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 the three months between the end of the German Empire in November 1918 and the first gathering of the National Assembly in February 1919, but did not use the title of Chancellor. During that time, Ebert also served as chairman of the "Council of the People's Deputies", until 29 December 1918 together with the Independent Social Democrat Hugo Haase. The office of chancellor was continued in the Weimar Republic. The chancellor (Reichskanzler) was appointed by the president and was responsible to the parliament. Under the Weimar Republic, the chancellor was a fairly weak figure. Much like his French counterpart, he