German politician, statesman and Chancellor of West Germany, Konrad Adenauer pictured sitting on a chair circa 1957.
School period
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1883
Cologne, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Konrad Adenauer as a child in 1883.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1886
Cologne, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Konrad Adenauer as a schoolboy in 1886.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1894
Cologne, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Konrad Adenauer in the year of his graduation from the gymnasium.
College/University
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1896
Bonn, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Konrad Adenauer as a student.
Career
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1921
Berlin, Germany
Adenauer (left) with prelate Ludwig Kaas, on the way to a session of the Reichstag, 1921.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1928
Wilhelmshaven, Germany
In Wilhelmshaven in 1928, when a new cruiser was given the name of Köln (Cologne), home city of Adenauer (center, with left hand visible, next to him Lieutenant-General Wilhelm Groener and Gustav Noske).
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1930
Cologne, Germany
Konrad Adenauer in 1930.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1951
Konrad-Adenauer-Straße 8A, 53604 Bad Honnef, Germany
Adenauer in 1951, reading in his house in Rhöndorf he had built in 1937. It is now a museum.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1951
37 Quai d'Orsay, 75007 Paris, France
West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer signs the Treaty Of Paris, at the French Foreign Ministry in Paris, 18th April 1951. The treaty established the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), a forerunner of the European Union.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1951
King Charles St, Whitehall, Westminster, London SW1A 2AH, United Kingdom
British Foreign Secretary Sir Anthony Eden talking to German Federal Chancellor, Dr. Konrad Adenauer, at the Foreign Office, London, December 3, 1951. Photo by Fred Morley.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1952
King Charles St, Whitehall, Westminster, London SW1A 2AH, United Kingdom
Konrad Adenauer, the German Chancellor, and Robert Schuman, the French Foreign Minister, leave the Foreign Office in London after attending the European Army Conference, 18th February 1952. Photo by Ron Burton.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1953
Germany
West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer being toasted on his birthday. Photo by Ralph Crane.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1954
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500, United States
President Dwight D. Eisenhower talking with Konrad Adenauer and others. Photo by Hank Walker.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1955
Bonn, Germany
Adenauer with the mother of a German prisoner of war brought home in 1955 from the Soviet Union, due to Adenauer's visit to Moscow.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1955
Bonn, Germany
Hastings Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay (Lord Ismay), Secretary General of NATO, with German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in Bonn, Germany, July 5, 1955. Photo by Paul Popper.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1957
Germany
Konrad Adenauer handing out money from the train.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1957
Germany
Konrad Adenauer in 1957.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1958
Carlton Gardens St. James's, London, UK
British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd (left) shakes hands with West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer on his arrival for lunch at Lloyd's official residence at Carlton Gardens, Westminster, London, 17th April 1958. Photo by Fred Ramage.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1958
Windsor SL4 1NJ, United Kingdom
Queen Elizabeth II and West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer at Windsor Palace on April 16, 1958, in Windsor, United Kingdom.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1958
Bad Kreuznach, Germany
French Premier Charles de Gaulle shakes hands with West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer during their one-day meeting in Bad Kreuznach, West Germany.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1959
Bonn, Germany
Life reporter John Mulliken interviewing Konrad Adenauer (back center. Photo by James Whitmore.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1960
301 Park Ave, New York, NY 10022, United States
David Ben-Gurion with Konrad Adenauer at Waldorf Hotel. Photo by Bob Gomel.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1960
Vatican
Pope John XXIII welcomes Chancellor Adenauer (left) for a special hearing.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1960
Bonn, Germany
German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in 1960.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1961
Bonn, Germany
The president of the French Republic, Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer, chancellor of Germany. Bonn, May 1961. Photo by Roger Viollet.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1962
Germany
President of the French Republic Charles de Gaulle and German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer cheered by the crowd on the street in Germany in September 1962.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1962
Dortmund, Germany
Pointing a finger, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer addresses the eleventh annual convention of his Christian Democratic Union in Dortmund, West Germany.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1962
Bonn, Germany
French Premier Charles de Gaulle acknowledges a supportive West German crowd as he passes through with West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in Bonn.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1962
Rathauspl. 2, 50667 Köln, Germany
German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and French President Charles De Gaulle sit side-by-side in Cologne's town hall listening to the welcoming address by Lord Mayor Burauen.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1962
Bonn, Germany
United States Foreign Minister Dean Rusk (left) being shown around by German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer during a visit to Bonn, June 22, 1962.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1963
55 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, 75008 Paris, France
President Charles De Gaulle (left) with German chancellor, Konrad Adenauer at a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1963
55 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, 75008 Paris, France
German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer with French President General de Gaulle.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1963
Bonn, Germany
German Konrad Adenauer with guest President John F. Kennedy. Photo by John Dominis.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1963
Germany
Konrad Adenauer with President John F. Kennedy. Photo by John Dominis.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1963
Berlin, Gemany
West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer makes his farewell speech in Berlin before resigning from office. Standing next to him is a German statesman Willy Brandt of the Social Democratic Party.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1964
55 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, 75008 Paris, France
Former West-German chancellor, Konrad Adenauer and French President Charles De Gaulle leaving the Elysee Palace after a meeting, Paris, November 1964.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1965
Germany
German statesman and three times chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, holding his recently published memoirs, shortly before his 90th birthday.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1965
Germany
Former West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer sitting at a desk holding the transcript of his autobiography on the eve of his eighty-ninth birthday.
