Präsidium des Bundes or Bundespräsidium (, roughly ''chairmanship of the federation'') was a title under the

German Confederation The German Confederation ( ) was an association of 39 predominantly German-speaking sovereign states in Central Europe. It was created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as a replacement of the former Holy Roman Empire, which had been dissolved ...

(1815–1848, 1851–1866) whereby the Austrian delegate held the chair of the Federal Assembly. Austria was thus called the ''presiding power'' (). This did not give Austria extra competencies: its delegate simply led the proceedings of the Federal Assembly. Later, during the

North German Confederation The North German Confederation () was initially a German military alliance established in August 1866 under the leadership of the Kingdom of Prussia, which was transformed in the subsequent year into a confederated state (a ''de facto'' feder ...

(1867–1871), the same title was used for an office functioning as

head of state A head of state is the public persona of a sovereign state.#Foakes, Foakes, pp. 110–11 "

he head of state He or HE may refer to: Language * He (letter), the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads * He (pronoun), a pronoun in Modern English * He (kana), one of the Japanese kana (へ in hiragana and ヘ in katakana) * Ge (Cyrillic), a Cyrillic letter cal ...

being an embodiment of the State itself or representative of its international persona." The name given to the office of head of sta ...

.Ernst Rudolf Huber: ''Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte seit 1789.'' Band III: ''Bismarck und das Reich''. 3rd edition, W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1988, p. 657. According to the constitution, the holder of this office was always the

king of Prussia The monarchs of Prussia were members of the House of Hohenzollern who were the hereditary rulers of the former German state of Prussia from its founding in 1525 as the Duchy of Prussia. The Duchy had evolved out of the Teutonic Order, a Roman C ...

. The king was also ''Bundesfeldherr'', federal commander-in-chief. The constitutional changes of 1870–1871 renamed the North German Confederation to the ''

German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...

''; the title and function of ''Bundespräsidium'' remained, but was combined with the additional title '' Deutscher Kaiser'' (German Emperor).

Notes

{{Authority control Titles of national or ethnic leadership Legal history of Germany North German Confederation German Confederation