Misplaced Pages

#69930

92-684: The federal minister for foreign affairs (German: Bundesminister des Auswärtigen ) is the head of the Federal Foreign Office and a member of the Cabinet of Germany . The current office holder is Annalena Baerbock . Since 1966, the minister for foreign affairs has often also simultaneously held the office of vice-chancellor of Germany . The Foreign Office was established within the North German Confederation in 1870 and its head, first appointed in 1871, had

184-410: A big tent party of the centre-left. The SPD led the federal government from 1969 to 1982 (under Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt ), 1998 to 2005 (under Gerhard Schröder ) and again since 2021. It served as a junior partner to a CDU/CSU-led government from 1966 to 1969, 2005 to 2009 and from 2013 to 2021. During Scholz's chancellorship, the party has set out principles of a new German defence policy in

276-597: A 1952 Soviet suggestion for Germans to form a neutral state was ignored by the CDU/CSU–FDP government. After 17 years in opposition, the SPD became the junior partner in a grand coalition with the CDU/CSU which lasted from 1966 to 1969. After the 1969 federal election , the SPD's Willy Brandt became chancellor in a coalition with the liberal Free Democratic Party. His government sought to normalise relations with East Germany and

368-750: A German government was reestablished in the western zones, the Federal Republic of Germany, which in its first years had very limited powers. In October 1949, the German Democratic Republic was founded in what had been the Soviet zone. Whereas Georg Dertinger had already been appointed the first minister of foreign affairs of East Germany in 1949, due to the Allied occupation statute the Auswärtiges Amt of West Germany

460-771: A crucial role in the preparation of German reunification . In 2000 the Foreign Office returned to Berlin where it took up quarters in the former Reichsbank building , which from 1959 to 1990 had served as the seat of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and was enlarged by a newly built annex. The former ministry in Bonn was retained as a secondary seat. The Foreign Office has always stressed its continuity and traditions going back to 1870. A report entitled The Ministry and

552-503: A disproportionate number coming from the aristocracy. The overrepresentation of aristocrats together with its overwhelming upper-class character gave the Auswärtiges Amt an elitist cachet, and made the Auswärtiges Amt into one of the most prestigious institutions in Germany. Because of its upper-class composition, the diplomats could afford extremely expensive clothes, and the men of Auswärtiges Amt were generally considered to

644-585: A key role in the German Revolution of 1918–1919 . On 9 November 1918, leading SPD member Friedrich Ebert was designated chancellor and fellow Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann , on his own authority, proclaimed Germany a republic . The government introduced a large number of reforms in the following months, introducing various civil liberties and labor rights . The SPD government, committed to parliamentary liberal democracy , used military force against more radical communist groups, leading to

736-405: A life without exploitation, suppression and violence, hence in social and human security", the realization of which is emphasized as a "permanent task". Social democracy serves as the "principle of our actions". The party platform of the SPD espouses the goal of democratic socialism, which it envisions as a societal arrangement in which freedom and social justice are paramount. According to

828-679: A permanent split between the SPD and the USPD , as well as the Spartacist League which would go on to form the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and integrate a majority of USPD members as well. The SPD was the largest party during the first 13 years of the new Weimar Republic . It decisively won the 1919 federal election with 37.9 per cent of votes, and Ebert became the first president in February. The position of chancellor

920-729: A reconciliation with the French Third Republic , which earned him—together with Aristide Briand —the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize . In an important sign of changed emphasis within the Auswärtiges Amt , in July 1930 Carl von Schubert  [ de ] , the State Secretary (the number #2 man in the Auswärtiges Amt ) and Stresemann's right-hand man was fired and replaced with the "crudely nationalist" Prince Bernhard Wilhelm von Bülow  [ de ] (who

1012-438: A university degree, preferably in jurisprudence and needed to prove that one had a considerable private income. In 1880, a candidate had to prove that he had a private income of at least 6,000 marks /annum in order to join; by 1900, the requirement was 10,000 marks/annum and by 1912, a candidate needed at least 15,000 marks/annum to join. This requirement explains why so many German diplomats married richer women because without

