List of Federal Presidents of the Republic of Austria

The incumbent Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen

Presidential office in the Leopoldine wing of the Hofburg

The list of federal presidents of Austria shows all twelve heads of state (one president of the National Assembly and eleven federal presidents ) of the Republic of Austria .

Heinz Fischer, who had been President of the National Council for many years, had been Federal President since 2004 . His re-election took place in April 2010; his second term ended on July 8, 2016. His successor was elected on April 24, 2016. In the runoff election on May 22, 2016, the Green Alexander Van der Bellen narrowly prevailed against the liberal candidate Norbert Hofer. After the Constitutional Court completely overturned the runoff election on July 1, 2016, the election had to be repeated across Austria. The election date on October 2 was canceled due to deficiencies in the voting cards on September 12 and the election was repeated on December 4, 2016. Alexander Van der Bellen also won the repeat election and was sworn in by the Federal Assembly as the 9th Federal President of the Second Republic on January 26, 2017.

introduction

The first head of state of the First Republic was from October 30, 1918 to March 15, 1919, the three equal chairmen of the State Council and the Provisional National Assembly for German Austria , Franz Dinghofer , Johann Hauser and Karl Seitz , also known as the State Council Directorate. One of the three chaired the House (= Parliament), the Council (= State Council, Executive Committee of Parliament) and the Cabinet (= State Government Renner I ), taking turns in these functions every week. With a law of November 12, 1918, the Council of State also formally assumed all functions that were previously incumbent on the Kaiser.

The Constituent National Assembly , elected for the first time by all adult male and female citizens (except in Burgenland , which only became part of Austria in 1921) , convened on March 4, 1919 and elected Karl Seitz as its president on March 5, 1919. It resolved on March 14, 1919 to abolish the Council of State ; its parliamentary functions were transferred to the main committee of parliament, its executive functions to the president of the national assembly and the state government. When this law came into force on March 15, 1919, Karl Seitz was the sole head of state until December 9, 1920. No special function designation has been defined for this function.

On November 10, 1920, the Federal Constitutional Act (B-VG) passed by the National Assembly on October 1, 1920, which is still Austria's constitutional charter, came into force. Seitz now had the powers of the Federal President without using this function title. In accordance with the B-VG, the Federal Assembly consisting of the National Council and the Federal Council elected Michael Hainisch as the first Federal President on December 9, 1920 , who took on Seitz's functions as Head of State on the same day.

The office of Federal President was significantly upgraded with the second Federal Constitutional Amendment in 1929 . The head of state was now to be directly elected by the federal people in accordance with Article 60 of the Federal Constitution , his term of office was extended to six years.

Wilhelm Miklas was elected by parliament for his first term in 1928; since 1929 he had the extended rights of the Federal President. The popular election scheduled for 1931 was canceled by a special law and Miklas was re-elected by the Federal Assembly. In the time of the corporate state dictatorship Miklas remained in office, a presidential election by the mayor as the imposed May Constitution provided for, never took place. For the sake of simplicity, Karl Renner's election as the first Federal President of the Second Republic was also carried out in parliament in 1945 in occupied post-war Austria. The popular election passed in 1929 therefore only became a reality in 1951, when Theodor Körner was elected.

Since 1951, the Federal President has been elected by the federal people in accordance with Article 60 B-VG . If more than two candidates stand for election, there is usually a second ballot for the two candidates with the most votes, since more than half of the votes cast are required for the election. The Federal President can be re-elected once after a six-year term of office.

With Alexander Van der Bellen, for the first time in the history of the Second Republic, a person took over the office of Federal President in 2017 who was not nominated by either the SPÖ or the ÖVP.

Federal President

The following twelve people were heads of state elected by the National Assembly, since 1920 by the Federal Assembly, and since 1951 by the federal people.

