Under the
Kingdom of Prussia, the minister-president functioned as the
chief minister of the
king, and presided over the
Landtag, the Prussian
legislature established in 1848. After the
unification of Germany in 1871 and until the
1918–1919 revolution, the office of the Prussian minister-president was usually held by the
chancellor of the German Empire, beginning with the tenure of
Otto von Bismarck. Under the
Free State of Prussia the minister-president was the head of the state government in a more traditional parliamentary role during the
Weimar Republic. The office ceased to have any real meaning except as a kind of political
patronage title after the takeover by the national government in 1932 (
Preußenschlag), and after
Nazi Germany dismantled Prussia as a state in 1935 (
Reichsstatthaltergesetz). Eventually, the office was
abolished along with Prussia itself by the
Allies in the
aftermath of
World War II. ==Chief ministers of the Kingdom of Prussia (1702–1848)==