Konrad Adenauer

Cologne years

Early life and education

Konrad Adenauer was born on 5 January 1876 in Cologne, Rhenish Prussia, as the third of five children of Johann Konrad Adenauer (1833–1906) and his wife Helene (née Scharfenberg; 1849–1919). His siblings were August (1872–1952), Johannes (1873–1937), Lilli (1879–1950) and Elisabeth, who died shortly after birth c. 1880. One of the formative influences of Adenauer's youth was the so-called Kulturkampf, the struggle of the Prussian state with the Catholic church, 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.

Having a passion for inventing, Adenauer started experimenting with plants in the back garden as a child, which was not welcomed by his father who told him "One should not try to meddle with the Lord's hand", then in 1904 he invented a reaction steam engine which was supposed to filter out dust produced by cars. However, as his hobby of inventing grew ever more costly, Adenauer's activities in this area slowly diminished.

After final school examination (Abitur) in 1894, Adenauer studied law and politics at the University of Freiburg, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, and the University of Bonn, demonstrating competent but not exceptional academic ability. In 1896, he was mustered for the Prussian army, but did not pass the physical exam due to chronic respiratory problems he had experienced since childhood. He was a member of several Catholic students' associations. He graduated in 1900, and afterwards worked as a lawyer at the court in Cologne for four years.

Leader in Cologne

As a devout Catholic, he joined the Centre Party (German: Deutsche Zentrumspartei or just Zentrum) in 1906 and was elected to Cologne's city government, in the same year. In 1909, he became Vice-Mayor of Cologne when his wife's cousin became the Mayor, an industrial metropolis with a population of 635,000 in 1914. Avoiding the extreme political movements that attracted so many of his generation, Adenauer was committed to bourgeois decency, diligence, order, and Christian morals and values, and was dedicated to rooting out disorder, inefficiency, irrationality, and political immorality. He did not fight in the First World War as he was in poor health, and was severely injured in a car crash in the summer of 1917. In 1917, he was unanimously elected as Mayor of Cologne for a 12-year period, and re-elected in 1929. By 1931 and whilst Mayor of Cologne, he was also acting Vice President of the German Colonial Society from 1931 to 1933 and said: "The German Empire must strive for the acquisition of colonies. There is too little room in the Empire itself for its large population."

As Mayor of Cologne, he was one of Germany's most influential municipal politicians along with Otto Gessler, Hans Luther, and Karl Jarres. He rebuilt the University of Cologne, he masterminded the construction of a bridge across the Rhine and an electrical plant, and he played a major role in the planning of a stadium and a city park in the city. During World War I, he worked closely with the army to maximize the city's role as a rear base of supply and transportation for the Western Front. He paid special attention to the civilian food supply, enabling the residents to avoid the worst of the severe shortages that beset most German cities during 1918–1919. In 1918, he invented a soy-based sausage called the Cologne sausage to help feed the city. In the face of the collapse of the old regime and the threat of revolution and widespread disorder in late 1918, Adenauer maintained control in Cologne using his good working relationship with the Social Democrats. In a speech on 1 February 1919 Adenauer called for the dissolution of Prussia, and for the Prussian Rhineland to become a new autonomous Land ('state') in the Reich. Adenauer claimed this was the only way to prevent France from annexing the Rhineland. Both the Reich and Prussian governments were completely against Adenauer's plans for breaking up Prussia. When the terms of the Treaty of Versailles were presented to Germany in June 1919, Adenauer again suggested to Berlin his plan for an autonomous Rhineland state and again his plans were rejected by the Reich government.

He established a good working relationship with the postwar 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. During the Weimar Republic, he was president of the Prussian State Council from 1921 to 1933, which was the representation of the provinces of Prussia in its legislature.

Years under the Nazi government

When the Nazi Party won several municipal, state and national elections in between 1930 and 1932, Adenauer, a strong opponent of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, still believed that improvements in the national economy would make his strategy work: ignore the Nazis and concentrate on the Communist threat. He 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. Political maneuverings around the ageing President Paul Von Hindenburg then brought the Nazis to power on 30 January 1933.

