Column with anything above

Question

My (hopefully) last problem until I get that presentation layout done:

It's all looking great apart from the fact that my column-environment missed the memo that there's something above it and that it doesn't have as much space (without the tikz picture), it centres everything perfectly on the slide, but now it's assuming it got the already occupied space above as well.

I have tried the past hour, and a tabular environment and a minipage environment fails as well at this task. One option is to tell itemize to start at the top and hard code the image, but that's not my preferred option.

MWE:

\documentclass{beamer}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage{svg}
%\usepackage{gensymb}
%\usepackage{siunitx}

%\sisetup {
    %locale = DE,
    %per-mode = symbol
%}

% THEME AND COLOR SETUP
\usetheme{CambridgeUS}
\usecolortheme[RGB={205,0,0}]{structure}
\setbeamertemplate{items}[default]
\setbeamertemplate{sections/subsections in toc}[square]

\newcommand{\quoted}[1]{
    \glqq#1\grqq
}
\date{02. Juli 2018}

\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{chains, positioning, shapes.symbols}
\usepackage{etoolbox}

\tikzset{start/.style = {signal, draw=#1, fill=#1!30,
             text width=23mm, text=black, minimum height=23mm, font=\tiny, text depth=20mm,text height=5mm,
             signal pointer angle=150, on chain},
         cont/.style = {start=#1, signal from=west, text=black}
        }


\mode<presentation>{}

\begin{document}
\beamertemplatenavigationsymbolsempty
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Wilhelm Schick}
\begin{tikzpicture}[
        node distance = 2mm,
         start chain = going right,
         %start/.style = {signal, draw=[1]{#1}, fill=[1]{#1}!30,
         %    text width=23mm, minimum height=23mm, font=\tiny,
          %   signal pointer angle=150, on chain},
          %cont/.style = {start=[1]{#1}, signal from=west}
             ]

        \node[start=darkred!80!black] {\bfseries
                 Meldebogen\\
                 \normalfont
                };
        \node[cont=gray!60!white] {\bfseries
                 Anklage\\ 
             };
        \node[cont=gray!60!white] {\bfseries
            Beweisaufnahme\\
            \normalfont
             };
        \node[cont=gray!60!white] {\bfseries
                 Urteil\\
                  \normalfont
                  };
        \end{tikzpicture}
        \begin{columns}
            \begin{column}{.4\textwidth}
                \begin{itemize}[<+->]
            \item Ortsgruppenamtsleiter der NSDAP 
            \item Kreisabschnittsverwalter des NSLB
            \item Bef\"{o}rderung zum Rektor des Goethe-Gymnasiums
        \end{itemize} 
        \end{column}
        \begin{column}{.6\textwidth}
        \includegraphics[height=\textheight]{test.jpg}\\
    \end{column}
\end{columns}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

Answer 1

In the present case \textheight equals to the space between the headline and the footline:

The space required by the frametitle or other content of your from is not included in the calculation of \textheight.

Workaround 1:

As leandriis already suggested in comment, you could reduce the size of your image. This will vertically centre the text in your first column with your image:

\documentclass{beamer}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage{svg}
%\usepackage{gensymb}
%\usepackage{siunitx}

%\sisetup {
    %locale = DE,
    %per-mode = symbol
%}

% THEME AND COLOR SETUP
\usetheme{CambridgeUS}
\usecolortheme[RGB={205,0,0}]{structure}
\setbeamertemplate{items}[default]
\setbeamertemplate{sections/subsections in toc}[square]

\newcommand{\quoted}[1]{
    \glqq#1\grqq
}
\date{02. Juli 2018}

\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{chains, positioning, shapes.symbols}
\usepackage{etoolbox}

\tikzset{start/.style = {signal, draw=#1, fill=#1!30,
             text width=23mm, text=black, minimum height=23mm, font=\tiny, text depth=20mm,text height=5mm,
             signal pointer angle=150, on chain},
         cont/.style = {start=#1, signal from=west, text=black}
        }


