Hildegard A. Köhler is the former Chancellor of the German Empire, and is one of the fifty founders of the nation. She was appointed by the Founding Fifty in Berlin to be Chancellor on the same day the nation was founded, March 19, 2008. Hildegard Köhler was born on July 17, 1954 in Hamburg, West Germany. Her father was a Lutheran pastor and her mother was an English teacher. She graduated from the University of Hamburg in 1978 with a degree in political science, and eventually went on to achieve a doctorate. In 1990 she was elected to the German Bundestag.