No .: chronological order
Federal President: Name
Life dates: birth and death dates
Party: the party to which the president belongs
Term: Number of terms the President has been in office (maximum two terms)
Term of office: The respective term of office
%: Percentage of valid votes for the person (possibly in the second ballot)
Ballot: Number of ballots until the decision (maximum two)
Died in office: yes, if the president died during his term of office

No.	Federal President	Life dates	Political party	period	Term of office	%	Ballot	Died in office
First Republic (1918–1938)
1	Karl Seitz	* September 4, 1869 in Vienna † February 3, 1950 in Vienna	SDAPDÖ	1.	March 15, 1919 - December 9, 1920	-	-	No
1	After finishing school, Karl Seitz graduated from the St. Pölten Teachers Training College . After he was released from school service in 1897, he worked in the education sector of the SDAPDÖ. He ran for the first time in 1901 for the SDAPÖ and was elected to the House of Representatives of the Reichsrat as the first Social Democratic member of the 4th Curia. A year later he also moved into the Lower Austrian state parliament. From 1920 to 1934 he was chairman of the SDAPDÖ. He headed the Provisional National Assembly for German Austria as one of the three presidents and chairman of the Council of State and as President of the Constituent National Assembly he was head of state in 1919/1920 until Hainisch was elected. From 1923 to 1934 Seitz was mayor and governor of Vienna. In 1934, at the time of the corporate state, and in 1944/45 he was imprisoned and in a concentration camp. In 1945 he returned to Vienna.
2	Michael Hainisch	* August 15, 1858 in Aue near Schottwien † February 26, 1940 in Vienna	independent	1.	December 9, 1920 - December 9, 1924	-	-	No
	Michael Hainisch		independent	2.	December 9, 1924 - December 10, 1928	-	-	No
	The non-party Michael Hainisch succeeded Karl Seitz as head of state in 1920 and was the first official Federal President. After his legal training in Leipzig and Vienna, he completed his judicial practice and spent several years in the civil service. He then worked as a popular educator and was a co-founder of the Vienna Central Library. Because of his office he was recognized by all political camps and was a supporter of agriculture, the electrification of railways, tourism, Austro-German trade, rural customs and the creation of a monument protection law. In 1938 he spoke out in favor of the annexation of Austria to the German Reich.
3	Wilhelm Miklas	* October 15, 1872 in Krems † March 20, 1956 in Vienna	CS / VF	1.	December 10, 1928 - October 9, 1931	-	-	No
	Wilhelm Miklas	* October 15, 1872 in Krems † March 20, 1956 in Vienna	CS / VF	2.	October 9, 1931 - March 13, 1938	-	-	No
	After studying at the University of Vienna , he was an assistant teacher at various grammar schools in the monarchy. After that, his political career began in 1907 as a member of the Reichsrat. In 1908 he was a member of the Lower Austrian state parliament. Between 1918 and 1920 he was a member of both the Provisional and Constituent National Assemblies. Between 1923 and 1928, Miklas was then President of the National Council . After that, on December 10, 1928, he was elected Federal President of Austria by the Federal Assembly. He was the first and so far only Federal President during whose term of office the National Council was paralyzed by the Federal Government. Due to his passivity as President, Miklas Engelbert Dollfuss made it possible to establish the Austro-Fascist corporate state and to proclaim the authoritarian May constitution . Miklas was left in office by Dollfuss. Posthumously discovered notes of Miklas clearly showed his aversion to Dollfuss. In the course of the “Anschluss” he resigned on March 13, 1938 under pressure from the National Socialists because he did not want to sign the Anschlussgesetz.
Second Republic (since 1945)
4th	Karl Renner	* December 14, 1870 in Unter-Tannowitz , Moravia † December 31, 1950 in Vienna	SPÖ	1.	December 20, 1945 - December 31, 1950	-	-	Yes ↓
4th	Karl Renner was one of the most influential politicians in Austria. After the First World War, from 1918 to 1920, the trained lawyer played a key role as State Chancellor in the creation of the First Republic. He also headed the Austrian delegation during the negotiations in Saint-Germain and was President of the Austrian National Council from 1931 to 1933. His resignation triggered a crisis of rules of procedure, which the Federal Government Dollfuss used to shut down parliament. Like numerous other Social Democrats, he was temporarily imprisoned in 1934. After the Second World War he was again Chancellor of the provisional state government . On December 20, 1945, the Federal Assembly unanimously elected him as the first Federal President of the Second Republic . He held the office until his death on December 31, 1950.
5	Theodor Körner	* April 24, 1873 in Új Szőny, Komorn † January 4, 1957 in Vienna	SPÖ	1.	June 21, 1951 - January 4, 1957	52.1% 39.2%	2 1	Yes ↓
