Konrad Adenauer

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Konrad Adenauer

Konrad Adenauer
Order: 27th Chancellor of Germany
(1st of the Federal Republic)
Term of Office: September 15, 1949–October 16, 1963
Predecessor: Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk
Successor: Ludwig Erhard
Date of Birth: January 5, 1876
Date of Death: April 19, 1967
Political Party: CDU
Profession: Lawyer
Election Poster showing Adenauer
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Election Poster showing Adenauer

Konrad Adenauer (January 5, 1876 – April 19, 1967) was a conservative German statesman. Although his political career spanned 60 years, beginning as early as 1906, he is most noted for his role as West Germany's first chancellor from 1949-1963 and chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1950 to 1966.

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Biography

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Life until 1945

Konrad Adenauer was born as the third of five children of Johann Adenauer and his wife Helene (née Scharfenberg) in Cologne. In 1894 he completed his Abitur and started to study law and politics at the universities of Freiburg, Munich and Bonn. He was member in several catholic students associations. He finished his studies in 1901. Afterwards he worked as a lawyer at the court in Cologne.

As a devout Roman Catholic joined the Centre Party in 1906 and was elected into Cologne's city parliament in the same year. In 1909 he became Vice Mayor of Cologne. From 1917 to 1933 he served as Mayor of Cologne, and as such, flirted with a Rhenish state as part of Germany, but outside Prussia. During the Weimar Republic he was president of the Prussian State Council (Preußischer Staatsrat) from 1922 to 1933, which was the representation of the Prussian cities and provinces.

When the Nazis rose to power in 1933, the Centre Party lost the elections in Cologne and Adenauer fled to the abbey of Maria Laach. He was imprisoned briefly after the Night of the Long Knives. The next two years he changed places often. In 1937 he was successful in claiming compensation for his confiscated house and lived a life in privacy for some years. After the failed assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944 he was imprisoned. Not believing in its success, he had not been part of the plot, even if some of the conspirators had asked him to participate. He was freed some weeks later. After the war, the Americans installed him again as Mayor of Cologne, but the British administration dismissed him for "incompetence" later.

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Post-war career as Chancellor of West Germany

After his dismissal as mayor of Cologne, Adenauer had the time, at age 69, to devote himself to building a new political party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a successor to the Catholic Center Party which hoped to embrace Protestants as well as Catholics in a single party. In January 1946, Adenauer astonished those in attendance at a party meeting of the CDU in the British zone by claiming the right to chair the meeting because he was the oldest man in attendance (Älterspräsident). He continued to act as if he were the chairman of the zonal party even though he was never formally elected. Adenauer worked diligently at building up contacts and support in the CDU over the next few years, and he sought with varying success to impose his particular ideology on the party. His was an ideology at odds with many in the CDU who wished to unite socialism and Christianity; Adenauer instead favored stressing more the dignity of the individual, and he lumped together both socialism and Nazism as "materialist" world views that violated the dignity of the individual.

Adenauer's leading role in the CDU of the British zone won him a position at the Parliamentary Council of 1948, called into existence by the Western Allies to draft a constitution for the three western zones of Germany. He was the chairman of this constitutional convention, and like George Washington in the United States, vaulted from this position to being chosen first head of government once the new "Basic Law" was promulgated in May 1949.

Adenauer became the first Chancellor of Germany after the Second World War, from 1949-1963, a period which spans most of the preliminary phase of the Cold War. During this period, West Germany was politically separated from East Germany. The first elections to the Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) were held on August 15, 1949, with the Christian Democrats emerging as the strongest party. Theodor Heuss was elected first President of the Republic, and Adenauer was elected the first German Federal Chancellor on September 16, 1949.

