Governing Mayor of Berlin
The Governing Mayor of Berlin is the mayor, head of state, and head of government of Berlin, 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. The official title Governing Mayor was introduced in Berlin's 1948 constitution to distinguish the governing mayor from their two deputies, who are simply called "Mayor" in German, as well as the borough mayors.
According to the Berlin Constitution, the governing mayor is member and head of the executive branch, the Senate. The governing mayor names two senators as deputy governing mayors. The twelve boroughs of Berlin are also headed by borough mayors, although they do not actually preside over self-governmental municipalities.
The governing mayor of Berlin is elected by the city-state's legislature, the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin, which also controls policy guidelines and is able to force the governing mayor's resignation by a motion of no confidence. The governing mayor is empowered to appoint and dismiss the senators.
The seat of the Senate is the city hall, Rotes Rathaus, in the borough Mitte.
History
As capital of the Kingdom of Prussia, Berlin received its first mayor in accordance with the Prussian reforms approved by King Frederick [William III of Prussia|Frederick William III] after the retreat of the Napoleonic occupation troops in 1809. The mayor of Berlin was the head of the city council, called the Magistrat. The two-stage administration and the office of the borough mayors were implemented in the course of the wide-ranging incorporations under the 1920 Greater Berlin Act.File:2006-08-07 Rathaus Schoeneberg.jpg|thumb|left|Rathaus Schöneberg, the borough hall of Schöneberg, was the city hall and seat of the mayor of West Berlin during the Division of Germany.
During the Allied occupation after World War II, the city assembly elected the Social [Democratic Party of Germany|Social Democratic] politician Ernst Reuter as mayor on 24 June 1947, who, however, was not confirmed by the Allied Kommandatura of Berlin due to Soviet reservations. After the Communist putsch in Berlin's city government in September 1948, a separate city parliament, de facto only competent for the Western occupation sectors, was elected on 5 December 1948, and two days later a separate city government was elected with Ernst Reuter as governing mayor of West Berlin. The Soviet administration had officially deposed the previous elected government of all of Berlin – effectively, only in the eastern sector — and had installed the SED mayor Friedrich Ebert, Jr., in East Berlin on 30 November 1948.
West Berlin introduced its own constitution, accounting for the changed facts, as of 1 October 1950. This constitution provided renamed the city's parliament "House of Representatives of Berlin", the city's executive government "Senate of Berlin", and the head of government "Governing Mayor of Berlin". Under the new constitution, representatives were elected on 3 December 1950, and the new parliament re-elected Ernst Reuter governing mayor on 18 January 1951. 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 the capital, of East Germany — a status not recognized by NATO members, but 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 of all of Berlin within the borders established by the 1920 Greater Berlin Act until the Peaceful Revolution of 1989. In 1990, even before German reunification on 3 October 1990, the mayors of West Berlin and East Berlin held common cabinet meetings, until Berlin-wide elections took place on 2 December 1990.
List
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