1945: Military occupation provisional government led by Ludwig Bergsträsser(SPD), appointed by the U.S. Military
1945–1946: Military occupation provisional government led by Karl Geiler (no party), appointed by the U.S. military
1946–1950: Theoretically a CDU–SPD grand coalition with Christian Stock (SPD) as minister-president, though U.S. Military Occupation remained through 1949.
1969–1976: Center-left government of the SPD-FDP, with Albert Osswald (SPD) as minister-president
1976–1982: Center-left government of the SPD-FDP continued with Holger Börner (SPD) as minister-president.
1982–1984: Center-left government of the SPD (single party rule) with Holger Börner (SPD) as minister-president.
1984–1987: Center-left government of the SPD–Greens with Holger Börner (SPD) as minister-president.
1987–1991: Center-right government of the CDU–FDP with Walter Wallmann (CDU) as minister-president.
1991–1999: Center-left government of the SPD–Greens with Hans Eichel (SPD) as minister-president.
1999–2003: Center-right government of the CDU–FDP with Roland Koch (CDU) as minister-president.
2003–2009: Center-right government of the CDU (single party rule) with Roland Koch (CDU) as minister-president.
2009–2010: Center-right government of the CDU-FDP with Roland Koch (CDU) as minister-president.
2010–2014: Center-right government of the CDU–FDP with Volker Bouffier (CDU) as minister-president.
2014–2019: Center-right government of the CDU–Greens with Volker Bouffier (CDU) as minister-president.
2019–2022: Center-right government of the CDU–Greens with Volker Bouffier (CDU) as minister-president. Bouffier resigned in 2022, thus prematurely ending his third term serving as minister-president.
2022–present: Center-right government of the CDU–Greens with Boris Rhein (CDU) as minister-president.[1]
Since 1950, the SPD has been in the Hesse government 45 years, the CDU for 28 years; the FDP acted as coalition partners with either CDU or SPD for 21 years (13 with SPD, 8 with CDU).
The Hesse state election of 2008 for the state government (Landtag of Hesse) saw CDU support collapse, and it was widely assumed that the CDU would not participate in the new government. While outgoing CDU minister-president Roland Koch did lose his majority, the opposing parties were unable to form a coalition. The Greens and FDP rejected jointly sharing power with the CDU or SPD. This meant that the SPD and Greens needed to reach out to the new far-left Left party bloc of Landtag members, something very unpopular with most SPD members.
After two unsuccessful attempts to form a coalition from SPD and Greens with support from The Left, all parties except the SPD agreed to dissolve the parliament and call for early elections in January 2009. These were held, and popular anger at the bungling of the SPD delivered enough seats to form a new CDU-FDP coalition.