The federal minister for foreign affairs () is the head of the Federal Foreign Office and a member of the Cabinet of Germany. The current office holder is Johann Wadephul. Since 1966, the minister for foreign affairs has often also simultaneously held the office of vice-chancellor of Germany.

History of the office The Foreign Office was established within the North German Confederation in 1870 and its head, first appointed in 1871, had the rank of secretary of state. As the German constitution of 1871 installed the chancellor as the sole responsible government minister and since the Chancellor generally also held the position of foreign minister of Prussia, the secretary of state fulfilled a more subject role as an assistant to the chancellor, acting largely to draft correspondence rather than to actually direct the formation of foreign policy. This was especially true during the chancellorships of Otto von Bismarck (1871–1890) and Bernhard von Bülow (1900–1909), both of whom had considerable prior experience with foreign affairs, while secretaries at other times wielded more influence over the foreign policy.

In 1919, the Weimar Republic elevated the head of the foreign office to the position of foreign minister responsible for his department. As governments were now formed by parties entering coalitions with each other, individual ministers also gained independence towards from the chancellor.

After a succession of short-lived ministers, Gustav Stresemann, leader of the small National-liberal German People's Party, held the office of foreign minister in successive cabinets from 1923 to his death in 1929. His long term gave stability to Germany's foreign policy and improved the minister's position towards the relatively weak and short-lived chancellors. Stresemann was awarded the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize for his work for reconciliation between Germany and France.Wright, Jonathan, Gustav Stresemann: Weimar's Greatest Statesman (2002)

The foreign office remained relatively unaffected by the establishment of the Nazi regime in 1933, as minister Konstantin von Neurath, appointed in 1932, remained in office until 1938; however, the office was increasingly marginalised in actual policy-making and with the replacement of Neurath by Ribbentrop lost any independent standing.

After World War II, two separate German states emerged in 1949, the democratic Federal Republic of Germany in the West and the communist-ruled German Democratic Republic in the East. While the Soviet Union ostensibly restored political sovereignty to its satellite and allowed for a Foreign Ministry of the GDR, West Germany's sovereignty was officially curtailed by the Western powers, especially in the field of foreign policy. In 1951 the Foreign Office was reestablished in West Germany, but Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was required to hold the office of Foreign Minister until the Western powers restored sovereignty to West Germany in 1955. Then, Heinrich von Brentano di Tremezzo succeeded as foreign minister in 1955. In 1990, the GDR ceased to exist as a separate state and its territory was reunited with West Germany.

From the 1966 Grand Coalition government of Kurt Georg Kiesinger onwards, the office has been held by a member of the smaller partner in coalitions. Therefore, the foreign minister also mostly holds the office of vice chancellor of Germany, although this has become less common in recent years – neither of the two most recent foreign ministers, Heiko Maas and Annalena Baerbock, have been vice chancellor, with the vice chancellorship being held by Finance Minister Olaf Scholz during Maas' tenure, and by Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck during Baerbock's.

List of officeholders

German Reich (1871–1945) State secretaries for foreign affairs (1871–1919) Name Portrait Term of office Chancellor German Empire (1871–1918) Hermann von Thile 21 March 1871 30 September 1872Bismarck Hermann Ludwig von Balan 3 October 1872 9 October 1873 Bernhard Ernst von Bülow 9 October 1873 20 October 1879 Joseph Maria von Radowitz Jr. 6 November 1879 17 April 1880 Chlodwig Fürst zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst 20 April 1880 1 September 1880 Friedrich Graf zu Limburg-Stirum 1 September 1880 25 June 1881 Clemens Busch 25 June 1881 16 July 1881 Paul Graf von Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg 16 July 1881 24 October 1885 Herbert Fürst von Bismarck 24 October 1885 26 March 1890 Bismarck Caprivi Adolf Freiherr Marschall von Bieberstein 31 March 1890 19 October 1897 Caprivi Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst Bernhard Graf von Bülow 20 October 1897 23 October 1900 Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst Bülow Oswald Freiherr von Richthofen 23 October 1900 17 January 1906Bülow Heinrich Leonhard von Tschirschky und Bögendorff 24 January 1906 25 October 1907 Wilhelm Freiherr von Schoen 26 October 1907 27 June 1910 Bülow Bethmann Hollweg Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter 27 June 1910 30 December 1912Bethmann Hollweg Gottlieb von Jagow 11 January 1913 22 November 1916 Arthur Zimmermann 22 November 1916 6 August 1917 Bethmann Hollweg Michaelis Richard von Kühlmann 6 August 1917 9 July 1918 Michaelis Hertling Paul von Hintze 9 July 1918 3 October 1918 Hertling Wilhelm Solf 3 October 1918 9 November 1918 Baden Weimar Republic (1918–1919) Wilhelm Solf 9 November 1918 13 December 1918Ebert Ulrich Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau 13 December 1918 13 February 1919

Ministers of foreign affairs (1919–1945) Political party:

German Democratic Republic (1949–1990) Ministers of foreign affairs Political party:

Federal Republic of Germany (1949–present) Ministers of foreign affairs, since 1951 Political party:

Timeline

German Reich

German Democratic Republic

Federal Republic of Germany

References

External links auswärtiges-amt.de