Governing Mayor of Berlin

Governing Mayor of Berlin
Coat of arms of Berlin
Incumbent Michael Müller since 11 December 2014
Inaugural holder	Ernst Reuter
Formation	11 January 1951
Website	berlin.de/rbmskzl

The Governing Mayor (German: Regierender Bürgermeister) 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 (Bundesländer), 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.

Seat of the Governing Mayor, the Rotes Rathaus

According to the Berlin Constitution, the Governing Mayor is member and head of the Berlin Senate. The ministers are called senators. The two deputies additionally hold the title of Mayor (German: Bürgermeister, historically: burgomaster). The title Mayor is also held by the heads of the twelve boroughs of Berlin, although they do not actually preside over self-governmental municipalities.

The Governing Mayor is elected by the city's state parliament, the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin (equivalent to the Landtag of other federal states), which also controls their policy guidelines and is able to enforce resignation by a motion of no confidence. The Governing Mayor is entitled to appoint and release the senators of the government.

The seat of the Senate is the city hall Rotes Rathaus in Mitte.

History[]

As capital of the Kingdom of Prussia, Berlin received its first Lord Mayor (Oberbürgermeister) according to the Prussian reforms after the retreat of the Napoleonic occupation troops in 1809, approved by King Frederick William III. He served as head of the city council called Magistrat. The two-stage administration and the office of the boroughs' mayors were implemented in the course of the wide-ranging incorporations by the 1920 Greater Berlin Act.

The Rathaus Schöneberg was the seat of the Mayor of West Berlin during the Division of Germany.

During the Allied occupation after World War II, the city assembly (Stadtverordnetenversammlung) elected the Social Democratic politician Ernst Reuter as Lord Mayor on 24 June 1947, who, however, did not obtain the affirmation by the Allied Kommandatura of Berlin^[1] due to Soviet reservations. Following the Communist putsch in Berlin's city government in September 1948, a separate city parliament (still named Stadtverordnetenversammlung von Groß-Berlin) was set up, however, de facto only competent for the western occupation sectors of what was to become West Berlin was elected on 5 December 1948, electing two days later a separate city government and Ernst Reuter Lord Mayor for West Berlin. The Soviet administration had officially deposed the previous elected government for all of Berlin with effect only in the eastern sector and had installed the SED Lord Mayor Friedrich Ebert, Jr. in East Berlin already on 30 November 1948.

West Berlin Governing Mayor Walter Momper (l.) and East Berlin Lord Mayor Tino Schwierzina, May 1990

West Berlin introduced its own constitution (Verfassung von Berlin), accounting for the changed facts, with effect of 1 October 1950. This constitution provided for the renaming of the city parliament to "Abgeordnetenhaus von Berlin", of the city government into "Senate of Berlin" and the head of government into "Governing Mayor of Berlin".^[2] Following the new constitution representatives were elected on 3 December 1950 and the new parliament re-elected Ernst Reuter as head of city government on 18 January 1951, with Reuter then adopting the new title. From 1951 to 1990, during the Cold War, the Governing Mayor was the head of government in West Berlin with his seat at Rathaus Schöneberg, while East Berlin de jure remained under Soviet occupation and de facto became a part and capital of the East Germany — not recognized by the NATO members, but actually condoned by the 1971 Four Power Agreement on Berlin and the German Basic Treaty of 1972.

The government of West Berlin claimed to be the legitimate government for all of Berlin within the borders established by the 1920 Greater Berlin Act until the Peaceful Revolution of 1989. Even before German reunification on 3 October 1990, the West Berlin Governing Mayor and the East Berlin Oberbürgermeister held common cabinet meetings, until Berlin-wide elections took place on 2 December 1990.

The following list of mayors of Berlin shows all the mayors (Oberbürgermeister, Regierender Bürgermeister) of Berlin, Germany since 1809:

List of mayors of Berlin[]

Napoleonic Empire (1806–1809)[]

In 1806 the French occupants gathered 2,000 wealthy Berliners in St. Peter's Church, Berlin, in order to elect the Grand conseil (grand council) of sixty members again electing the Comité administratif (administrative committee). This body of seven elected burghers was the provisional city government competent to carry out the orders of the occupation power, especially to raise the French war contributions by levying them mostly from the 2,000 eligible voters. The président of the committee was the Berlin-based Prussian publisher:^[3]

• (1806–1809; *1756–1824*)

Prussia/Germany (1809–1935)[]

• (1809–1813)
• (1814–1832)
• (1832–1834)
• Heinrich Wilhelm Krausnick (1834–1848)
• (1848–1851)
• Heinrich Wilhelm Krausnick (1851–1862)
• (1863–1872)
• Arthur Hobrecht (1872–1878)
• Max von Forckenbeck (1878–1892)
• (1892–1898)
• (1899–1912)
• (1912–1920)
• (1921–1929)
• (1929–1931)
• Heinrich Sahm (1931–1935)

Nazi Germany (1935–1945)[]

The Nazi government introduced a new unitary municipal ordinance for all German municipalities and cities accounting for the de facto abolition of municipal democracy and autonomy since the Nazi takeover in 1933. According to the new ordinance the administrative head of the city was now titled Stadtpräsident (City President). The Oberbürgermeister remained in a ceremonial role.