\mode<presentation>{}

\begin{document}
\beamertemplatenavigationsymbolsempty
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Wilhelm Schick}
\begin{tikzpicture}[
        node distance = 2mm,
         start chain = going right,
         %start/.style = {signal, draw=[1]{#1}, fill=[1]{#1}!30,
         %    text width=23mm, minimum height=23mm, font=\tiny,
          %   signal pointer angle=150, on chain},
          %cont/.style = {start=[1]{#1}, signal from=west}
             ]

        \node[start=darkred!80!black] {\bfseries
                 Meldebogen\\
                 \normalfont
                };
        \node[cont=gray!60!white] {\bfseries
                 Anklage\\ 
             };
        \node[cont=gray!60!white] {\bfseries
            Beweisaufnahme\\
            \normalfont
             };
        \node[cont=gray!60!white] {\bfseries
                 Urteil\\
                  \normalfont
                  };
        \end{tikzpicture}
        \begin{columns}
            \begin{column}{.4\textwidth}
                \begin{itemize}[<+->]
            \item Ortsgruppenamtsleiter der NSDAP 
            \item Kreisabschnittsverwalter des NSLB
            \item Bef\"{o}rderung zum Rektor des Goethe-Gymnasiums
        \end{itemize} 
        \end{column}
        \begin{column}{.25\textwidth}
        \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{example-image-10x16}\\
    \end{column}
\end{columns}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

Workaround 2:

If you are OK with parts of the picture cut off, a top alignment of the columns could improve the result a little:

\documentclass{beamer}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}
\usepackage{svg}
%\usepackage{gensymb}
%\usepackage{siunitx}

%\sisetup {
    %locale = DE,
    %per-mode = symbol
%}

% THEME AND COLOR SETUP
\usetheme{CambridgeUS}
\usecolortheme[RGB={205,0,0}]{structure}
\setbeamertemplate{items}[default]
\setbeamertemplate{sections/subsections in toc}[square]

\newcommand{\quoted}[1]{
    \glqq#1\grqq
}
\date{02. Juli 2018}

\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{chains, positioning, shapes.symbols}
\usepackage{etoolbox}

\tikzset{start/.style = {signal, draw=#1, fill=#1!30,
             text width=23mm, text=black, minimum height=23mm, font=\tiny, text depth=20mm,text height=5mm,
             signal pointer angle=150, on chain},
         cont/.style = {start=#1, signal from=west, text=black}
        }


\mode<presentation>{}

\begin{document}
\beamertemplatenavigationsymbolsempty
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Wilhelm Schick}
\begin{tikzpicture}[
        node distance = 2mm,
         start chain = going right,
         %start/.style = {signal, draw=[1]{#1}, fill=[1]{#1}!30,
         %    text width=23mm, minimum height=23mm, font=\tiny,
          %   signal pointer angle=150, on chain},
          %cont/.style = {start=[1]{#1}, signal from=west}
             ]

        \node[start=darkred!80!black] {\bfseries
                 Meldebogen\\
                 \normalfont
                };
        \node[cont=gray!60!white] {\bfseries
                 Anklage\\ 
             };
        \node[cont=gray!60!white] {\bfseries
            Beweisaufnahme\\
            \normalfont
             };
        \node[cont=gray!60!white] {\bfseries
                 Urteil\\
                  \normalfont
                  };
        \end{tikzpicture}
        \begin{columns}[T]
            \begin{column}{.4\textwidth}
                \begin{itemize}[<+->]
            \item Ortsgruppenamtsleiter der NSDAP 
            \item Kreisabschnittsverwalter des NSLB
            \item Bef\"{o}rderung zum Rektor des Goethe-Gymnasiums
        \end{itemize} 
        \end{column}
        \begin{column}{.55\textwidth}
        \includegraphics[height=\textheight]{example-image}\\
    \end{column}
\end{columns}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

Workaround 3:

Use another layout. In the present form, the headline and tikz diagram occupy about half of the slide and the rest of the content looks squeezed into the little remaining space.

My suggestion (quick and dirty mockup):

This layout could work if you just take the headlines from Top-Align Text in TikZ Node. @marmot was so kind to implement this in https://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/45382224#45382224