Adenauer's achievements include the establishment of a stable democracy in defeated (West) Germany, a lasting reconciliation with France, a general political reorientation towards the West, recovering limited, but far-reaching sovereignty for West Germany by firmly integrating it with the emerging Euro-Atlantic community (NATO and the European Economic Community). Adenauer is also associated with establishing an efficient pension system, which ensured an unparalleled prosperity for retired persons, and - along with his Minister for Economic Affairs and successor, Ludwig Erhard - with the West German model of a "social market economy" (a mixed economy with capitalism moderated by elements of social welfare and Catholic social teaching), which allowed for the boom period known as the Wirtschaftswunder ("economic miracle") and produced broad prosperity.

On the other hand, contemporary critics accused him of cementing the division of Germany, sacrificing reunification and the recovery of territories lost to Poland and the Soviet Union for the sake of speedy integration with the West. In the Cold War, Adenauer's advocacy of West German rearmament and mandatory conscription contradicted the wide pacifist consensus of post-war German society. Also, regardless of the Wirtschaftswunder, his era was seen as a time of a culturally stuffy and politically oppressively conservative atmosphere, in which anti-communism thrived, while the memory of the Nazi past was conveniently suppressed and many former Nazi officers returned to the civil service. The German student movement of the late 1960s was essentially a protest against the conservatism Adenauer had personified. Another point of criticism was that Adenauer's commitment to reconciliation with France was in stark contrast to a certain indifference towards Poland. Adenauer refused to recognize the Polish western border and openly talked about changing the border with Poland after strengthening Germany's position in Europe.

However, in the final analysis, positive assessments of his chancellorship prevail - not only with the German public, which voted him the "greatest German of all time" in a 2003 television poll, but also with today's left-wing intellectuals, who praise his unconditional commitment to western-style democracy and European integration, and his reluctance about national reunification.

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Additional actions as Chancellor

  • Secured the release of the last German prisoners of war in 1955.
  • Opened diplomatic relations with the USSR and other Eastern bloc nations, but refused to recognize the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).
  • Reached an agreement with the USA in 1957 that gave West Germany possession of weapons capable of transporting nuclear warheads. Furthermore, Adenauer pursued nuclear cooperation with other countries with a goal of the FRG being able to produce its own nuclear armament.
  • Oversaw the rejoining of Saarland with West Germany in 1957.
  • Briefly considered running for the office of President in 1959. However, he instead chose a candidate (Heinrich Lübke) whom he believed weak enough not to disturb his affairs as Chancellor.

For all of his efforts as West Germany's leader, Adenauer was named TIME magazine's Man of the Year in 1953. In 1954 he received the Karlspreis (engl.: Charlemagne Award), an Award by the German city of Aachen to people who contributed to the European idea and European peace.

When in 1967, after his death at the age of 91, people were asked for what they admired most about Adenauer, the majority responded that Adenauer brought home the last German prisoners of war from the USSR.

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Political scandals

In 1962 a scandal erupted when police under cabinet orders arrested five Der Spiegel journalists, charging them with high treason, specifically for publishing a memo detailing alleged weaknesses in West German armed forces. The cabinet members, belonging to the Free Democratic Party, left their positions in November 1962, and Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss, himself the chairman of the Christian Social Union, was dismissed, followed by the remaining Christian Democratic Union cabinet members. Adenauer managed to remain in office for almost another year, but was eventually forced to resign and was succeeded as Chancellor by Ludwig Erhard. He did remain chairman of the CDU until 1966.

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Adenauer's First Ministry, September 20, 1949 - October 20, 1953

Changes

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Adenauer's Second Ministry, October 20, 1953 - October 29, 1957

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Adenauer's Third Ministry, October 29, 1957 - November 14, 1961

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Adenauer's Fourth Ministry, November 14, 1961 - October 16, 1963

Changes


Preceded by:
Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk
as Reichskanzler		 Chancellor of Germany
1949–1963		 Succeeded by:
Ludwig Erhard
Preceded by:
Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk		 Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs
1951–1955		 Succeeded by:
Heinrich von Brentano di Tremezzo
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Adenauer"
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