Gallery of Konrad Adenauer
1966
Germany
German politician, statesman and former Chancellor of West Germany, Konrad Adenauer pictured standing in the garden of a house in Germany circa 1966.
Achievements
Membership
Catholic Students Society Arminia
Bonn, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Konrad Adenauer as a Consenior on the board of the Catholic Students Society Arminia in winter semester of 1896/1897.
Awards
Supreme Order of Christ
Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Order of the Red Eagle
Bavarian Order of Merit
Order of the Golden Spur
Teutonic Order
Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem
In Wilhelmshaven in 1928, when a new cruiser was given the name of Köln (Cologne), home city of Adenauer (center, with left hand visible, next to him Lieutenant-General Wilhelm Groener and Gustav Noske).
West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer signs the Treaty Of Paris, at the French Foreign Ministry in Paris, 18th April 1951. The treaty established the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), a forerunner of the European Union.
King Charles St, Whitehall, Westminster, London SW1A 2AH, United Kingdom
British Foreign Secretary Sir Anthony Eden talking to German Federal Chancellor, Dr. Konrad Adenauer, at the Foreign Office, London, December 3, 1951. Photo by Fred Morley.
King Charles St, Whitehall, Westminster, London SW1A 2AH, United Kingdom
Konrad Adenauer, the German Chancellor, and Robert Schuman, the French Foreign Minister, leave the Foreign Office in London after attending the European Army Conference, 18th February 1952. Photo by Ron Burton.
Hastings Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay (Lord Ismay), Secretary General of NATO, with German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in Bonn, Germany, July 5, 1955. Photo by Paul Popper.
British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd (left) shakes hands with West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer on his arrival for lunch at Lloyd's official residence at Carlton Gardens, Westminster, London, 17th April 1958. Photo by Fred Ramage.
President of the French Republic Charles de Gaulle and German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer cheered by the crowd on the street in Germany in September 1962.
German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and French President Charles De Gaulle sit side-by-side in Cologne's town hall listening to the welcoming address by Lord Mayor Burauen.
West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer makes his farewell speech in Berlin before resigning from office. Standing next to him is a German statesman Willy Brandt of the Social Democratic Party.
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer was a German politician. He was the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, presiding over its reconstruction after World War II. A Christian Democrat and firmly anticommunist, he supported the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and worked to reconcile Germany with its former enemies, especially France.
Background
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer was born on January 5, 1876, in Cologne, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany (then Rhine Province, Prussia). He was the third of five children of a lawyer and military Johann Konrad Adenauer and his wife Maria Christiane Helena Scharfenberg. Together with three siblings, two elder brothers and one younger sister, Konrad Adenauer grew up in modest circumstances.
Education
At his grammar school, the Apostelgymnasium, Adenauer was thought a good, unspectacular, average pupil. After his graduation in 1894, he began work as a bank apprentice but abandoned his apprenticeship when he was awarded a grant by the City of Cologne that enabled him to begin studying law at the University of Freiburg. Having spent two semesters at the University of Munich, where he also attended classes in national economics, he moved to the University of Bonn, where he passed his first state examination with fair success in 1897. The second state examination he passed with adequate marks in Berlin in 1901.
Having spent his allotted time as a junior official at the office of the Public Prosecutor attached to the Cologne Regional Court, Adenauer joined in 1902 a law firm in Cologne headed by councilor Hermann Kausen who was Chairman of the Centre party group in the city council. In 1906, he applied successfully for the career city councilor post. Three years later, he was elected President of the council, which automatically made him deputy of Max Wallraff, the then Lord Mayor, who was an uncle of Adenauer's wife. It was particularly during the First World War that Konrad Adenauer's deftness and imagination stood him in good stead in organizing the food supply of the City of Cologne.
During the war when Adenauer took notice of food shortages, particularly meat. To combat a craving for sausages, Adenauer developed a recipe that used soy as a primary ingredient. While his own country wasn’t interested in a meatless product, then-enemy Great Britain was happy to grant him a patent in 1918.
