Weber has remained a controversial political figure in Germany. He has served many purposes — as the cultural hero who might have saved Germany from the disasters of the Weimar Republic, had he only lived longer; as a typical representative of the unawareness among German intellectuals of the dangers of authoritarian rule in accordance with the peculiarities of German societal development (deutscher Sonderweg); and as a founding father of the new Federal republic after the war, inspiring a new generation of liberal political leaders. A scholar whose work is so rich that it can be interpreted in so many directions is not easy to grasp. In methodological matters Weber emerges both as a positivist, supporting the side of modern social science in the controversy over method, and as an antipositivist, launching the method of interpretative understanding (Verstehen). Hence, too, in terms of his political values, he could be seen either as pioneering parliamentary democracy in Germany or as foreshadowing authoritarian Nazi rule — depending on whether the functional or romantic (and thus irrationalist) aspects of his crucial concept of plebiscitarian leadership democracy is emphasized. In this chapter I will stress the rational or at least functional element in Weber's political analysis, and especially his typological approach to charismatic and plebiscitary leadership. But before examining Weber's ideas about leadership, it will be useful to get a clearer sense of Weber's political standpoint.