A jurist, Marx’s political career started during the Kaiserreich. He joined the Center Party and served as a Member of the Reichstag from 1910 to 1918. As an experienced politician, he was elected to the National Assembly and the Reichstag after the November Revolution. At the start of the 1920s, he strongly considered leaving politics. Yet with the Center Party having lost two key leaders - Erzberger and Trimborn - within a short period of time, he decided to continue his political work. He first took on the chairmanship of the party and its parliamentary group. Then, in the crisis-ridden year of 1923, he took on the post of Reichskanzler, remaining in office until 1924. In the 1925 presidential elections, he lost to Paul von Hindenburg in the second round of voting by a very small margin. He served again as Reichskanzler from 1926 to 1928, making him the Weimar Republic’s longest-serving chancellor. He took on a mediating role, promoting dialogue and compromise. This proved decisive in many decision-making processes.

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Kaas studied theology in Trier and was ordained in Rome after finishing his studies. He then obtained a doctorate in philosophy and theology. In 1905, he started studying religious law. From 1918, he worked as a professor of religious law at the University of Trier. In Munich in 1917, he became the canonical advisor of papal nuncio Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, continuing on in this role in Berlin from 1920. His close ties with Pacelli brought him a lot of influence within the Catholic Center Party. Without any serious political ambitions, he was elected to the National Assembly in 1919. However, O.C. there, Kaas became very interested in politics and constitutional issues. Accordingly, he became a Center Party Reichstag member. In 1928, he was elected Chairman of the Center Party. As part of the party’s moderate right wing, he supported Brüning’s presidential cabinet. He underestimated the Nazis’ ambitions and tried to convince his party to cooperate with Hitler. During the vote on the Enabling Act, he pushed the Center group to vote for its adoption. He also played a crucial role in negotiating the concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich. He decided to stay in Rome permanently from 1933 on.

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After having studied Protestant theology and philosophy, Dibelius obtained a Ph.D. in Gießen in 1902 and a Lic. Theol. in Berlin in 1906. He managed to work his way up quickly within the Evangelical Church. During World War I, he was one of the many Protestant clergymen who, with their excessive nationalistic zeal, supported the government’s war goals. After the war was lost, he supported the “stab-in-the-back myth”, very common within nationalistic and right-wing conservative groups, and was critical of the republic. Nevertheless, he was able to continue his career, as many in the Evangelical Church shared his views. Accordingly, he became General Superintendent of Kurmark in the Consistory of Brandenburg in Berlin in 1925. He joined the DNVP during the same year. In 1930, Dibelius published “Peace on Earth?”, in which he rejected war and demanded support for conscientious objectors. Although he was softening his radical views in part in this publication, he is still pointed to as an example demonstrating the extent to which the Evangelical Church’s leadership distanced itself from the republic. Although Dibelius initially sympathized with the NSDAP, he resigned from his posts when the Evangelical Church was struck by the Gleichschaltung process. After the war, he joined the CDU and became head of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD).

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