Adenauer's professional success, however, was overshadowed by fateful events in his personal life. In 1916, he lost his wife, who had borne him three children. Adenauer himself was involved in a severe car crash in which he suffered facial injuries that held him captive for months in hospital and later in a health resort. When Wallraff left for Berlin in 1917 to become Under-Secretary of State for Interior Affairs, he left the office of Lord Mayor of Cologne vacant, and Adenauer was appointed his successor by the unanimous vote of all members of the City Council. This election made him the youngest mayor in Prussia. Retaining that office until 1933, Adenauer created new port facilities, a greenbelt, sports grounds, and exhibition sites and in 1919 sponsored the re-founding of the University of Cologne.
In 1918 Adenauer had hoped at first that the Rhineland might become one of the member states of Germany’s new Weimar Republic, but, when the British finally evacuated Cologne in 1926, the city and its surrounding district remained part of the Prussian Rhine province. Adenauer, who had been a member of the Prussian Herrenhaus (upper chamber of parliament) before its abolition in 1918, was a member of the Staatsrat (the central organ representing the diets of the Prussian provinces) from 1920 and became its speaker in 1928. Politically, he belonged to the Centre Party, which reflected Catholic principles.
Until 1929, the economic crisis and the lack of capital meant that it was impossible to build motorways in Germany. The country was struggling with mass unemployment, hyper-inflation, and the payment of reparations for the First World War. It was the mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer, who managed to finance and construct the first crossroads-free motorway in 1932 - now the A555 between Cologne and Bonn. The road was 20 kilometers long, and the speed limit was 120 kilometers per hour, though at the time most cars could only manage 60. The Cologne region was said to have the highest volume of traffic in the country. Shortly afterwards, however, the Nazis came to power, and the motorway had only been open a few months when it was downgraded to the status of "country road." The Nazis decided they wanted to take the credit for building the first autobahn.
When the Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, Adenauer lost all his offices and posts. After intermittent persecution, he was sent to a concentration camp in 1944. At the end of World War II, the United States military authorities restored him as mayor of Cologne, but the British, who assumed control of the city in June 1945, removed him from office in October. Rather than withdrawing from public life, Adenauer was reinvigorated by his fall from power.
Even before the end of the war, a new political party was being formed - the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) - in which Roman Catholics and Protestants buried their long-standing differences to present a common front against Nazism and to promote Christian principles in government. Adenauer played an important role in the formation of this new party, and in 1946 he became its chairman in the British zone of occupation. Subsequently, the CDU expanded into the four zones of the Allied occupation. As the Soviet Union began to increasingly obstruct the Allied Control Council, the Western Allies decided to give their three occupation zones a federal-state organization. Adenauer became president of the Parliamentary Council, which produced a provisional constitution for the intended German Federal Republic. In 1949 Adenauer became chairman of the CDU for the whole of West Germany, and, in the first general elections under the new regime, his party and its regular ally, the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), together won 139 of the 402 seats in the Bundestag, the lower house of the federal parliament. He managed to form a coalition government, but it was by a majority of only one vote that the Bundestag confirmed his appointment as chancellor on September 15, 1949.
There were numerous important events in West German history during Adenauer’s term. In 1950 West Germany gained associate membership in the Council of Europe. In 1951 the country established a foreign office (with Adenauer himself as minister of foreign affairs until 1955), achieved full membership in the Council of Europe, and became a founding member of the European Coal and Steel Community. In 1952 Germany participated in the formation of the European Defense Community (EDC). In 1954-1955, after the collapse of the EDC, West Germany was recognized as a sovereign state and was admitted into NATO. And in 1957-1958 Germany became a founding member of the European Economic Community (EEC; later succeeded by the European Union).
Meanwhile, Adenauer’s rising prestige was reflected in the elections of 1953 and 1957; in both the CDU-CSU coalition won a strikingly increased majority in the Bundestag, ensuring that Adenauer was unchallenged for the chancellorship. However, the terms under which he secured West Germany’s membership in the EEC were criticized by the CDU’s Ludwig Erhard, who, as minister of economic affairs from 1949, was given the main credit for the “miracle” of the West German economic recovery. Erhard became vice-chancellor in 1957, but antagonism between him and Adenauer grew more pronounced, and in 1959 Adenauer tried to exclude him from eventual succession to the chancellorship.
In the elections of 1961 the CDU-CSU lost a number of seats in the Bundestag. To form the next government, Adenauer brought the Free Democratic Party (FDP) back into coalition with his own party (as in 1949 and 1953 but not 1957). The FDP, however, made Adenauer promise to relinquish the chancellorship before the end of the parliamentary term. In 1963, after achieving his long-sought treaty of cooperation with France and its leader, Charles de Gaulle, Adenauer accordingly resigned and was succeeded by Erhard. Adenauer remained chairman of the CDU until March 1966.
