Heinrich Köhler

Who was Heinrich Köhler?

Franz Heinrich Köhler was a German politician who served as the fifth and eighth State President of Baden and the eleventh Minister of Finance in the Weimar Republic. He was a member of the Centre Party, and later the CDU. Köhler represented the Centre Party in the Baden Landtag from 1913 to 1927.

Köhler's first political position was when he was appointed Lord Mayor of Karlsruhe in 1911 by Frederick II, Grand Duke of Baden. After the creation of the Republic of Baden in 1918, he continued to serve as Lord Mayor until 1920. In this year, he became Minister for Finance in Baden, a position in which he served until the 1923 elections brought the Centre Party a majority and Köhler became State President. However, elections the following year brought the DDP to power and Köhler returned to his post as Minister for Finance.

Internal differences within the Centre Party led to Köhler replacing Gustav Trunk as the leader of the party. On November 23, 1926, Köhler became State President once again. However, he was compelled to resign on February 3, 1927, in order to accept his appointment as Reich Minister of Finance under Chancellor Wilhelm Marx. After the fall of Marx's government, Köhler sat in the 1932 Reichstag. After the Nazi takeover and the Reichstag fire in the following year, however, Köhler and many others were imprisoned.