SECTION 10

#1732764928070

1104-458: Is a social democratic political party in Germany . It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the party's leader since the 2019 leadership election together with Lars Klingbeil , who joined her in December 2021. After Olaf Scholz was elected chancellor in 2021, the SPD became the leading party of the federal government , which the SPD formed with

1196-526: Is not to be confused with his uncle, Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow ). The replacement of Schubert with Bülow marked the ascendency of the more nationalistic fraction within the Auswärtiges Amt who favored a more confrontational foreign policy with regards to France. In May 1932 Baron Konstantin von Neurath was appointed foreign minister in the "Cabinet of the President's Friends" headed by Franz von Papen . Neurath continued on as Foreign Minister under

1288-707: The Auswärtiges Amt had belonged to the NSDAP, but justified their employment as: "I could not build up a Foreign Office without relying upon such skilled men". Upon Willy Brandt 's taking office as Foreign Minister in the Grand coalition under Kurt Georg Kiesinger starting in 1966, the office was usually connected with the position of the Vice-Chancellor . From 1974 until 1992—with a short pause in 1982— Hans-Dietrich Genscher served as Foreign Minister and continued to champion Brandt's Ostpolitik while also playing

1380-684: The Auswärtiges Amt was responsible for the country's foreign policy under Emperor Wilhelm II , and played a key role in the Reich' s pursuit of Weltpolitik (World Politics), under which Germany sought to become the world's dominant power. The Auswärtiges Amt was split into three factions competing against one another, namely one faction of men loyal to Bismarck, another faction loyal to Friedrich von Holstein , and yet another faction led by Prince Philipp von Eulenburg and Prince Bernhard von Bülow , who would later become chancellor. This constant plotting and scheming between these factions weakened

1472-407: The Auswärtiges Amt when he was not around. Bismarck would not accept opinions contrary to his own, and only those diplomats who were devoted to him rose to high rank. Bismarck greatly valued accurate information, and as such diplomats tended to report what they believed to be the truth back to Berlin. Right from the start, the Auswärtiges Amt was very socially exclusive. To join, one needed

1564-695: The Communist Party of Germany (KPD). The SPD played a leading role in the German revolution of 1918–1919 and in the foundation of the Weimar Republic . The SPD politician Friedrich Ebert served as the first president of Germany from 1919 to 1925. After the rise of the Nazi Party to power, the SPD was the only party in the Reichstag which voted against the Enabling Act of 1933 ; the SPD

1656-669: The Eastern Bloc , a policy known as Ostpolitik . The party achieved its best ever result of 45.8 per cent in 1972 , one of only three occasions in which it formed the largest Bundestag faction. After Brandt's resignation in 1974, his successor Helmut Schmidt served as chancellor until 1982, when the SPD returned to opposition. During the Peaceful Revolution in East Germany, the East German SPD

1748-635: The Nazi government while others fled the country. The party-in-exile was called Sopade . After the end of World War II , the re-establishment of the SPD was permitted in the Western occupation zones in 1945. In the Soviet occupation zone , the SPD was forcibly merged with the KPD in 1946 to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). The SED was the ruling party of East Germany until 1989. In West Germany ,

1840-768: The Progressive Alliance and was joined by numerous other parties around the world. Previously, the SPD was a founding member of both the Second International and the Labour and Socialist International . The Social Democratic Party has its origins in the General German Workers' Association , founded in 1863, and the Social Democratic Workers' Party , founded in 1869. The two groups merged in 1875 to create

1932-583: The Reformed Protestant region of East Frisia directly to the north, with its strong traditional streak of anti-Catholicism , is one of their strongest constituencies. Further south, the SPD also enjoys solid support in northern Hesse , parts of Palatinate and the Saarland . The social democrats are weakest in the south-eastern states of Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia , where the party's percentage of votes dropped to single-digit figures in

