87 Facts About Adenauer

Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer was a German statesman who served as the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1963.

Adenauer belied his age by his intense work habits and his uncanny political instinct.

Adenauer displayed a strong dedication to a broad vision of market-based liberal democracy and anti-communism.

Adenauer worked to restore the West German economy from the destruction of World War II to a central position in Europe, presiding over the German economic miracle together with his Minister of Economics, Ludwig Erhard, and was a driving force in re-establishing national military forces and intelligence services in West Germany in 1955 and 1956.

Adenauer opposed recognition of the rival German Democratic Republic or the Oder–Neisse line.

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Adenauer skillfully used these points in electoral campaigns against the SPD, which was more sympathetic to co-existence with the GDR and the post-war borders.

Adenauer, who resigned as Chancellor at the age of 87 and remained head of the governing CDU until his retirement at 90, was often dubbed "Der Alte".

Konrad Adenauer was born as the third of five children of Johann Konrad Adenauer and his wife Helene in Cologne, Rhenish Prussia, on 5 January 1876.

Adenauer's siblings were August, Johannes, Lilli and Elisabeth, who died shortly after birth c 1880.

One of the formative influences of Adenauer's youth was the Kulturkampf, an experience that as related to him by his parents left him with a lifelong dislike for "Prussianism", and led him like many other Catholic Rhinelanders of the 19th century to deeply resent the Rhineland's inclusion in Prussia.

Adenauer was a member of several Roman Catholic students' associations under the K St V Arminia Bonn in Bonn.

Adenauer graduated in 1900, and afterwards worked as a lawyer at the court in Cologne.

Adenauer headed Cologne during World War I, working closely with the army to maximize the city's role as a rear base of supply and transportation for the Western Front.

Adenauer claimed this was the only way to prevent France from annexing the Rhineland.

Adenauer established a good working relationship with the British military authorities, using them to neutralize the workers' and soldiers' council that had become an alternative base of power for the city's left wing.

Adenauer was one of the leading advocates of "leaving the tower", which led to a dramatic clash between him and Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber at the 1922 Katholikentag, where the Cardinal publicly admonished Adenauer for wanting to take the Zentrum "out of the tower".

Adenauer's plans came to naught when Stresemann, who was resolutely opposed to Adenauer's "grand design", which he viewed as borderline treason, was able to negotiate an end to the crisis on his own.

In 1926, the Zentrum suggested that Adenauer become Chancellor, an offer that he was interested in but ultimately rejected when the German People's Party insisted that one of the conditions for entering into a coalition under Adenauer's leadership was that Gustav Stresemann stay on as Foreign Minister.

Adenauer, who disliked Stresemann as "too Prussian, " rejected that condition, which marked the end of his chance of becoming Chancellor in 1926.

Adenauer thought that based on election returns, the Nazis should become part of the Prussian and Reich governments, even when he was already the target of intense personal attacks.

Adenauer was imprisoned for two days after the Night of the Long Knives on 30 June 1934; however, on 10 August 1934, maneuvering for his pension, he wrote a ten-page letter to Hermann Goring, the Prussian interior minister.

Adenauer stated that as Mayor he had violated Prussian laws in order to allow NSDAP events in public buildings and Nazi flags to be flown from city flagpoles, and that in 1932 he had declared publicly that the Nazis should join the Reich government in a leading role.

Adenauer fell ill and credited Eugen Zander, a former municipal worker in Cologne and a communist, with saving his life.

Adenauer was rearrested, but in the absence of any evidence against him, was released from prison at Brauweiler in November 1944.

Adenauer considered the Germans the political equals of the occupying Allies, a view that angered Templer.

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In January 1946, Adenauer initiated a political meeting of the future CDU in the British zone in his role as doyen and was informally confirmed as its leader.

Adenauer viewed the most important battle in the postwar world as between the forces of Christianity and Marxism, especially Communism.

Adenauer's ideology was at odds with many in the CDU, who wished to unite socialism and Christianity.

Adenauer worked diligently at building up contacts and support in the CDU over the following years, and he sought with varying success to impose his particular ideology on the party.

Adenauer's leading role in the CDU of the British zone won him a position at the Parliamentary Council of 1948, which had been called into existence by the Western Allies to draft a constitution for the three western zones of Germany.

