History of Germany since 1990 Helmut Kohl was reelected as Chancellor for his fifth and last term. The ruling liberal-conservative coalition government, consisting of the CDU/CSU and the FDP, lost the German federal election, 1998, and Gerhard Schröder was elected as Chancellor, the head of a coalition government consisting of his own SPD party and The Greens. Joschka Fischer, a leading Green politician, became Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister. Shortly after the formation of the government, Minister of Finance Oskar Lafontaine, a former SPD chairman and rival of Schröder, resigned from the cabinet. He was succeeded as Minister of Finance by Hans Eichel. In 1998,
Chancellor of Germany (1949–present) President dissolve the "Bundestag". The correct style of address in German is "Herr Bundeskanzler" (male) or "Frau Bundeskanzlerin" (female). Use of the mixed form "Frau Bundeskanzler" was deprecated by the government in 2004 because it is regarded as impolite. Since 2001, the official residence of the Chancellor is the Federal Chancellery ("Bundeskanzleramt") in Berlin. The former seat of the Federal Chancellery, the Palais Schaumburg in the former capital Bonn, now serves as a secondary official seat. The Chancellor's country retreat is Schloss Meseberg in the state of Brandenburg. Holding the third-highest state office available within the Federal Republic of Germany,