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.
Legal status of Germany
After the "Machtergreifung" of the Nazi Party in 1933, state power had been personified more and more within Reich Chancellor ("Reichskanzler") Adolf Hitler, who upon the death of Reich President Paul von Hindenburg on 2 August 1934 simultaneously served as head of government and as head of state (styled "Führer" and "Reichskanzler"). Furthermore, by the final months of the war, governmental functions at all levels within Nazi Germany had been assimilated into the apparatus of the Nazi Party. Following Hitler's suicide on April 30, 1945, the successor regime appointed in his political testament resigned during the cabinet's May 2 session. Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, appointed Reich President in Hitler's testament, gave the task of forming a political administration to Leading Minister Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk; however, the consequent Flensburg Government did not possess any "de facto" central governmental authority within Germany, nor was it recognised by any Axis, Allied or neutral government.