During Adenauer’s chancellorship his opponents had demanded that Germany be neutralized and placed in a position of nonalignment between the Eastern and Western blocs. But Adenauer and his party won all major elections because they declared that the risks to security in such a policy would be intolerable. To the end of his life, Adenauer was reproached, unfairly, for not having seriously worked for the reunification of Germany, but he believed that such was the duty of the powers that had partitioned Germany rather than of the West German government.
Adenauer enjoyed congenial relations with important European and American statesmen, particularly de Gaulle and United States Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Adenauer’s use of language served him in his political goals, for it was sharpened to be intelligible and convincing to the common man and its simplicity emphasized his authority.
Adenauer was a practicing Catholic all his life. He believed that Christian social ethics were the basis of a healthy society. He was the first leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a coalition of Catholics and Protestants that under his leadership became and has since remained the most dominant in the country.
Politics
As chancellor, Adenauer was opposed to socialist ideas and rejected the notion of egalitarian mass society. His leading political theme was individualism under the rule of law. He was imbued with the conviction that the state must guarantee its citizens optimal room for independent intellectual and economic development, as well as absolute protection under the law. The political platform of the CDU, however, went beyond Adenauer’s ideas, advocating some programs that were socialist in nature. Adenauer reacted pragmatically, expressing a willingness to compromise on domestic programs with which he philosophically disagreed so that he could promote the unity of the country and give West Germany an important place in the European community.
The focus of Adenauer's interest throughout his career lay in foreign affairs. He viewed the expansion of communist rule into the heart of Europe as a direct threat to the West and its values. He had no faith in the possibility of peaceful coexistence with the communist world and felt the need for tough opposition to any aggressive military threats from the Soviet Union and its allies. He considered irreconcilable the differences between individualistic rule of law and totalitarian dictatorship and between humanistic Christian teachings and communist social regimentation. He therefore became a strong advocate of the Cold War politics of containment. As a result, he energetically supported German contributions to NATO and its nuclear arsenal, though he would have preferred the development of a European defense community. He worked tirelessly for the reconciliation of Germany with its neighbors, especially France.
Views
Adenauer praised the Marshall Plan, which he described as "a glorious page in the history of the United States of America." The Plan compensated for what he saw as the failings of the Allied administration 1945-1949 which had seen "a rapid economic, physical, and psychological disintegration of the Germans which might have been avoided" if they had handed over governance sooner.
Adenauer was not only fully committed to a more unified Europe but keenly supported the concept of a United States of Europe. He believed that the nations of Europe have histories, but he supported a union of Germany and France, which would "A union between France and Germany would give new life and vigor to a Europe that is seriously ill." He believed that European states were ready to "renounce part of their sovereignty, voluntarily and without compulsion, in order to transfer the sovereignty to a supranational structure."
Adenauer disliked nationalism because he believed that this had led Germany in the wrong direction previously. In writing the following, he had Hitler in view: "For many decades, the German people had suffered from a wrong attitude to the state, to power, to the relationship between the individual and the state. They made an idol of the state and set it upon an altar; the individual’s worth and dignity had been sacrificed to this idol."
Quotations:
"I reserve the right to be smarter today than I was yesterday."
"We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon."
"We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon. In an instant age, perhaps we must relearn the ancient truth that patience, too, has its victories."
"When everybody else thinks it's the end, we have to begin."
"When the world seems large and complex, we need to remember that great world ideals all begin in some home neighborhood."
"In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that He did not also limit his stupidity."
"All that the socialists understand about money is the fact that they want it from others."
"To look back into the past only makes sense if it serves the future."
"History is the sum total of things that could have been avoided."
"Thoughts and pictures come to my mind thoughts from before the year 1914 when there was real peace, quiet and security on this earth - a time when we didn't know fear. Security and quiet have disappeared from the lives of men since 1914."
Membership
Catholic Students Society Arminia
,
Germany
Personality
Adenauer found relaxation and great enjoyment in the Italian game of bocce and spent a great deal of his post-political career playing the game. Video footage of his games can be seen in various segments from the German Festival Documentary and from the History Channel special about Adenauer. He was also a rose fancier and mountain hiker.
Interests
gardening, bocce, mountain hiking
Politicians
Winston Churchill
Writers
Agatha Christie, Edgar Wallace
Artists
Titian, Arno Breker
Sport & Clubs
soccer
Music & Bands
Antonio Vivaldi, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven
Connections
Adenauer married twice, his first wife Emma Weyer died after 12 years of marriage, age 36 on October 6, 1916, in Cologne, after eating poisoned mushrooms. The couple had three children: Konrad, Max, and Maria "Ria." In 1919, he married Auguste Amalie Julia “Gussie” Zinsser. She died on May 3, 1948, aged 52. Together they got five children: Ferdinand (died soon after birth), Paul, Charlotte, Elisabeth, and Georg.