Georg Michaelis (September 8, 1857 – July 21, 1936) was the first Chancellor of Germany of non-noble background.

He was born in Haynau and raised in Frankfurt (Oder). He studied jurisprudence in Breslau, Leipzig and Würzburg from 1876 to 1884, becoming dr. juris. From 1885 to 1889 he lived and worked in Tokyo as a law professor of the Law School of the Society for German Sciences.

After that, he became a member of the Prussian administration. In 1909, he was appointed undersecretary of state to the Prussian Treasury in Berlin. From 1915 onwards he was leader of the Reichsgetreidestelle, an office in which he was responsible for the administration of Prussian corn and wheat in the First World War.

After Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg was forced to resign, on July 14, 1917 Michaelis became Chancellor of Germany as well as Minister President of Prussia. He remained in this position until October 31, 1917, when he was forced to resign because he was increasingly seen as a puppet of Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff of the General Staff.

From April 1, 1918 to March 31, 1919 he was Oberpräsident of the Prussian province of Pomerania. After the end of World War I he cooperated with the local workers' and soldiers' council. Nevertheless, he was soon replaced by the Socialist dominated government of Prussia.

After his dismissal, Michaelis worked in the fields of economic lobbying, in student organisations, in the Lutheran church synod of Prussia and became a member of the German National People's Party (DNVP). In 1921, he published his memoirs, Für Staat und Volk. Eine Lebensgeschichte.

Bibliography

• Becker, Bert: Georg Michaelis: ein preußischer Jurist im Japan der Meiji-Zeit; Briefe, Tagebuchnotizen, Dokumente 1885-1889. München: Iudicium 2001.
• Regulski, Christoph: Die Reichskanzlerschaft von Georg Michaelis 1917: Deutschlands Entwicklung zur parlamentarisch-demokratischen Monarchie im Ersten Weltkrieg. Marburg: Tectum-Verlag 2003.

1857 births | 1936 deaths | Chancellors of Germany | German Empire | German World War I people | German jurists | German people in Japan | O-yatoi gaikokujin

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