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 Republic, while strongly diminishing the role of the president. Germany is today often referred to as a "chancellor democracy", reflecting the role of the chancellor as the country's chief executive. Since 1867, 33 individuals have served as heads of government of Germany, West Germany, or Northern Germany, nearly all of them with the title of Chancellor. Due to his administrative tasks, the head of the clerics at the chapel of an imperial palace during the Carolingian Empire was called chancellor (from ). The chapel's college acted as the Emperor's chancery issuing deeds and capitularies. Since the days of Louis the