No.	Portrait	Lord Mayor	Took office	Left office	Political party
1		[de]	19 December 1935	5 January 1937	German People's Party
2		Julius Lippert	5 January 1937	July 1940	National Socialist German Workers' Party
3		Ludwig Steeg	July 1940	2 May 1945	National Socialist German Workers' Party

Allied occupation (1945–1948)[]

Following Berlin's provisional post-war constitution, enacted under quadripartite Allied rule, the head of city government was titled again Oberbürgermeister (generally "Lord Mayor").

No.	Portrait	Lord Mayor	Took office	Left office	Political party
1		Arthur Werner	17 May 1945	10 December 1946	Non-partisan
2		Otto Ostrowski	10 December 1946	11 June 1947	Social Democratic Party
3		Louise Schroeder[4]	11 June 1947	7 December 1948	Social Democratic Party
4		Ferdinand Friedensburg[5]	14 August 1948	1 December 1948	Christian Democratic Union

German Democratic Republic (1949–1990)[]

Portrait		Name (Birth–Death)	Term of office			Political party
			Took office	Left office	Days
East Berlin (1948–1990)
1		Friedrich Ebert Jr. (1894–1979)	30 November 1948	5 July 1967	6791	Socialist Unity Party
2		Herbert Fechner (1913–1998)	5 July 1967	11 February 1974	2413	Socialist Unity Party
3		Erhard Krack (1931–2000)	11 February 1974	15 February 1990	5848	Socialist Unity Party
–		Ingrid Pankraz (born 1948) Acting	15 February 1990	23 February 1990	8	Party of Democratic Socialism
4		Christian Hartenhauer (born 1948)	23 February 1990	30 May 1990	96	Party of Democratic Socialism
5		Tino Schwierzina (1927–2003)	30 May 1990	3 October 1990	126	Social Democratic Party in the GDR
East Berlin was reunited with West Berlin on October 3, 1990 and dissolved.

Federal Republic of Germany (1949–present)[]

Political party:   SPD   CDU

Portrait		Name (Birth–Death)	Term of office			Political party
			Took office	Left office	Days
West Berlin (1948–1990)
1		Ernst Reuter (1889–1953)	7 December 1948	29 September 1953	1757	Social Democratic Party
2		Walther Schreiber (1884—1958)	29 September 1953	11 January 1955	469	Christian Democratic Union
3		Otto Suhr (1955–1957)	11 January 1955	30 August 1957 (died in office)	962	Social Democratic Party
–		Franz Amrehn (1911–1981) Acting	30 August 1957	3 October 1957	34	Christian Democratic Union
4		Willy Brandt (1913–1992)	3 October 1957	1 December 1966	3346	Social Democratic Party
5		Heinrich Albertz (1915–1993)	1 December 1966	19 October 1967	322	Social Democratic Party
6		Klaus Schütz (1926–2012)	19 October 1967	2 May 1977	3483	Social Democratic Party
7		Dietrich Stobbe (1938–2011)	2 May 1977	23 January 1981	1362	Social Democratic Party
8		Hans-Jochen Vogel (1926–2020)	23 January 1981	11 June 1981	139	Social Democratic Party
9		Richard von Weizsäcker (1920–2015)	11 June 1981	9 February 1984	973	Christian Democratic Union
10		Eberhard Diepgen (born 1941)	9 February 1984	16 March 1989	1862	Christian Democratic Union
11		Walter Momper (born 1945)	16 March 1989	3 October 1990	566	Social Democratic Party
West Berlin was reunited with East Berlin on October 3, 1990 and dissolved.
Reunified Berlin (1990–present)
11 & 12		Walter Momper (born 1945) & Tino Schwierzina[6] (1927–2003)	3 October 1990	24 January 1991	113	Social Democratic Party
(10)		Eberhard Diepgen (born 1941)	24 January 1991	16 June 2001	3796	Christian Democratic Union
13		Klaus Wowereit (born 1953)	16 June 2001	11 December 2014	4926	Social Democratic Party
14		Michael Müller (born 1964)	11 December 2014	Incumbent	2468	Social Democratic Party

See also[]

• Politics of Berlin
• History of Berlin
• Timeline of Berlin
• List of people from Berlin

Notes and references[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Governing mayors of Berlin.

• Governing Mayor of Berlin