Konrad Adenauer



         


Konrad Adenauer

Order: 27th Chancellor of Germany
(1st of the Federal Republic)
Term of Office: 1949–1963
Predecessor: Count Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk
Successor: Ludwig Erhard
Date of Birth: January 5, 1876
Date of Death: April 19, 1967
Political Party: CDU

Konrad Adenauer (January 5, 1876–April 19, 1967) was a German statesman.

Adenauer, a Centre Party politician, was Mayor of Cologne from 1917 to 1933, and as such, flirted with Rhenish separatism in the early 1920s. From 1922 to 1933 he was chancellor of the Prussian State Council (Preussischer Staatsrat). In 1933 he was imprisoned for his opposition to the Nazis.

He was first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949-1963, a period which spans most of the preliminary phase of the Cold War. In this period, West Germany was politically separated from East Germany. Adenauer was a co-founder of the Christian Democratic Union, a successor to the Centre which hoped to embrace Protestants as well as Catholics in a single confessional party.

Adenauer led the rebuilding of West Germany and helped turn the nation into an economic powerhouse. He is also notable for directing Germany's reconciliation with France and other allied powers. Under Adenauer West Germany was allowed to rearm and to join NATO. Adenauer also opened diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and the rest of the Eastern bloc. In 1955 he managed to secure the release of the last German prisoners of war.

In 1959 he briefly considered to run for the office of the President, then instead chose a candidate (Heinrich Lübke) whom he believed weak enough not to disturb his affairs as Chancellor.

In 1962 a scandal erupted when police under cabinet orders arrested five Der Spiegel journalists, charging them with treason, specifically for publishing a memo detailing alleged weaknesses in 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 was forced to resign and was succeeded as Chancellor by Ludwig Erhard, although he remained chairman of the CDU until 1966.

Adenauer received marriage proposals up into his eighties. He used to tell his secretary, "Put them in the non-aggression pact file."

Adenauer's autocratic style created a lot of political unease, which eventually fired up the student revolts of the Sixties and takeover of power through the Social-Democrat party in 1969. His unrestricted control of the CDU ended when the CDU Congress appointed a general manager with the power to organise the party. During his reign, many German scientists emigrated to the USA for more liberal research environment.

Protocols of his "tea talks" with selected journalists reveal Adenauer's brilliant political thinking. A.o., he foresaw in very clear detail how economic developments would eventually bring about the downfall of the Communist rule in Eastern Europe.

In November 2003, he was voted in a German television poll as the greatest German of all time.

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

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

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

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

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|width="40%"|Chancellor of Germany
1949–1963 |width="30%"|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 |}








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