5	After attending the Technical Military Academy in Vienna , Körner was able to qualify for training as a general staff . After his work in World War I, he played a key role in building up the Austrian Armed Forces , and in 1924 he retired and was promoted to general . In the same year he joined the SPÖ and started his political career. Koerner was also a member of the central leadership of the Republican Protection Association . After the Second World War he became mayor of Vienna on April 17, 1945 and in 1950 he was nominated by the Social Democrats for the first popular election of the Federal President in 1951 , which he won in the second ballot.
6th	Adolf Schärf	* April 20, 1890 in Nikolsburg , South Moravia † February 28, 1965 in Vienna	SPÖ	1.	May 22, 1957 - May 22, 1963	51.1%	1	Yes ↓
	Adolf Schärf		SPÖ	2.	May 22, 1963 - February 28, 1965	55.4%	1	Yes ↓
	After the First World War, Adolf Schärf was secretary to the social democratic parliamentary presidents Seitz, Eldersch and Renner as well as the social democratic parliamentary club and in 1933/34 he was a member of the Federal Council . After the establishment of the corporate state dictatorship by Engelbert Dollfuss 1934 Ph.D graduate put in law the attorney exam in order to work as a lawyer, which he did during the Second World War. As a member of the resistance group O5 , he was briefly in political detention in 1944, as in 1934 and 1938. After the war, like Leopold Figl and Johann Koplenig, he became political state secretary of the provisional state government under Karl Renner . After the first elections to the National Council in November 1945 , Schärf was SPÖ party chairman, vice-chancellor of the coalition governments of the ÖVP and SPÖ and a member of the National Council until 1957 . After the federal presidential elections in 1957 , Schärf became the third federal president of the Second Republic. In 1963 he was re-elected as the first president .
7th	Franz Jonas	* October 4, 1899 in Vienna † April 24, 1974 in Vienna	SPÖ	1.	June 9, 1965 - June 9, 1971	50.7%	1	Yes ↓
	Franz Jonas	* October 4, 1899 in Vienna † April 24, 1974 in Vienna	SPÖ	2.	June 9, 1971 - April 24, 1974	52.8%	1	Yes ↓
	Franz Jonas was a trained typesetter . During the Great Depression of the 1930s, he was secretary of the Social Democratic Labor Party. After the elimination of parliament in 1933 and Dollfuss banning social democracy, Jonas became unemployed. At times he worked as a newspaper composer. After he took part in the founding of the SPÖ in 1945, he was City Councilor for Food in Vienna from 1948 to 1949. After that, Jonas was City Councilor for Construction until 1951 and after the election of Mayor Theodor Körner as Federal President he was Mayor of Vienna from 1951 to 1965. At the same time he was President of the Austrian Association of Cities . Franz Jonas was also a member of the Federal Council from 1952 to 1953 and then a member of the National Council until 1965. After Adolf Schärf's death, he ran for the SPÖ in the federal presidential elections in 1965 . After his first term in office, he was re-elected in 1971 .
8th	Rudolf Kirchschläger	* March 20, 1915 in Niederkappel † March 30, 2000 in Vienna	independent	1.	July 8, 1974 - July 8, 1980	51.7%	1	No
	Rudolf Kirchschläger	* March 20, 1915 in Niederkappel † March 30, 2000 in Vienna	independent	2.	July 8, 1980 - July 8, 1986	79.9%	1	No
	After graduating from high school in 1935, Rudolf Kirchschläger began studying law, which he completed in 1940. However, after the annexation of Austria in 1938, he had to stop studying at short notice. During a two-month leave from the front, he prepared for his state examination and received his rigorosum with distinction. After the Second World War he was initially a teaching officer at the Theresian Military Academy . Between 1947 and 1954 he was a judge at the Langenlois District Court , after which he worked as a legal expert in the Foreign Ministry. In 1954 he was a regional judge at the District Court of Vienna-Innere Stadt. In 1963 he was head of the cabinet of Foreign Ministers Bruno Kreisky and Lujo Tončić-Sorinj , after which he was Austrian envoy in Prague from 1967 until he was appointed as a non-party foreign minister of the federal government Kreisky I in 1970 . After the death of Franz Jonas, he was nominated by the SPÖ under Bruno Kreisky as a non-party for the 1974 federal presidential elections, which he won. In 1980 he was for a second term re-elected .
9	Kurt Waldheim	* December 21, 1918 in St. Andrä-Wölker † June 14, 2007 in Vienna	independent	1.	July 8, 1986 - July 8, 1992	53.9% 49.6%	2 1	No
