39 Finance ministers of Germany

The Minister of Finance of Germany is the head of the Federal Ministry of Finance and a member of the Federal Cabinet.

Peter Altmaier is a German lawyer and politician (CDU) who has served as Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy since March 2018. Previously he was Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety from May 2012 to December 2013 and Head of the German Chancellery and as Federal Minister for Special Affairs from December 2013 to March 2018. Altmaier is widely seen as one of Chancellor Angela Merkel's most trusted advisors and advocates for her more centrist wing of the CDU. He is known for his "compromising style" and was described in 2017 as "the most powerful man in Berlin".

Hans Eberhard Apel was a German politician and a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). From 1972 to 1974 he was Parliamentary State Secretary to the Foreign Minister. From 1974 to 1978 he was the Minister of Finance and from 1978 to 1982 he was the Minister of Defence.

Karl Heinrich von Boetticher was a German conservative statesman. He served as the secretary of the Interior (1880–1897), and the vice-chancellor of the German Empire (1881–1897).

Heinrich Aloysius Maria Elisabeth Brüning was a German Centre Party politician and academic, who served as the chancellor of Germany during the Weimar Republic from 1930 to 1932.

Rolf Dahlgrün was a German politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP). From 1962 to 1966, he was Minister of Finance.

Bernhard Dernburg was a German liberal politician and banker. He served as the secretary for Colonial Affairs and head of the Imperial Colonial Office from May 1907 to 9 June 1910, and as the minister of Finance and vice-chancellor of Germany from 17 April to 20 June 1919.

Hermann Robert Dietrich was a German politician of the liberal German Democratic Party and served as a minister during the Weimar Republic.

Hans Eichel is a German politician (SPD) and the co-founder of the G20, or "Group of Twenty", an international forum for the governments and central bank governors of twenty developed and developing nations to discuss policy issues pertaining to the promotion of international financial stability.

Matthias Erzberger was a German publicist and politician, the minister of Finance from 1919 to 1920.

Franz Etzel was a German politician of the CDU.

Karl Theodor Helfferich was a German politician, economist, and financier from Neustadt an der Weinstraße in the Palatinate.

Andreas Hermes was a German agricultural scientist and politician. In the Weimar Republic, he was a member of several governments, serving as minister of food/nutrition and minister of finance for the Catholic Zentrum. During the rule of the Nazi Party, Hermes was part of the right-wing resistance, for which he was imprisoned and sentenced to death. After World War II, he co-founded the Christian Democratic Union.

Rudolf Hilferding was an Austrian-born Marxist economist, socialist theorist, politician and the chief theoretician for the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) during the Weimar Republic, being almost universally recognized as the SPD's foremost theoretician of this century. He was also a physician.

Franz Heinrich Köhler was a German politician who served as Minister of Finance of the Weimar Republic in 1927/8. He also was the head of state (Staatspräsident) of the Republic of Baden in 1923/4 and 1926/7.

Oskar Lafontaine is a German politician. He served as Minister-President of the state of Saarland from 1985 to 1998, and was federal leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) from 1995 to 1999. He was the lead candidate for the SPD in the 1990 German federal election, but lost by a wide margin. He served as Minister of Finance under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder after the SPD's victory in the 1998 federal election, but resigned from both the ministry and Bundestag less than six months later, positioning himself as a popular opponent of Schröder's policies in the tabloid press.

Manfred Lahnstein is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). In 1982 he was German Federal Minister of Finance as well as Federal Minister of Economics and until 2004 worked for the media conglomerate Bertelsmann.

Hans Luther was a German politician and Chancellor of Germany for 482 days in 1925 to 1926. As Minister of Finance he helped stabilize the Mark during the hyperinflation of 1923. From 1930 to 1933, Luther was head of the Reichsbank and from 1933 to 1937 he served as German Ambassador to the United States.

Helmuth Ludwig Wilhelm Freiherr von Maltzahn was a German finance minister and a representative in the Reichstag.

Hans Hermann Matthöfer was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Paul Moldenhauer was a German cabinet minister, lawyer, economist and politician (DVP). He served as a German congressman (reichstagsabgeordneter) 1920-1932 and was German Minister of Finance and Minister of Trade and Industry in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Alexander Johann Heinrich Friedrich Möller was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Arthur Adolf, Count of Posadowsky-Wehner, Baron of Postelwitz was a German conservative statesman. He served as the secretary for the Treasury (1893–1897), secretary of the Interior, vice-chancellor of the German Empire and Prussian minister of State (1897–1907).