SECTION 20

#1732764928070

2024-519: The Reichstag , except for the one of 1919 which was called the National Assembly and since 1949 the parliament is called Bundestag . Note that changes in borders (1871, 1919, 1920, 1949, 1957 and 1990) varied the number of eligible voters whereas electoral laws also changed the ballot system (only constituencies until 1912, only party lists until 1949 and a mixed system thereafter), the suffrage (women vote since 1919; minimum active voting age

2116-587: The Second International 's agreement to oppose militarism, the SPD supported the German war effort and adopted a policy, known as Burgfriedenspolitik , of refraining from calling strikes or criticising the government. Internal opposition to the policy grew throughout the war. Anti-war members were expelled in 1916 and 1917, leading to the formation of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD). The SPD played

2208-605: The Socialist Workers' Party of Germany  [ de ] (German: Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands ). From 1878 to 1890, the Anti-Socialist Laws banned any group that aimed at spreading socialist principles, but the party still gained support in elections. In 1890, when the ban was lifted, the party adopted its current name. The SPD was the largest Marxist party in Europe and consistently

2300-690: The Wannsee Conference in January 1942, the Auswärtiges Amt was represented by Martin Luther , who agreed that the Auswärtiges Amt would do everything within its power to persuade the governments of neutral and allied states to hand over their Jewish populations to be exterminated. Later on in 1942, Ambassador Otto Abetz arranged for the deportation of 25,000 French Jews to the death camps in Poland while Ambassador Hanns Ludin arranged for

2392-750: The Zeitenwende speech . The SPD holds pro-European stances and is a member of the Party of European Socialists and sits with the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament . With 14 MEPs , it is the third largest party in the group. The SPD was a founding member of the Socialist International , but the party left in 2013 after criticising its acceptance of parties they consider to be violating human rights. The SPD subsequently founded

2484-525: The foreign policy of the North German Confederation , and from 1871 of the German Empire . The Foreign Office was originally led by a state secretary (therefore not called a ministry), while the Chancellor , who usually also held the office of Prussian Minister of Foreign Affairs, remained in charge of foreign affairs. In the first years of the German nation-state under Otto von Bismarck ,

2576-520: The political centre . After World War II , the SPD was re-formed in West Germany after being banned by the Nazi regime ; in East Germany , it merged with the Communist Party of Germany to form the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany . Under the chairmanship of Kurt Schumacher , the SPD was a socialist party representing the interests of the working class and of trade unions. With

2668-504: The 1926 Nobel Peace Prize for his work for reconciliation between Germany and France. 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,

2760-404: The 1950s, most Germans did not go to university). The requirement that one had to have a university degree to enter the Auswärtiges Amt effectively guaranteed upper-class dominance of the Auswärtiges Amt . All of the senior diplomats in the 1930s were veterans of the struggle to win Germany "world power status" in the first years of the 20th century. Hitler's goal of making Germany into

2852-439: The 1959 Godesberg Program, the party evolved from a socialist working-class party to a modern social democratic party working within democratic capitalism . The SPD's Hamburg Programme, adopted in 2007, describes democratic socialism as "the vision of a free and fair society in solidarity", which requires "a structure in economy, state and society guaranteeing civil, political, social and economic basic rights for all people living

Minister for Foreign Affairs (Germany) - Misplaced Pages Continue

2944-502: The 1990s, the left and moderate wings of the party drifted apart, culminating in a secession of a significant number of party members which later joined the socialist party WASG , which later merged into The Left ( Die Linke ). Much of the SPD's current-day support comes from large cities, especially northern and western Germany and Berlin . As of 2019, 10 of the country's 15 biggest cities are led by SPD mayors. The metropolitan Ruhr Area , where coal mining and steel production were once

3036-453: The 2018 and 2019 elections. In 2021, it significantly increased its vote share in the states of the former east. The federal leader is supported by six Deputy Leaders and the party executive . As of 2021, the leaders are Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans . The previous leader was Andrea Nahles , who announced her pending resignation on 2 June 2019. As Germany is a federal republic , each of Germany's states have their own SPD party at