9	With a doctorate in law, he worked as secretary to Foreign Minister Karl Gruber after the war, and then worked as a diplomat in Paris from 1948 to 1951, in Toronto from 1956 to 1960 and ambassador to New York from 1964 to 1968 and 1970 to 1971. From 1968 to 1970 he was Austrian Foreign Minister. In 1971 he ran for the ÖVP in the federal presidential elections, but the SPÖ candidate Jonas won the election. Waldheim previously worked as a permanent Austrian UN observer from 1955 to 1956. From 1964 to 1968 and from 1970 to 1971 he was the permanent Austrian representative to the United Nations. After the election defeat in the federal presidential elections in 1971, he was elected UN Secretary General that same year and held this office for two terms until 1981. After his visiting professorship at Georgetown University in Washington, DC until 1983, he ran for the ÖVP again in the federal presidential elections in 1986 and prevailed against Kurt Steyrer (SPÖ) in the second ballot . The elections were overshadowed by the so-called Waldheim affair ; it made Federal President Waldheim unwelcome in the United States . They resented the fact that when he applied to the UN, he had refined his résumé, which concerned his activities in the Nazi army .
10	Thomas Klestil	* November 4, 1932 in Vienna † July 6, 2004 in Vienna	ÖVP	1.	July 8, 1992 - July 8, 1998	56.9% 37.2%	2 1	Yes ↓
	Thomas Klestil	* November 4, 1932 in Vienna † July 6, 2004 in Vienna	ÖVP	2.	July 8, 1998 - July 6, 2004	63.4%	1	Yes ↓
	After graduating from high school, Thomas Klestil studied at the University of World Trade and graduated with a doctorate in commercial science in 1957. He then started his diplomatic career in the Federal Chancellery in the section that was responsible for Austria's external relations. From 1959 to 1962 he was a member of the Austrian delegation to the OECD in Paris. In 1962 he was transferred to the Austrian embassy in Washington. In 1966 he became secretary to Federal Chancellor Josef Klaus . Klestil later became Austria's UN Ambassador to New York. In 1989 he returned to Austria and became Secretary General of the Foreign Ministry under Alois Mock . In the federal presidential elections in 1992 , he ran for the ÖVP and was able to prevail against the SPÖ candidate Rudolf Streicher in the second ballot . In his second term of office after the 1998 elections , in which the SPÖ and FPÖ also recommended his election, the novelty fell that in 2000 the ÖVP-FPÖ government formed for the first time a government that was not wanted by the Federal President, but a majority in the National Council had behind him. Klestil's stony expression became known when this government was sworn in, which led to a break with his party. On July 5, 2004, Klestil suffered two heart attacks, from the consequences of which he died one day later, two days before the end of his second term in office.
11	Heinz Fischer	* October 9, 1938 in Graz	SPÖ	1.	July 8, 2004 - July 8, 2010	52.39%	1	No ↓
	Heinz Fischer	* October 9, 1938 in Graz	SPÖ	2.	July 8, 2010 - July 8, 2016	79.33%	1	No ↓
	Heinz Fischer was born in Graz and grew up in Vienna , where he completed his school career. After graduating from high school in 1956, he studied law at the University of Vienna and received his doctorate in 1961. After his studies, Fischer worked as the club secretary of the SPÖ, and in 1971 he was elected to the National Council, to which he belonged until 2004, with a three-year break. In addition to his political activities in the SPÖ, he received his habilitation in 1978 and was appointed professor of political science at the University of Innsbruck in 1993 . In 1975 he became club chairman of the SPÖ, and in 1977 deputy party chairman. Between 1983 and 1987 he was Minister of Science in the federal government under Fred Sinowatz , after which he was again club chairman of the SPÖ. In 1990, Fischer was elected President of the Austrian National Council and held this office until 2002. From 1992 to 2004, Fischer was deputy chairman of the Party of European Socialists . From 2002 to 2004 he was second President of the National Council. In the federal presidential elections in 2004 , Fischer prevailed against the ÖVP candidate Benita Ferrero-Waldner . When he took office on July 8, 2004, Fischer suspended his party membership in the SPÖ, as he declared that as Federal President he wanted to be above the parties. In 2010 he was re-elected for a second term.
12	Alexander Van der Bellen	* January 18, 1944 in Vienna	Green	1.	January 26, 2017 -	53.8% 21.3%	2 1	No
12	Alexander Van der Bellen grew up in the Kaunertal in Tyrol and Innsbruck . After passing his Matura, he studied economics at the University of Innsbruck and did his doctorate there. He first worked as a research assistant at the University of Innsbruck before he was a university professor in Innsbruck and at the University of Vienna. In 1997, Van der Bellen took over the role of party chairman in Austria's Greens and remained in this position until 2008. After losses in the National Council election in 2008 , he resigned as party chairman, but remained in the National Council. He later moved to the Vienna City Council before deciding to run for Federal President. Officially started as independent, he was supported by the Greens.