By early February, Adenauer finally realized the futility of all discussions and any attempts at compromise with the Nazis. Cologne's city council and the Prussian parliament had been dissolved; on 4 April 1933, he was officially dismissed as mayor and his bank accounts were frozen. "He had no money, no home and no job." After arranging for the safety of his family, he appealed to the abbot of the Benedictine monastery at Maria Laach for a stay of several months. According to Albert Speer in his book Spandau: The Secret Diaries, Hitler expressed admiration for Adenauer, noting his civic projects, the building of a road circling the city as a bypass, and a "green belt" of parks. However, both Hitler and Speer concluded that Adenauer's political views and principles made it impossible for him to play any role in Nazi Germany.

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 Göring, the Prussian interior minister. He stated that as mayor he had violated Prussian laws in order to allow Nazi 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. At the end of 1932, Adenauer had indeed demanded a joint government by his Zentrum party and the Nazis for Prussia.

During the next two years, Adenauer changed residences often for fear of reprisals against him, while living on the benevolence of friends. With the help of lawyers in August 1937, he was successful in claiming a pension. He received a cash settlement for his house, which had been taken over by the city of Cologne; his unpaid mortgage, penalties and taxes were waived. With reasonable financial security, he managed to live in seclusion for some years. After the failed assassination attempt on Hitler of July 1944, he was imprisoned for a second time as an opponent of the regime. He fell ill and credited Eugen Zander, a former municipal worker in Cologne and a communist, with saving his life. Zander, then a section kapo of a labor camp near Bonn, discovered Adenauer's name on a deportation list to the east and managed to get him admitted to a hospital. Adenauer was subsequently rearrested (as was his wife), but was released from prison at Brauweiler in November 1944.

After World War II and the founding of the CDU

Prohibited from returning to Cologne, Adenauer settled in Rhöndorf hoping to survive the war in peace. While the American army did not avoid the town during the Allied invasion of Germany, it again installed him as Mayor of Cologne, secretly for the first two months because of his sons in the German army. The city had been heavily bombed. After the city was transferred into the British zone of occupation, however, the Director of its military government, General Gerald Templer, dismissed Adenauer for incompetence in December 1945. Adenauer considered the Germans the political equals of the occupying Allies, which angered Templer. Adenauer's dismissal by the British contributed much to his subsequent political success and allowed him to pursue a policy of alliance with the occupying Allies in the 1950s without facing charges of being a "sell-out".

After being dismissed, Adenauer devoted himself to building a new political party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which he hoped would embrace both Protestants and Catholics in a single party. According to Adenauer, a Catholic-only party would lead to German politics being dominated by anti-democratic parties yet again. In January 1946, Adenauer initiated a political meeting of the future CDU in the British zone in his role as doyen (the oldest man in attendance, Alterspräsident) and was informally confirmed as its leader. During the Weimar Republic, Adenauer had often been considered a future Chancellor and after 1945, his claims for leadership were even stronger. The other surviving Zentrum leaders were considered unsuitable for the tasks that lay ahead.

Reflecting his background as a Catholic Rhinelander who had long chafed under Prussian rule, Adenauer believed that Prussianism was the root cause of National Socialism, and that only by driving out Prussianism could Germany become a democracy. In a December 1946 letter, Adenauer wrote that the Prussian state in the early 19th century had become an "almost God-like entity" that valued state power over the rights of individuals. Adenauer's dislike of Prussia even led him to oppose Berlin as a future capital.

Adenauer viewed the most important battle in the postwar world as between the forces of Christianity and Marxism, especially Communism. Marxism meant both the Communists and the Social Democrats, as the latter were officially a Marxist party until the Bad Godesberg conference of 1959. The same anti-Marxist viewpoints led Adenauer to denounce the Social Democrats as the heirs to Prussianism and National Socialism. Adenauer's ideology was at odds with parts of 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.