3128-513: The AA. Besides for the income requirement, to enter the AA during the Imperial period, only candidates with the best grades at university and who knew two foreign languages were considered, and to join one had to pass what was widely considered to be one of the toughest diplomatic entrance exams in the world. The reign of Emperor Wilhelm II was from 1888 to 1918. In the years preceding World War I ,

3220-574: The American President Theodore Roosevelt a series of letters telling him that Germany and the United States must join forces to stop the "yellow peril", especially Japan from conquering the world. It took the diplomats a long time to tell Wilhelm that Roosevelt was a Japanophile who was not impressed with Wilhelm's call for an alliance based on anti-Asian racism. A nation with whom the Auswärtiges Amt

3312-577: The Armenian genocide were "ignored" by the leadership of Auswärtiges Amt , who valued good relations with the Ottoman empire more than they did the lives of the Armenians. In 1919, the Foreign Office was reorganised as the Auswärtiges Amt and a modern structure was established. It was now under the authority of a foreign minister , though still called Amt for traditional reasons. In 1922,

3404-603: The CDU/CSU after the 2013 federal election . This arrangement was renewed after the 2017 federal election . SPD narrowly won against the CDU/CSU in the September 2021 federal election , becoming the biggest party in the federal parliament (Bundestag). Social Democrat Olaf Scholz became the new chancellor in December 2021, and formed a coalition government with the Green Party and the Free Democrats. The SPD

3496-610: The Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau was assassinated by members of the Organisation Consul , which reviled him both as a Jew and a supposed contributor to "creeping communism" for having negotiated the Treaty of Rapallo with Soviet Russia . The most notable head of the Foreign Office during the Weimar Republic was Gustav Stresemann , foreign minister from 1923 to 1929, who strived for

3588-683: The Foreign Office on Wilhelmstrasse No. 76 next to the Reich Chancellery had two departments: one for political affairs and the other for economic, legal and consular matters. After Bismarck's dismissal in 1890, another department for colonial policy was established, spun off as the separate Reichskolonialamt in 1907. Bismarck in order to maintain his control of the Auswärtiges Amt appointed his son Herbert von Bismarck as State Secretary. That Bismarck appointed his son as State Secretary reflected his determination to be his own foreign minister, and his need for an utterly loyal man to run

3680-715: The German civil service in the Nazi period. Those diplomats involved in the attempts to overthrow Hitler such as Count Ulrich von Hassell , Adam von Trott zu Solz , Count Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg , Richard Kuenzer, Hans Bernd von Haeften , and Edmund Brücklmeir comprised a small minority of the Auswärtiges Amt . The German historian Hans-Adolf Jacobsen  [ de ] wrote that for those diplomats who chose to become involved in Widerstand , given that they were steeped in Prussian traditions where loyalty to

3772-690: The Greens and the Free Democratic Party , after the 2021 federal election . The SPD is a member of 11 of the 16 German state governments and is a leading partner in seven of them. The SPD was founded in 1875 from a merger of smaller socialist parties, and grew rapidly after the lifting of Germany's repressive Anti-Socialist Laws in 1890 to become the largest socialist party in Western Europe until 1933. In 1891, it adopted its Marxist -influenced Erfurt Program , though in practice it

Minister for Foreign Affairs (Germany) - Misplaced Pages Continue

3864-538: The Holocaust. It was an open secret." In October 1941, when Franz Rademacher visited Belgrade to meet officials of the Government of National Salvation of General Milan Nedić of Serbia, he submitted an expense claim for his trip to his superiors at the Auswärtiges Amt after his return to Berlin; on his expenses claim, Rademacher described the purpose of his trip to Belgrade as the "liquidation of Jews". At

3956-666: The Holy See 1943–1945) and Baron Gustav Adolf Steengracht von Moyland (State Secretary 1943–1945). The overlap in goals between the professional diplomats and the Nazis were well illustrated by the memo on what should be the foreign policy of the Hitler government written by Bülow in March 1933 calling for Germany to recover the borders of 1914 and all of the lost colonies, annexation of Austria, and German domination of Eastern Europe. During

