the Constituent Assembly of the Weimar Republic and subsequently remained a member of the Reichstag until 1933. An educator and activist central in the Arbeiterwohlfahrt movement, and she was under scrutiny of the Nazi Party during the 1930s and 1940s for her socialist positions. After the partition of Germany following World War II, she served as governing mayor of West Berlin in 1948. Until Franziska Giffey was sworn in in 2021, she was the only woman to have served as Mayor of Berlin.
Ferdinand Friedensburg was the interim Mayor of Berlin due to the illness of mayor Louise Schroeder during the Berlin Blockade in 1948.
Albert Osswald was a German politician (SPD). He served as the 3rd Minister President of the state of Hesse from 1969 to 1976 and as the 27th President of the Bundesrat in 1975/76.
The governing mayor of Berlin is the head of government, presiding over the Berlin Senate. As Berlin is an independent city as well as one of the constituent states of Germany, the office is the equivalent of the ministers president of the other German states, except the states of Hamburg and Bremen, where the heads of government are called "First Mayor" and "President of the Senate and Mayor", respectively. The title Governing Mayor of Berlin is the equivalent of Lord Mayor in the meaning of an actual executive leader.
The Senate of Berlin is the executive body governing the city of Berlin, which at the same time is a state of Germany. According to the Constitution of Berlin the Senate consists of the Governing Mayor of Berlin and up to ten senators appointed by the governing mayor, two of whom are appointed (deputy) mayors. The Senate meets weekly at the Rotes Rathaus.
Tino Antoni Schwierzina was a German lawyer and politician. Between May 1990 and January 1991 he served as the first and last freely elected mayor of East Berlin. His term of office was dominated by the fusion of the two halves of Berlin which had been politically divided since before 1949. By some criteria Tino Schwierzina was also the last mayor of East Berlin ahead of reunification.
Walter Weidauer was a German politician. He was the "lord mayor" of Dresden during the most intensive period of the city's rebuilding, between 1946 and 1958.
The 1946 Greater Berlin City Council election was held on 20 October 1946 to elect all 130 members of the City Council. It was the only all-Berlin election in the period between the end of the Second World War and German reunification in 1990.
The election to the city council of Greater Berlin from December 5, 1948 took place in exceptional circumstances. The last election had occurred just two years earlier; however, since then the city had been separated into East and West. These elections were held only in the Western sectors accordingly. Moreover, West Berlin was experiencing a blockade since June 1948 from the outside world and was only surviving due to the airlift. Against this background, the elections to the city council took place.
Early elections to the Berlin House of Representatives were held on 3 December 1950. In October 1950 Germany's new constitution went into force in West Berlin which made the election required. This was the first election to the new Berlin House of Representatives as opposed to the City Council.
The Minister-president is the head of state and government in thirteen of Germany's sixteen states.
Arnold Gohr was a German clerical worker who became a trade unionist and activist. After 1945 he entered mainstream politics in East Berlin. As the Soviet occupation zone evolved into a Soviet sponsored one-party dictatorship, he never joined the ruling party, remaining instead a leading "collaborationist" member of the eastern version of the Christian Democratic Union. He became a party chairman and served between 1948 and 1958 as "deputy lord mayor" of Berlin, a period during which the increasingly divided city's constitutional status and future were contentious and ambiguous on a number of different levels.