Siegfried Friedrich Wilhelm Erdmann Graf von Roedern, was a German politician. He served as Secretary in the Ministry for Alsace-Lorraine from 1914 to 1916, and as Secretary for the Treasury and Minister of State (1916–1918).

Fritz Schäffer was a German politician of the Bavarian People's Party (BVP) and the Christian Social Union (CSU). He was the Bavarian Minister of Finance from 1931 to 1933, when the Nazis came to power in Berlin. In 1945 he became the first Minister President of Bavaria to hold office after the end of the Second World War. From 1949 to 1957, he was the West German federal Minister of Finance and, from 1957 to 1961, federal Minister of Justice.

Wolfgang Schäuble is a German lawyer and politician whose political career has spanned almost five decades. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he is one of the longest-serving politicians in German history. Schäuble recently served President of the Bundestag from 2017 to 2021.

Eugen Schiffer was a German lawyer and liberal politician. He served as Minister of Finance and deputy head of government from February to April 1919. From October 1919 to March 1920, he was again deputy head of government and Minister of Justice. In 1921, he once more became Minister of Justice. Schiffer was co-founder of two liberal parties, the German Democratic Party (DDP) in 1918 and 1919 during the Weimar republic as well as the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (LDPD) of East Germany in 1946.

Karl August Fritz Schiller was a German economist and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). From 1966 to 1972, he was Federal Minister of Economic Affairs and from 1971 to 1972 Federal Minister of Finance. He was the inventor of the magic square, depicting Economic equilibrium, and of the Concerted activity to reflate the German market. He is thus seen as one of the most influential German economists beside Ludwig Erhard.

Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt was a German politician and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), who served as the chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982.

Kurt Schmücker was a German politician, member of Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Adolf Heinrich Wilhelm Scholz, since 1883 Adolf Heinrich Wilhelm von Scholz was a German army officer and politician. From 1864–1871 he was colonel of the 49th Regiment of Cavalry and retired after the Franco-Prussian War to a more peaceful role in politics. He served as Secretary for the Treasury of Germany from 1880 to 1882. In July 1882 he became Minister of Finance of the Kingdom of Prussia and served in this office until 1890.

Olaf Scholz is a German politician who has served as vice chancellor to Angela Merkel and as minister of Finance since March 2018. He previously served as the First Mayor of Hamburg from 2011 to 2018 and was the deputy leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) from 2009 to 2019. In the 2021 German federal election, from which the SPD emerged as the strongest parliamentary party, Scholz was his party's candidate for chancellor. The SPD, Alliance 90/The Greens and the FDP agreed to form a coalition government on 24 November 2021. The Bundestag is expected to elect Scholz as chancellor between 6 and 8 December 2021.

Johann Ludwig "Lutz" Graf Schwerin von Krosigk was a German senior government official who served as the minister of Finance of Germany from 1932 to 1945 and de facto chancellor of Germany during May 1945.

Peer Steinbrück is a German politician who was the Chancellor-candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the 2013 federal election. Steinbrück served as the 8th Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia from 2002 to 2005, a member of the Bundestag from 2009 to 2016, and as Federal Minister of Finance in the first Cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2005 to 2009.

Hermann Guido Leopold Freiherr von Stengel was a Bavarian administrator, a German politician and Finance Minister of the German Empire from 1903 to 1908.

Gerhard Stoltenberg was a German politician (CDU) and minister in the cabinets of Ludwig Erhard, Kurt Georg Kiesinger and Helmut Kohl. He served as minister-president of the German state (Land) of Schleswig-Holstein from 1971 to 1982 and as such as President of the Bundesrat in 1977/78.

Franz Josef Strauss was a German politician. He was the long-time chairman of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) from 1961 until 1988, member of the federal cabinet in different positions between 1953 and 1969 and minister-president of the state of Bavaria from 1978 until 1988. Strauss is also credited as a co-founder of European aerospace conglomerate Airbus.

Theodor Waigel is a German politician of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU). He represented Neu-Ulm in the Bundestag from 1976 to 2002.

Karl Joseph Wirth was a German politician of the Catholic Centre Party who served for one year and six months as the chancellor of Germany from 1921 to 1922, as the finance minister from 1920 to 1921, as acting foreign minister of Germany from 1921 to 1922 and again in 1922, as the minister for the Occupied Territories from 1929 to 1930 and as the minister of the Interior from 1930 to 1931. During the postwar era, he participated in the Soviet and East German Communist-controlled neutralist Alliance of Germans party from 1952 until his death in 1956.