4048-417: The Imperial era. Additionally, during the entire duration of the "old" Auswärtiges Amt from 1871 to 1945, Catholics were underrepresented in the Auswärtiges Amt , comprising between 15 and 20% of the AA's personnel. The Auswärtiges Amt was largely a Protestant institution with Protestant candidates favored over Catholic candidates when it came to recruitment. Even more underrepresented were

4140-522: The Jews. During the Imperial period from 1871 to 1918, the Auswärtiges Amt had only three Jewish members, plus four Jews who had converted to Lutheranism in order to improve their career prospects. If Jews were not formally excluded, Jewish candidates were rarely accepted because of a climate of snobbish anti-Semitism , where Jews were considered to be too pushy, vulgar and lacking in social graces to be diplomats. There were also meritocratic elements within

4232-667: The Nazi Sturmabteilung . The Nazis overtook the SPD as the largest party in July 1932 and Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor in January 1933. Of the parties present in the Reichstag during the passage of the Enabling Act of 1933 , the SPD was the only one to vote against; most of the communist deputies had been arrested ahead of the vote. The SPD was banned in June. Many members were subsequently imprisoned and killed by

4324-418: The Nazi regime. Officially, the men of the Auswärtiges Amt were supposed to be non-political, but in practice the diplomats formed a "quite exclusive group" with extremely conservative views and values. For these men, unconditional loyalty to the state was the highest possible value, and though the majority of the diplomats were not ideological National Socialists, they served the Nazi regime loyally until

4416-430: The Neurath years (1932–1938), there were very few "outsiders" allowed into the Auswärtiges Amt . Aside from Ribbentrop, who served as variously as Commissioner of Disarmament (1934–35), Extraordinary Ambassador-at-Large (1935–36), and Ambassador to Great Britain (1936–1938), the most notable of the "outsiders" were Franz von Papen (Ambassador to Austria 1934–1938 and to Turkey 1939–1944), Hans Luther (Ambassador to

4508-439: The Past written by historians and released by the German government in October 2010 shows that wartime-era diplomats played an important role in assisting the Nazis in carrying out the Holocaust, and disproved the claim often made after 1945 that German diplomats were "sand in the machine" who acted to moderate the actions of the Nazi regime. In a 2010 interview, the German historian Eckart Conze , who had been in charge of

4600-427: The SPD became one of two major parties, alongside the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) . In the inaugural 1949 federal election , it placed second with 29.2 per cent of votes and led the opposition to the CDU government. In its 1959 Godesberg Program , the party dropped its commitment to Marxism and sought to appeal to middle class voters, becoming a big tent party of the centre-left. Although strongly leftist ,

4692-400: The SPD initially opposed both the social market economy and Konrad Adenauer 's drive towards Western integration fiercely; after Schumacher's death, however, it accepted the social market economy and Germany's position in the Western alliance in order to appeal to a broader range of voters. It still remains associated with the economic causes of unionised employees and working class voters. In

SECTION 50

#1732764928070

4784-437: The SPD was willing to compromise. Only through its support did the governing CDU/CSU pass a denazification law that its coalition partner the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the far-right German Party voted against. At the same time, the SPD opposed the pro-West integration of West Germany because they believed that made a re-unification of Germany impossible. Austria could have become a sovereign neutral state in 1956, but

4876-434: The Treaty of Versailles and make the German Reich into a world power. The majority of the diplomats were able to sign their names on to such a program." In March 1933, Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Prittwitz und Gaffron , the Ambassador to the United States, resigned on the grounds that he could not in good conscience serve the Nazi government; he was the only member of the entire Auswärtiges Amt who resigned in protest at

4968-407: The United States 1933–1937), Colonel Hermann Kriebel (Consul in Shanghai 1934–1939), and General Wilhelm Faupel (Ambassador to Spain 1936–37). Most diplomats were not believers in National Socialism, but during Nazi rule, many diplomats such as Neurath himself joined the NSDAP and/or the SS as an opportunistic way of improving their career prospects; such self-interested careerism was rampant amongst

