Landeshauptmann

Until 1933 the term was also used in Prussia for the head of government of a province,[1] in the modern-day states of Germany (with the exceptions of the city-states) the counterpart to Landeshauptmann is the Ministerpräsident (minister-president).

Since the early modern period, a Landeshauptmann originally served as governor under either a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire or the Emperor himself, mainly in the territories of the Habsburg monarchy (as for the Lands of the Bohemian Crown), later also in the Kingdom of Prussia.

In the Austrian Empire, according to the 1861 February Patent, the title referred to the president of the Landtag assembly of a Habsburg crown land (called Landmarschall [de] in Lower Austria, Bohemia, and Galicia), who also served as head of the provincial administration.

According to the 1946 Gruber–De Gasperi Agreement and the Second Autonomy Statute of 1972, the chief executives of the provincial governments (Italian: Presidente della Provincia autonoma) of South Tyrol and Trentino are called Landeshauptleute in German.

Despite the German terms Landeshauptmann and Landtag, South Tyrol and Trentino according to Italian conception are no federated states (Länder) but merely subnational administrative divisions (enti territoriali), though with considerable self-government responsibilities and legislative powers.

The districts organised through their elected deputies their utilities, such as construction and maintenance of provincial roads, hospitals, schools, public savings banks, waste disposal etc., in self-rule.

[3] With the abolition of democratic self-rule on all government levels in the course of the Gleichschaltung process after the Nazi takeover in 1933, the office-holders were furloughed or retired and the offices remained vacant.