The head of the Chancellery (Chef des Bundeskanzleramtes) holds the rank of either a Secretary of State (Staatssekretär) or a Federal Minister (Bundesminister), currently held by Wolfgang Schmidt.

[3] When the North German Confederation was created in 1867, the constitution mentioned only the Bundeskanzler as the responsible executive officer.

Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer used the Museum Koenig for the first two months and then moved the Bundeskanzleramt into Palais Schaumburg until a new Chancellery building was completed in 1976.

The new West German Chancellery building was a black structure completed in the International Style, in an unassuming example of modernism.

Opened in the spring of 2001, the current Chancellery building was designed by Charlotte Frank and Axel Schultes and was built by a joint venture of Royal BAM Group's subsidiary Wayss & Freytag and the Spanish Acciona[5] Occupying 12,000 square meters (129,166 square feet), it is also the largest government headquarters building in the world.

[6][7] Because of its distinctive but controversial architecture, journalists, tourist guides and some locals refer to the buildings as Kohllosseum (as a mix of Colosseum and former chancellor Helmut Kohl under whom it was built), Bundeswaschmaschine (federal laundry machine, because of the round-shaped windows and its cubic form), or Elefantenklo (elephant loo).

Heads of the German Chancellery (Chef des Bundeskanzleramts, ChefBK) attend Cabinet meetings.