Chancellor of West Germany (1949–1963)

First government

The first election to the Bundestag of West Germany was held on 15 August 1949, with the Christian Democrats emerging as the strongest party. There were two clashing visions of a future Germany held by Adenauer and his main rival, the Social Democrat Kurt Schumacher. 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. Schumacher by contrast, though an anti-communist, wanted to see a united, socialist and neutral Germany. As such, Adenauer was in favor of joining NATO, something that Schumacher strongly opposed.

The Free Democrat Theodor Heuss was elected the first President of the Republic, and Adenauer was elected Chancellor (head of government) 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. It was said that Adenauer was elected Chancellor by the new German parliament by "a majority of one vote – his own". At age 73, it was thought that Adenauer would only be a caretaker Chancellor. However, he would go on to hold this post for 14 years, a period spanning most of the preliminary phase of the Cold War. During this period, the post-war division of Germany was consolidated with the establishment of two separate German states, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

In the controversial selection for a "provisional capital" of the Federal Republic of Germany, Adenauer championed Bonn over Frankfurt am Main. The British had agreed to detach Bonn from their zone of occupation and convert the area to an autonomous region wholly under German sovereignty; the Americans were not prepared to grant the same for Frankfurt. He also 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.

As chancellor, Adenauer tended to make most major decisions himself, treating his ministers as mere extensions of his authority. While this tendency decreased under his successors, it established the image of West Germany (and later reunified Germany) as a "chancellor democracy".

Second government

When the East German uprising of 1953 was harshly suppressed by the Red Army in June 1953, Adenauer took political advantage of the situation and was handily re-elected to a second term as Chancellor. The CDU/CSU came up one seat short of an outright majority. Adenauer could thus have governed in a coalition with only one other party, but retained/gained the support of nearly all of the parties in the Bundestag that were to the right of the SPD.

The German Restitution Laws (Bundesentschädigungsgesetz) were passed in 1953, which allowed some victims of Nazi persecution to claim restitution. Under the 1953 restitution law, those who had suffered for "racial, religious or political reasons" could collect compensation, which were defined in such a way as to sharply limit the number of people entitled to collect compensation.

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 von Neurath on his release, sparking controversy all over the world. At the same time, Adenauer's efforts to win freedom for Admiral Karl Dönitz ran into staunch opposition from the British Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office, Ivone Kirkpatrick, who argued Dönitz would be an active danger to German democracy. Adenauer then traded with Kirkpatrick no early release for Admiral Dönitz with an early release for Admiral Erich Raeder on medical grounds.

Adenauer is closely linked to the implementation of an enhanced pension system, which ensured unparalleled prosperity for retired people. Along with his Minister for Economic Affairs and successor Ludwig Erhard, the West German model of a "social market economy" (a mixed economy with capitalism moderated by elements of social welfare and Catholic social teaching) allowed for the boom period known as the Wirtschaftswunder ("economic miracle") that produced broad prosperity, but Adenauer acted more leniently towards the trade unions and employers' associations than Erhard. The Adenauer era witnessed a dramatic rise in the standard of living of average Germans, with real wages doubling between 1950 and 1963. This rising affluence was accompanied by a 20% fall in working hours during that same period, together with a fall in the unemployment rate from 8% in 1950 to 0.4% in 1965. In addition, an advanced welfare state was established.

In the spring of 1954, opposition to the Pleven plan grew within the French National Assembly, and in August 1954, it died when an alliance of conservatives and Communists in the National Assembly joined forces to reject the EDC treaty under the grounds that West German rearmament in any form was an unacceptable danger to France.

Third government

In 1957, the Saarland was reintegrated into Germany as a federal state of the Federal Republic. The election of 1957 essentially dealt with national matters. His re-election campaign centered around the slogan "Keine Experimente" ('No Experiments') in response to the democratic experimentalism reform proposed by his opponents. Riding a wave of popularity from the return of the last POWs from Soviet labor camps, as well as an extensive pension reform, Adenauer led the CDU/CSU to an outright majority, something never previously achieved in a free German election. In 1957, the Federal Republic signed the Treaty of Rome and became a founding member of the European Economic Community. 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. Adenauer saw de Gaulle as a "rock" and the only foreign leader whom he could completely trust.