Footnotes:

^ As an individual, Seitz was the first republican head of state in Austria, but did not use the title Federal President.
↑ Was elected President and thus Head of State by the National Assembly.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Was elected by the Federal Assembly.
↑ In the 1998 election, Klestil was supported by the ÖVP, SPÖ and FPÖ .
^ Fischer suspends his membership in the SPÖ during his time as president.
↑ Independent candidacy; Van der Bellen puts his party membership on hold during his time as president.

Interim function

According to the then valid version of Article 64 of the Federal Constitutional Act, the Federal Chancellor exercised the functions of the respective Federal President on an interim basis until a new head of state was elected until 1977 .

On March 13, 1938, the “Anschluss of Austria” to the German Reich was to be carried out under constitutional law, even if it was a farce. The National Socialist Arthur Seyß-Inquart had been Federal Chancellor for two days . The federal law "passed" by the National Socialist government had to be signed by the Federal President in accordance with the rules of the corporate state constitution in order to come into force. Wilhelm Miklas refused and resigned. His functions were constitutionally transferred to Federal Chancellor Seyß-Inquart. He signed the resolution now in his dual function as the incumbent head of state and as Federal Chancellor. His signature gave the connection law legal force; since the state of Austria ceased to exist with this signature, Seyss' function as the incumbent head of state also ended. Like the entire legislation of the corporate state dictatorship, this process was repealed as unconstitutional when the Republic of Austria was reestablished in 1945.

Since the amendment to Article 64, Paragraph 1 in 1977, the official business of the Federal President has been transferred to the College of the three National Council Presidents until a newly elected Federal President has been sworn in .

Legend table:

No .: chronological order
Name: The person / s performing the function
Party: Party (s) to which the person (s) belonged (s)
Term of office: Duration of the interim exercise of office
According to BP: Previously acting Federal President

No.	Surname	Political party	Interim term	according to BP
1	Leopold Figl	ÖVP	December 31, 1950 - June 21, 1951	Karl Renner ↑
2	Julius Raab	ÖVP	January 4, 1957 - May 22, 1957	Theodor Körner ↑
3	Josef Klaus	ÖVP	February 28, 1965 - June 9, 1965	Adolf Schärf ↑
4th	Bruno Kreisky	SPÖ	April 24, 1974 - July 8, 1974	Franz Jonas ↑
5	Andreas Khol Barbara Prammer Thomas Prinzhorn	ÖVP SPÖ FPÖ	July 6, 2004 - July 8, 2004	Thomas Klestil ↑
6th	Doris Bures Karlheinz head of Norbert Hofer	SPÖ ÖVP FPÖ	July 8, 2016 - January 26, 2017	Heinz Fischer ↑