5060-407: The ambassador in Washington, D.C., stated to American journalists that reports of a systematic campaign of extermination against the Armenian minority in the Ottoman empire were all "pure inventions", that these reports were all the work of British propaganda and no such campaign of extermination was taking place. Wangenheim's successor as ambassador to the Sublime Porte, Count Paul Wolff Metternich ,

5152-420: The best dressed officials in the entire German government, contributing to the Auswärtiges Amt ' s glamorous, stylist image. There were no female diplomats, and besides for the women employed as secretaries, clerks and cleaners, the Auswärtiges Amt had no female employees. That the men of the Auswärtiges Amt formed an elitist group can be seen that every single diplomat had a university degree (before

5244-410: 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

5336-448: The classical social democrats continue to defend classical left-wing policies and the welfare state. The Keynesian left-wing of the SPD claims that in recent years the welfare state has been curtailed through reform programs such as the Agenda 2010, Hartz IV , and the more economic liberal stance of the SPD which were endorsed by centrist social democrats. In reaction to Agenda 2010, an inner-party dissident movement developed, leading to

5428-455: The committee to investigate the war-time actions of the Auswärtiges Amt , stated that the Auswärtiges Amt was a "criminal organization" that was as every bit involved in the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" as the SS were. In another interview, Conze stated: "This document makes it clear that all officials in the Foreign Ministry—including low-level office clerks—knew about the mass persecution of Jews and were actively involved in

5520-402: 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

5612-414: The deportation of 50,000 Slovak Jews to the death camps. In the spring of 1944, Ambassador Edmund Veesenmayer played a key role in having 400,000 Hungarian Jews deported to Auschwitz . In 2003, the French historian Lucas Delattre published a biography of Fritz Kolbe , a mid-ranking diplomat who become a spy for the American Office of Strategic Services because he believed his country deserved to lose

SECTION 60

#1732764928070

5704-427: The exception, not the rule. In addition to the ministry's headquarters in Berlin, Germany has established embassies and consulates around the world. Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany ( German : Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands , [zoˈtsi̯aːldemoˌkʁaːtɪʃə paʁˌtaɪ ˈdɔʏtʃlants] , SPD , German pronunciation: [ɛspeːˈdeː] )

5796-442: The execution of German foreign policy. As a whole, the Wilhelmstrasse was never entirely in charge of foreign policy in the German Empire , but was instead just one out of several agencies, albeit a very important one that made and executed foreign policy. In the years 1904–1907, the Reich attempted to form an alliance with the United States on the basis of the supposedly shared fear of the " Yellow Peril " with Wilhelm writing to

5888-584: The foundation of the new party Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative ( Arbeit & soziale Gerechtigkeit – Die Wahlalternative , WASG) in 2005, which later merged into The Left ( Die Linke ) in 2007. The Parlamentarische Linke comprises left-wing SPD Members of the German Bundestag . Prior to World War II, as the main non-revolutionary left-wing party, the Social Democrats fared best among non- Catholic workers as well as intellectuals favouring social progressive causes and increased economic equality. Led by Kurt Schumacher after World War II,

5980-415: The governments of General Kurt von Schleicher and Adolf Hitler . During the Nazi period, Neurath found himself exposed to increasing competition from Nazi politicians like Alfred Rosenberg and Joachim von Ribbentrop . In February 1938, Hitler fired Neurath and replaced him with Ribbentrop. In 1933, the vast majority of the diplomats serving in the Auswärtiges Amt came from upper-class families with

6072-419: The main industries, have provided a significant base for the SPD in the 20th century. In the city of Bremen , the SPD has continuously governed since 1949. In southern Germany, the SPD typically garners less support except in the largest cities. At the 2009 federal election , the party lost its only constituency in the entire state of Bavaria (in Munich ). Small town and rural support comes especially from

