Chancellor of Germany was not even re-installed. In the 1871 German Empire, the imperial chancellor ("Reichskanzler") served both as the emperor's first minister, and as presiding officer of the Bundesrat, the upper chamber of the German parliament. He was neither elected by nor responsible to Parliament (the "Reichstag"). Instead, the chancellor was appointed by the emperor. The federal level had four organs: Technically, the foreign ministers of the empire's states instructed their states' deputies to the federal council (Bundesrat) and therefore outranked the chancellor. For this reason, Prince Bismarck (as he was from 1871 onwards) continued to serve as both prime minister and
Chancellor of Germany chancellor of the Austrian Empire (1821–1848), likewise Prince Hardenberg acted as Prussian chancellor (1810–1822). The German Confederation of 1815-1866 did not have a government or parliament, only the Bundestag as representative organ of the states. In the now defunct German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany), which existed from 7 October 1949 to 3 October 1990 (when the territory of the former GDR was reunified with the Federal Republic of Germany), the position of chancellor did not exist. The equivalent position was called either Minister President "(Ministerpräsident)" or Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the GDR "(Vorsitzender des Ministerrats der