Adenauer was the chairman of this constitutional convention and vaulted from this position to being chosen as the first head of government once the new "Basic Law" had been promulgated in May 1949.

Adenauer favored integrating the Federal Republic with other Western states, especially France and the United States in order to fight the Cold War, even if the price of this was the continued division of Germany.

Free Democrat Theodor Heuss was elected the first President of the Republic, and Adenauer was elected Chancellor on 15 September 1949 with the support of his own CDU, the Christian Social Union, the liberal Free Democratic Party, and the right-wing German Party.

Adenauer resisted the claims of Heidelberg, which had better communications and had survived the war in better condition; partly because the Nazis had been popular there before they came to power and partly, as he said, because the world would not take them seriously if they set up their state in a city that was the setting for The Student Prince, at the time a popular American operetta based on the drinking culture of German student fraternities.

Adenauer argued the continuation of denazification would "foster a growing and extreme nationalism" as the millions who supported the Nazi regime would find themselves excluded from German life forever.

Adenauer government refused to accept the Oder–Neisse line as Germany's eastern frontier.

Privately, Adenauer considered Germany's eastern provinces to be lost forever.

Adenauer was keen to see Britain join the European Coal and Steel Community as he believed the more free-market British would counterbalance the influence of the more dirigiste French, and to achieve that purpose he visited London in November 1951 to meet with Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Adenauer deeply disliked the "Pleven plan", but was forced to support it when it became clear that this plan was the only way the French would agree to German rearmament.

Adenauer kept Globke on as State Secretary as part of his strategy of integration.

In October 1950, Adenauer received the so-called "Himmerod memorandum" drafted by four former Wehrmacht generals at the Himmerod Abbey that linked freedom for German war criminals as the price of German rearmament, along with public statements from the Allies that the Wehrmacht committed no war crimes in World War II.

On 2 January 1951, Adenauer met with the American High Commissioner, John J McCloy, to argue that executing the Landsberg prisoners would ruin forever any effort at having the Federal Republic play its role in the Cold War.

Adenauer's intention was to switch government policy to reparations and compensation for the victims of Nazi rule.

Adenauer pressured his rehabilitated ex-Nazis by threatening that stepping out of line could trigger the reopening of individual de-Nazification prosecutions.

Contemporary critics accused Adenauer of cementing the division of Germany, sacrificing reunification and the recovery of territories lost in the westward shift of Poland and the Soviet Union with his determination to secure the Federal Republic to the West.

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Adenauer recognized the obligation of the West German government to compensate Israel, as the main representative of the Jewish people, for The Holocaust.

On 27 March 1952, a package addressed to Chancellor Adenauer exploded in the Munich Police Headquarters, killing one Bavarian police officer, Karl Reichert.

Adenauer's goal was to put pressure on the German government and prevent the signing of the Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany, which he vehemently opposed.

Adenauer then promised that Germany would never seek to have nuclear, chemical and biological weapons as well as capital ships, strategic bombers, long-range artillery, and guided missiles, although these promises were non-binding.

Additionally, Adenauer promised that the West German military would be under the operational control of NATO general staff, though ultimate control would rest with the West German government; and that above all he would never violate the strictly defensive NATO charter and invade East Germany to achieve German reunification.

In November 1954, Adenauer's lobbying efforts on behalf of the "Spandau Seven" finally bore fruit with the release of Konstantin von Neurath.

Adenauer congratulated Neurath on his release, sparking controversy all over the world.

Adenauer then traded with Kirkpatrick no early release for Admiral Donitz with an early release for Admiral Erich Raeder on medical grounds.

Adenauer's achievements include the establishment of a stable democracy in West Germany and a lasting reconciliation with France, culminating in the Elysee Treaty.

Adenauer firmly integrated the country with the emerging Euro-Atlantic community.

Adenauer is closely linked to the implementation of an enhanced pension system, which ensured unparalleled prosperity for retired people.

The Adenauer era witnessed a dramatic rise in the standard of living of average Germans, with real wages doubling between 1950 and 1963.

Adenauer was ready to consider the Oder–Neisse line as the German border in order to pursue a more flexible policy with Poland but he did not command sufficient domestic support for this, and opposition to the Oder–Neisse line continued, causing considerable disappointment among Adenauer's Western allies.

In 1956, during the Suez Crisis, Adenauer fully supported the Anglo-French-Israeli attack on Egypt, arguing to his Cabinet that Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser was a pro-Soviet force that needed to be cut down to size.