6164-522: The middle of the war. As the Ottoman empire today would be considered a third world country with almost no modern industry, the Ottoman government was entirely dependent upon weapons from Germany to fight World War I, giving the Reich a powerful form of leverage to apply against the Ottomans on behalf of the Armenians if only the political will in Berlin had been present. In a 2015 speech, the German president Joachim Gauck apologized for his country's inaction, stating that those diplomats who protested against

6256-441: The most popular party in German federal elections from 1890 onward, although it was surpassed by other parties in terms of seats won in the Reichstag due to the electoral system. In the years leading up to World War I , the SPD remained radical in principle, but moderate in reality. According to Roger Eatwell and Anthony Wright, the SPD became a party of reform, with social democracy representing "a party that strives after

6348-924: 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. Political Party:     SPD     Zentrum     DDP     DVP     NSDAP Political Party:     CDU     SED     NDPD     SPD Political Party:     CDU     SPD     FDP     Green Federal Foreign Office The term Auswärtiges Amt

6440-441: The party platform, political freedom , justice and social solidarity form the basis of social democracy. The SPD is mostly composed of members belonging to either of the two main wings, namely the Keynesian social democrats and Third Way moderate social democrats belonging to the Seeheimer Kreis . While the more moderate Seeheimer Kreis generally support the Agenda 2010 programs introduced by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder ,

6532-425: 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

6624-407: The socialist transformation of society by the means of democratic and economic reforms". They emphasise this development as central to understanding 20th-century social democracy, of which the SPD was a major influence. In the 1912 federal election , the SPD won 34.8 per cent of votes and became the largest party in the Reichstag with 110 seats, although it was still excluded from government. Despite

6716-399: The state level. From August until October 2010, senior Bundestag member Joachim Poß served as interim Bundestag leader in the absence of Frank-Walter Steinmeier , who was recovering from donating a kidney to his wife. The SPD, at times called SAPD, took part in general elections determining the composition of parliament. For elections up until 1933, the parliament was called

6808-653: The state was the highest virtue, it required "extraordinary strength of character" for them to go against everything that they had been taught to believe in. After Germany's defeat in May 1945, the country was occupied and the German state was abolished by the Allies. The country was administered as four zones controlled respectively by the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union. In August 1949,

6900-475: The traditionally Protestant areas of northern Germany and Brandenburg (with previous exceptions such as Western Pomerania where CDU leader Angela Merkel held her constituency, which the SPD gained in 2021) and a number of university towns. A striking example of the general pattern is the traditionally Catholic Emsland , where the Social Democrats generally gain a low percentage of votes, whereas

6992-438: The very end. The dominance of the traditional "insiders" at the Auswärtiges Amt can be seen that every State Secretary during the Nazi era was a professional diplomat. The State Secretaries of Nazi Germany were Prince Bernhard von Bülow (State Secretary 1930–36), Count Hans Georg von Mackensen (State Secretary 1936–1938 and ambassador to Italy 1938–1942), Baron Ernst von Weizsäcker (State Secretary 1938–1943 and ambassador to

7084-457: The war on the account of the genocide it was waging against the Jews. Delattre stated that Kolbe really was a case of a diplomat being "sand in the machine" as Kolbe provided intelligence to help his country lose the war, but added sarcastically that if every German civil servant really were "sand in the machine" as almost all of them claimed to be after 1945 that Hitler would never had managed to get anything done. Diplomats like Kolbe were very much

7176-511: The wealth of their wives they would never had been able to join the Auswärtiges Amt . The income requirement to enter the AA was only dropped in 1918. Aristocrats were very much overrepresented in the Auswärtiges Amt . During the Imperial period, 69% of the 548 men who served in the Auswärtiges Amt were noblemen , and every single ambassador during the German Reich was an aristocrat . The most important department by far

7268-549: The world's greatest power was thus a foreign policy goal that the diplomats embraced quite headily. The German historian Eckart Conze stated about the overlap in viewpoints between the diplomats and the Nazis: "...the top diplomats in the Weimar Republic were opposed to a liberal political order and parliamentarianism. And then the Nazis built political and ideological bridges for them. They announced their intention to reverse

