As capital of the
Kingdom of Prussia, Berlin received its first mayor () in accordance with the
Prussian reforms approved by King
Frederick William III after the retreat of the
Napoleonic occupation troops in 1809. The mayor of Berlin was the head of the
city council, called the . The two-stage administration and the office of the borough mayors were implemented in the course of the wide-ranging incorporations under the 1920
Greater Berlin Act. , the borough hall of
Schöneberg, was the city hall and seat of the mayor of West Berlin during the Division of Germany. During the
Allied occupation after
World War II, the city assembly () elected the
Social Democratic politician
Ernst Reuter as mayor on 24 June 1947, who, however, was not confirmed by the
Allied Kommandatura of Berlin due to
Soviet reservations. After the
Communist putsch in Berlin's city government in September 1948, a separate city parliament (still named ),
de facto only competent for the Western occupation sectors (which would become
West Berlin), was elected on 5 December 1948, and two days later a separate city government was elected with Ernst Reuter as governing mayor of West Berlin. The Soviet administration had officially deposed the previous elected government of all of Berlin – effectively, only in the eastern sector — and had installed the
SED mayor
Friedrich Ebert, Jr., in
East Berlin on 30 November 1948. (l.) and East Berlin Mayor
Tino Schwierzina, May 1990 West Berlin introduced its own constitution (), accounting for the changed facts, as of 1 October 1950. This constitution provided renamed the city's parliament "House of Representatives of Berlin", the city's executive government "Senate of Berlin", and the head of government "Governing Mayor of Berlin" (). Under the new constitution, representatives were elected on 3 December 1950, and the new parliament re-elected Ernst Reuter governing mayor on 18 January 1951. From 1951 to 1990, during the
Cold War, the governing mayor was the head of government in West Berlin with his seat at
Rathaus Schöneberg, while East Berlin
de jure remained under Soviet occupation and
de facto became a part, and the capital, of
East Germany — a status not recognized by
NATO members, but condoned by the 1971
Four Power Agreement on Berlin and the German
Basic Treaty of 1972. The government of West Berlin claimed to be the legitimate government of all of Berlin within the borders established by the 1920 Greater Berlin Act until the
Peaceful Revolution of 1989. In 1990, even before
German reunification on 3 October 1990, the mayors of West Berlin and East Berlin held common cabinet meetings, until Berlin-wide elections took place on 2 December 1990. == List ==