Minister President of Prussia

The minister-president, or prime minister, of Prussia was the head of government of the Prussian state. The office existed from 1848, when it was formed by King Frederick William IV during the 1848–49 Revolution, until the abolition of Prussia in 1947 by the Allied Control Council.

History of the office

Under the Kingdom of Prussia, the minister-president functioned as the chief minister of the king, and presided over the Landtag, the Prussian legislature established in 1848. After the unification of Germany in 1871 and until the 1918–1919 revolution, the office of the Prussian minister-president was usually held by the chancellor of the German Empire, beginning with the tenure of Otto von Bismarck.
Under the Free State of Prussia the minister-president was the head of the state government in a more traditional parliamentary role during the Weimar Republic. The office ceased to have any real meaning except as a kind of political patronage title after the takeover by the national government in 1932, and after Nazi Germany dismantled Prussia as a state in 1935. Eventually, the office was abolished along with Prussia itself by the Allies in the aftermath of World War II.