ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the fluctuating fortunes of the German twentieth-century mayoralty. It describes its institutional and constitutional evolution since around 1800. The chapter provides a generic picture of mayoral social backgrounds. It focuses on the difficulties faced in Weimar and Third-Reich years when the office was politicised in very different ways. The chapter also provides challenges some scholarly assumptions about mayoral decline under the Republic, while supporting perceptions of its nadir under the Third Reich. It argues that earlier institutional structures, personnel and ideas relating to the mayoralty under Weimar and Nazism were revived. The contradiction facing mayors during the Third Reich - whether to be servants of the state, agents of the party and representatives of the people - became particularly acute during the war years, when they had to be all three. In the city-state of Bremen, the British military authorities appointed Erich Vagts, former German People's Party council-leader under the Republic.
