The first Reich President, Friedrich Ebert, died in February 1925, shortly before the end of his term. Whereas Ebert had been elected by the National Assembly, his successor was to be chosen through a direct presidential election. When none of the seven candidates was able to win an absolute majority in the first ballot, the Weimar coalition government unified behind Zentrum party candidate Wilhelm Marx. Meanwhile, the right-wing parties nominated the seventy-eight-year-old, unaffiliated General Paul von Hindenburg, who narrowly won in the second ballot. This photograph shows a truck campaigning for Hindenburg in the streets of Berlin. The truck carries an oversized bust of Hindenburg, around whom a powerful militarist cult of personality developed. That Hindenburg was perceived as the “Victor of Tannenberg” certainly played an important part in his unexpected victory. Hindenburg, who continued to openly express monarchist convictions after the revolution, took the oath of office and swore on the Weimar Constitution. During his first term, he disappointed the political right, who had hoped to bring the republic to a swift end.