In response to the Ulm Einsatzkommando trial in 1958, Adenauer set up the Central Office of the State Justice Administrations for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes.

On 27 November 1958 another Berlin crisis broke out when Khrushchev submitted an ultimatum with a six-month expiry date to Washington, London and Paris, where he demanded that the Allies pull all their forces out of West Berlin and agree that West Berlin become a "free city", or else he would sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany. 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. As the 27 May deadline approached, the crisis was defused by the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who visited Moscow to meet with Khrushchev and managed to extend the deadline while not committing himself or the other Western powers to concessions. 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 he did not have political backing to strengthen the office of president and change the balance of power. After his reversal, he supported the nomination of Heinrich Lübke as the CDU presidential candidate, whom he believed was weak enough not to interfere with his actions as Federal Chancellor. One of Adenauer's reasons for not pursuing the presidency was his fear that Ludwig Erhard, whom Adenauer thought little of, would become the new chancellor.

Fourth government

In 1961, Adenauer had his concerns about both the status of Berlin and US leadership were 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. He doubted Kennedy's commitment to a free Berlin and a unified Germany and considered him undisciplined and naïve. For his part, Kennedy thought that Adenauer was a relic of the past. Their strained relationship impeded effective Western action on Berlin during 1961.

The construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 and the sealing of borders by the East Germans made Adenauer's government look weak. Adenauer continued his campaign trail and made a disastrous misjudgement in a speech on 14 August 1961 in Regensburg with a personal attack on the SPD lead candidate Willy Brandt, Lord Mayor of West Berlin, saying that Brandt's illegitimate birth had disqualified him from holding any sort of office. After failing to keep their majority in the general election on 17 September, the CDU/CSU again needed to include the FDP in a coalition government. 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. In his last years in office, Adenauer used to take a nap after lunch and, when he was traveling abroad and had a public function to attend, he sometimes asked for a bed in a room close to where he was supposed to be speaking, so that he could rest briefly before he appeared.

During this time, Adenauer came into conflict with the Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard over the depth of German integration to the West. 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. In Adenauer's viewpoint, the Cold War meant that the NATO alliance with the United States and Britain was essential, but there could be no deeper integration into a trans-Atlantic community beyond the existing military ties as that would lead to a "mishmash" between different cultural systems that would be doomed to failure. Though Adenauer had tried to get Britain to join the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951–1952, by the early 1960s Adenauer had come to share General de Gaulle's belief that Britain simply did not belong in the EEC. The Élysée Treaty was signed in January 1963 to solidify relations with France.

In October 1962, a scandal erupted when police arrested five Der Spiegel journalists, charging them with espionage for publishing a memo detailing weaknesses in the West German armed forces. 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". After public outrage and heavy protests from the coalition partner FDP, he dismissed Strauss, but the reputation of Adenauer and his party had already suffered.

Social policies

Adenauer's years in the Chancellorship saw the realisation of a number of important initiatives in the domestic field, such as in housing, pension rights, and unemployment provision. A major housebuilding programme was launched, while measures introduced to assist war victims and expellees. A savings scheme for homeownership was set up in 1952, while the Housebuilding Act of 1956 reinforced incentives for owner-occupation. Employer-funded child allowances for three or more children were established in 1954, and in 1957, the indexation of pension schemes was introduced, together with an old age assistance scheme for agricultural workers. The 1952 Maternity Leave Law foresaw 12 weeks of paid leave for working mothers, who were also safeguarded from unfair dismissal, and improvements in unemployment benefits were carried out. The Soldiers' Law of 1956 laid down that soldiers had the same rights as other citizens, "limited only by the demands of military service." Following a Federal Act of 1961, social assistance provided a safety net of minimum income "for those not adequately catered for by social insurance." Controversially, however, a school lunch programme was abolished in 1950.