7360-544: Was appalled by the Armenian genocide, and, unlike Wangenheim, Metternich was prepared to speak out against the genocide. In August 1916, the triumvirate known as the Three Pashas , which ruled the Ottoman empire, informed the German government that if Count Metternich was not recalled, he would be declared persona non grata . Metternich was promptly recalled from Constantinople rather risk a public relations disaster which potentially could damage German-Ottoman relations in

7452-548: 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

7544-545: Was established as a Marxist party in 1875. It underwent a major shift in policies, reflected in the differences between the Heidelberg Program of 1925 which called for "the transformation of the capitalist system of private ownership of the means of production to social ownership" and the Godesberg Program of 1959 which aimed to broaden the party's voter base and to move its political position toward

7636-457: Was held by Social Democrats until the 1920 federal election , when the SPD lost a substantial portion of its support, falling to 22 per cent of votes. After this, the SPD yielded the chancellery to other parties, although it remained part of the government until 1924. Ebert died in 1925 and was succeeded by conservative Paul von Hindenburg . After making gains in the 1928 federal election , the SPD's Hermann Müller became chancellor. As Germany

7728-470: Was moderate and focused on building working-class organizations. In the 1912 federal election , the SPD won 34.8 percent of votes and became the largest party in the Reichstag , but was still excluded from government. After the start of the First World War in 1914, the party split between a pro-war mainstream and the anti-war Independent Social Democratic Party , some members of which later formed

7820-777: Was much concerned during the Imperial period was the Ottoman empire , especially during the Armenian genocide . In 1915, the German ambassador to the Sublime Porte , Baron Hans von Wangenheim told the American ambassador to the Sublime Porte, Henry Morgenthau Sr. : "I do not blame the Turks for what they are doing to the Armenians... They are entirely justified". On September 28, 1915 Count Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff ,

7912-462: Was not reestablished until 15 March 1951. Chancellor Konrad Adenauer took office as the first Foreign Minister in Bonn until he was succeeded by Heinrich von Brentano in 1955. By and large, the men who had served in the new Auswärtiges Amt were the same men who had served in the old Auswärtiges Amt . In a Bundestag debate on 23 October 1952, Adenauer admitted that 66% of the diplomats of

8004-618: 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,

8096-505: Was refounded. It merged with the West German party in 1990, shortly before German reunification . The SPD returned to government under Gerhard Schröder after the 1998 federal election in a coalition with The Greens . This government was re-elected in 2002 but defeated in 2005 . The SPD then became junior partner of a grand coalition with the CDU/CSU until 2009 . After a term in opposition, they again served as junior partner to

8188-485: Was struck hard by the Great Depression , and unable to negotiate an effective response to the crisis, Müller resigned in 1930. The SPD was sidelined as the Nazi Party gained popularity and conservatives dominated the government, assisted by Hindenburg's frequent use of emergency powers . The Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold , the SPD's paramilitary wing, was frequently involved in violent confrontations with

8280-588: Was subsequently banned, and operated in exile as the Sopade . After the Second World War from 1939 to 1945, the SPD was re-established. In East Germany , it merged with the KPD under duress to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany . In West Germany , the SPD became one of two major parties alongside the CDU/CSU . In its Godesberg Program of 1959, the SPD dropped its commitment to Marxism, becoming

8372-474: Was the Political Department which between 1871 and 1918 was 61% aristocratic; middle-class men tended to serve in the less important Legal, Trade and Colonial Departments. In the 19th century, it was believed that only aristocrats had the proper social standing and graces to correctly represent the Reich abroad as ambassadors, which explains why no commoner was ever appointed ambassador during

8464-478: Was the name of the Foreign Office established in 1870 by the North German Confederation , which then became the German Empire 's Foreign Office in 1871. It is still the name of the German foreign ministry today. From 1871 to 1919, the Foreign Office was led by a Foreign Secretary, and since 1919, it has been led by the Foreign Minister of Germany. The Auswärtiges Amt was established in 1870 to form

#69930