in January 1933. Upon Hindenburg's death in 1934 Hitler de facto assumed the presidency, which he combined with the chancellorship to become the . This would be the last presidential election in what would become West Germany and East Germany until 1949. It remains, until today, the last direct election of the German President. Hindenburg remained the only independent politician elected president of Germany until the election of Joachim Gauck nearly 80 years later. Background World War I had resulted in the collapse of all monarchies in Germany. In place of the German Empire arose the Weimar Republic, named for the city in which its constitution had been drafted. It was never particularly popular among the various groups that constituted its political landscape, receiving lukewarm support even from those who supported democracy and being hated by extremists. According to the Weimar Constitution, the president was to be elected for a seven-year term by the people, though the first President, Friedrich Ebert, was elected by the Weimar National Assembly in 1919, as the situation in Germany was too chaotic to hold popular elections. Ebert died suddenly in 1925, necessitating an election to be held that year, a year earlier than scheduled. Paul von Hindenburg, the commander of the German military during the war, had won the 1925 election despite not running in its first round. He had defeated Wilhelm Marx, the candidate backed by the parties of the pro-republic "Weimar Coalition". After 1929, the Great Depression devastated the Republic as parties argued over the proper response to it; the "Grand Coalition" government of Hermann Müller, which had been in power since the 1928 elections, dissolved in the face of the crisis and Müller resigned on 27 March 1930. Heinrich Brüning, who was appointed Chancellor in his place, had no majority for his austerity policies in the Reichstag and began to use the Presidential powers to rule by decree. This was received positively by many conservatives who disliked democratic government and supported Hindenburg's reelection to further this conservative renaissance. At the same time, Hindenburg's work within the Republic had been much better than had been expected by pro-republican politicians. The National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), originally called German Workers Party (DAP), was founded in 1919. World War I corporal Adolf Hitler joined it later that year and became first its primary speaker and, in 1921, party leader with dictatorial powers. Hitler's