section_path: Europe/Germany
section_name: Germany
paragraph_text: Germany
  
  Joachim Gauck, President of Germany from March 2012 to March 2017 and the first Federal President without party affiliation, was to date the most prominent independent politician. In the German presidential election of 2010 he was the candidate of the Social Democrats and Greens, in 2012 the candidate of all major parties except The Left. His presidency—though his powers are limited—constitutes an exception, as Independent politicians have rarely held high office in German history, at least not since World War II. It has nevertheless happened that a presidential candidate without any chances of election by the Federal Convention was not a party member: for example, in 1984 the Greens came up with the writer Luise Rinser.
  
  In the Bundestag parliament nearly all deputies belong to a political party. The voting system of personalized proportional representation (since 1949) allows any individual holding the passive right to vote to stand for a direct mandate in the electoral districts —299 of the seats in parliament are distributed by districts according to a plurality voting system. Such a candidate has to present 200 signatures in favor of their candidacy, the same as a candidate of a party that had no parliamentary presentation previously. The first Bundestag election in 1949 saw three independents elected; since then, no party-independent candidate has won a seat. At state level, the situation is more or less the same: only party members have a real chance to be elected to a Landtag legislature, and state ministers without party membership are just as rare as at the federal level. However, in local elections it may occur that an independent politician is elected deputy to districts ', cities' and municipalities' assemblies, as well as member of a city council or even mayor, especially in Northern Germany. In recent years, independents have formed Free Voters associations which have had success in local governments. Two such associations have managed to enter state parliaments: the Free Voters of Bavaria in 2008 and the Brandenburg United Civic Movements/Free Voters in 2019.
  
  An independent member of parliament, who also is not a member of a voters' association, holds the status of fraktionsloser Abgeordneter, i.e., not affiliated to any parliamentary group. A representative who either leaves their party (and their parliamentary group) or is expelled from it and does not join another becomes fraktionslos. In 1989 the Bundestag MP Thomas Wüppesahl, who had left the Green Party in 1987 and was excluded from the Green parliamentary group the next year, obtained more rights as a fraktionsloser Abgeordneter, for example more talking time and representation in a subcommittee, when the Federal Constitutional Court decided partially in their favor.
  
  After the German unification of 1871, the first Reich Chancellors (heads of government) de jure served as executive officers of the German Imperial states as non-partisans, usually recruited from the traditional bureaucratic, aristocratic or military elites. In the fierce political conflicts during the Weimar period after World War I, several chancellors and Reich Ministers also had no party affiliation: these chancellors were Wilhelm Cuno (1922–1923), Hans Luther (1925–1926), the former Centre politician Franz von Papen (1932), and Kurt von Schleicher (1932–1933). The last two cabinets appointed by Reich President Paul von Hindenburg, a non-partisan (though strongly Conservative) himself, were regarded as apolitical cabinets of experts with regard to the rise of the Nazi Party; many of the ministers were not party members.
  
  Since World War II, only two ministers of (West) German cabinets have not been party members, though "on the ticket" of the major party in the coalition, the Social Democrats: Education Minister Hans Leussink (1969–1972), and Minister of Economy Werner Müller (1998–2002). Minister of Justice Klaus Kinkel only shortly after his appointment joined the Free Democrats in 1991. A special case is the former Federal Minister and Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, whose affiliation with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has not been conclusively established: although he served as Minister of Economics from 1949 to 1963 and as Federal Chancellor from 1963 to 1966, and was even elected CDU party chairman in 1966, it seems that he never signed a membership form or paid contributions. Researches by Der Stern magazine have revealed a record at the CDU party archives created only in 1968, with the faked date of entry of early March 1949.