Adenauer was appalled that the Americans had come out against the attack on Egypt alongside the Soviets, which led Adenauer to fear that the United States and Soviet Union would "carve up the world" with no thought for European interests.

At the height of the Suez crisis, Adenauer visited Paris to meet the French Premier Guy Mollet in a show of moral support for France.

The day before Adenauer arrived in Paris, the Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin sent the so-called "Bulganin letters" to the leaders of Britain, France, and Israel threatening nuclear strikes if they did not end the war against Egypt.

Adenauer was deeply shocked by the Soviet threat of nuclear strikes against Britain and France, and even more so by the apparent quiescent American response to the Soviet threat of nuclear annihilation against two of NATO's key members.

Adenauer reached an agreement for his "nuclear ambitions" with a NATO Military Committee in December 1956 that stipulated West German forces were to be "equipped for nuclear warfare".

In September 1958, Adenauer first met President Charles de Gaulle of France, who was to become a close friend and ally in pursuing Franco-German rapprochement.

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Adenauer saw de Gaulle as a "rock" and the only foreign leader whom he could completely trust.

Adenauer was opposed to any sort of negotiations with the Soviets, arguing if only the West were to hang tough long enough, Khrushchev would back down.

Adenauer believed Macmillan to be a spineless "appeaser", who had made a secret deal with Khrushchev at the expense of the Federal Republic.

Adenauer tarnished his image when he announced he would run for the office of federal president in 1959, only to pull out when he discovered that under the Basic Law, the president had far less power than he did in the Weimar Republic.

Adenauer gave his "explicit and unconditional approval" to the idea of non-aggression pacts in late January 1959, which effectively meant recognising the Oder–Neisse line, since realistically speaking Germany could only regain the lost territories through force.

In 1961, Adenauer had his concerns about both the status of Berlin and US leadership confirmed, as the Soviets and East Germans built the Berlin Wall.

Adenauer had come into the year distrusting the new US president, John F Kennedy.

Adenauer doubted Kennedy's commitment to a free Berlin and a unified Germany and considered him undisciplined and naive.

Adenauer chose to remain on the campaign trail, and made a disastrous misjudgement in a speech on 14 August 1961 in Regensburg when he engaged in a personal attack on the SPD Mayor of West Berlin, Willy Brandt, saying that Brandt's illegitimate birth had disqualified him from holding any sort of office.

Adenauer was forced to make two concessions: to relinquish the chancellorship before the end of the new term, his fourth, and to replace his foreign minister.

Erhard was in favor of allowing Britain to join to create a trans-Atlantic free trade zone, while Adenauer was for strengthening ties amongst the original founding six nations of West Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Italy.

Adenauer had not initiated the arrests, but initially defended the person responsible, Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss, and called the Spiegel memo "abyss of treason".

Adenauer managed to remain in office for almost another year, but the scandal increased the pressure already on him to fulfill his promise to resign before the end of the term.

Adenauer was not on good terms in his last years of power with his economics minister Ludwig Erhard and tried to block him from the chancellorship.

In January 1963, Adenauer privately supported General Charles de Gaulle's veto of Britain's attempt to join the European Economic Community, and was only prevented from saying so openly by the need to preserve unity in his cabinet as most of his ministers led by Erhard supported Britain's application.

Adenauer failed in his efforts to block Erhard as his successor, and in October 1963 he turned the office over to Erhard.

Adenauer remained chairman of the CDU until his resignation in December 1966.

Adenauer ensured a generally free and democratic society, except the banning of the communist party and the BND spying on SPD on behalf of the CDU, and laid the groundwork for Germany to reenter the community of nations and to evolve as a dependable member of the Western world.

The British historian Frederick Taylor argued that in many ways the Adenauer era was a transition period in values and viewpoints from the authoritarianism that characterized Germany in the first half of the 20th century to the more democratic values that characterized the western half of Germany in the second half of the 20th century.

Adenauer died on 19 April 1967 in his family home at Rhondorf.

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In 2003, Adenauer was voted the 'greatest German of all time' in a contest called Unsere Besten run on German public-service television broadcaster ZDF in which more than three million votes were cast.

Adenauer was the main motive for one of the most recent and famous gold commemorative coins: the Belgian 3 pioneers of the European unification commemorative coin, minted in 2002.