Talk:Acting President of Germany

Unfortunately this myth about an "acting presidency" seems to be hard to kill. Article 57 states : "Die Befugnisses des Bundespräsdenten werden im Falle seiner Verhinderung oder bei vorzeitiger Erledigung seines Amtes durch den Präsidenten des Bundesrates wahrgenommen" (English :The duties of the federal president will be - should he be temporarily incapacitated or should his office end pre-maturally - taken over by the president of the Bundesrat."

What this means is that the powers usually vested in the president are now wielded by the president of the Bundesrat until such time as a new federal president is elected. The president of the Bundesrat is still in that office - and will not be referred to as "Herr Bundespräsident".

No where in this article does it state that the president of the Bundesrat becomes federal president - actual or otherwise. In fact article 54 is quite explicit that the president can only be elected by the Bundesversammlung.

For the above mentioned I am changing the section on "postwar era" accordingly. Travelbird (talk) 19:11, 31 May 2010 (UTC)