The office was created in 1990 after the German reunification and the joining of Brandenburg in the Federal Republic of Germany.

The current and third minister-president is Dietmar Woidke, heading a coalition government between the Social Democrats, the CDU and the Alliance '90/The Greens.

The minister-president's seat of government is known as the State Chancellery (German: Staatskanzlei) and is located in the state capital, Potsdam, along with the other cabinet department.

After the defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War, Brandenburg, which had previously been merely a province of Prussia, re-emerged as a German Land.

After being abolished in a reorganization of the territories administered by the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), the Land Brandenburg was restored in the prelude to German unification in 1990.