Intelligence services and spying

By the early 1960s, connections between the CDU under Adenauer and the German intelligence services (called Bundesnachrichtendienst, abbreviated to BND) had become significantly closer than would be generally known until more than 50 years later. Thanks to the BND, information on the internal machinations of the opposition SPD party were available to the entire CDU leadership, and not merely to Adenauer in his capacity as chancellor. It was Adenauer himself who personally instructed the BND to spy on his SPD rival, the future chancellor Willy Brandt.

Late years

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 ('the old one'). He also remained a member of the Bundestag for the constituency of Bonn until his death.

In May 1966, the former Chancellor made a private visit to the new state of Israel and was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Weizmann Institute. The friendship with France was particularly close to the ex-Chancellor's heart: he visited the neighbouring country three times in 1964, 1966 and 1967. On his last trip abroad in February 1967, Adenauer met with General Franco and, as the art lover he had been all his life, took advantage of the stay to visit the Prado. His last major speech in Madrid's Ateneo Palace was marked by the admonition not to let up, to continue the process of European unification.

As of 2021, Adenauer remains the oldest-ever European head of government and one of the oldest elected European statesmen (paralleled only by Sandro Pertini and Giorgio Napolitano); however, the governments of Tunisia and Malaysia had older heads of government during the 2010s.

Death and legacy

Adenauer died on 19 April 1967 in his family home at Rhöndorf. According to his daughter, his last words were Da jitt et nix zo kriesche! (pronounced [dɔ́ ˈjɪ̂dət nɪks tsə ˈkʁîːʃə], Cologne dialect for 'There's nothin' to weep about!'). He left behind his seven children and 24 grandchildren.

Adenauer's requiem mass in Cologne Cathedral was attended by a large number of international guests which represented over one hundred countries and organizations:

French president Charles de Gaulle

U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson

Belgian prime minister Paul Vanden Boeynants

Danish prime minister Jens Otto Krag

British prime minister Harold Wilson

Iranian prime minister Amir Abbas Hoveida

Icelandic prime minister Bjarni Benediktsson

Italian prime minister Aldo Moro

Liechtensteiner prime minister Gerard Batliner

Luxembourgish prime minister Pierre Werner

Dutch prime minister Piet de Jong

Norwegian prime minister Per Borten

Austrian chancellor Josef Klaus

Swedish prime minister Tage Erlander

Turkish prime minister Süleyman Demirel

Distinctions

National orders

West Germany: Grand Cross, Special Class, of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (January 1954)

Prussia: 4th class of the Order of the Red Eagle (1918)

Bavaria: Bavarian Order of Merit (May 1958)

Foreign orders

Argentina:

Grand Cross of the Order of the Liberator General San Martín

Grand Cross of the Order of May

Austria:

Grand Decoration of Honour of the Order for Services to the Republic of Austria (first Austrian republic, 1927)

Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold with Sash for Services to the Republic of Austria (1956)

Belgium: Grand Officer of the Order of Leopold (Belgium)

Bolivia: Grand Cross of the Order of the Condor of the Andes

Brazil: Grand Cross of the Order of the Southern Cross (July 1953)

Chile: Grand Cross of the Order of Merit (Chile)

Colombia: Grand Cross of the Order of Boyacá

Cuba: Grand Cross of the Order of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes

Dominican Republic: Grand Cross with Silver Breast Star of the Order of Merit of Duarte, Sánchez and Mella

Ecuador: Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit (Ecuador)

El Salvador: Grand Cross of the Order of José Simeón Cañas

Ethiopian Empire: Grand Cross of the Order of the Holy Trinity (Ethiopia)

France: Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour (1962)

Awards

Man of the Year by the Time magazine (1953)

Charlemagne Prize (Aachen, May 1954) – as a "powerful promoter of a united Europe"