1925 German presidential election
Presidential elections were held in Germany on 29 March 1925, with a second round run-off on 26 April. They were the first direct elections to the office of President of the Reich (), Germany's head of state during the 1919–33 Weimar Republic. The first President, Friedrich Ebert, who had died on 28 February 1925, had been elected indirectly, by the National Assembly, but the Weimar Constitution required that his successor be elected by the "whole German people". Paul von Hindenburg was elected as the second president of Germany in the second round of voting.
President of Germany (1919–1945)
In 1934, after the death of President Hindenburg, Adolf Hitler, already Chancellor, assumed the Presidency, but did not usually use the title of President – ostensibly out of respect for Hindenburg – and preferred to rule as "Führer und Reichskanzler" ("Leader and Reich Chancellor"), highlighting the positions he already held in party and government. In his last will in April 1945, Hitler named Joseph Goebbels his successor as Chancellor but named Karl Dönitz as "Reichspräsident", thus reviving the individual office for a short while until the German surrender.