September 15, 1949 – Konrad Adenauer Begins Serving as Chancellor of West Germany

Konrad Adenauer, the son of a minor Prussian official, was born on January 5, 1876 in Cologne, Germany. He served as the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) from 1949 to 1963.

Konrad Adenauer

Adenauer began his political career in his early forties by becoming mayor of Cologne in 1917, towards the end of the First World War, but was removed in 1933 by the Nazis who were displeased by Adenauer’s independence. (For example, Adenauer had refused to meet Hitler when the latter had visited Cologne as part of the 1933 election campaign, and he also had refused the Nazis permission to hang their banners from one of Cologne’s iconic Rhine bridges.) He was arrested several times in the Nazi era and exiled to Rhöndorf. In the spring of 1945, the American army asked him to return to Cologne and take charge of rebuilding the city.

Adenauer formed a new party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, which promoted a “social market economy,” whereby the state would balance the interests of capital and labor.

Election poster, 1949: “With Adenauer for peace, freedom and unity of Germany, therefore CDU”

On this day in history Adenauer became, by a majority of one vote, the first democratically elected chancellor of post-war West Germany. He fought fiercely against plans to strip Germany of its industrial capacity; a BBC history describes Adenauer’s principle aim as ensuring West Germany’s transition to a sovereign, democratic state. To that end he authorized payment of millions in Holocaust compensation to Israel, and banned anti-Semitism.

Adenauer shepherded Germany through the end of Western military occupation and recognition as an independent nation. He 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, or “”Wirtschaftswunder.”

Man of the Year: Adenauer on the cover of Time (January 4, 1954)

The country joined NATO in 1955 and the European Economic Community in 1957. While Adenauer opened diplomatic relations with the USSR and eastern European communist nations, he refused to recognize the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

Adenauer, who was Chancellor until age 87, was dubbed “Der Alte” (“the elder”). His biographer Anthony Nicholls wrote: “of all the statesmen who shaped the destinies of Europe . . . Adenauer was one of the least colourful.” Ben Coates, in his history of the politics and culture of the Rhineland, observed of Adenauer:

“Sombre and black-hatted, gaunt and reptilian, he was a devout Catholic who lived modestly and had none of the panache of Churchill or grandeur of de Gaulle. Yet there was little doubt he was one of the most significant figures in Germany history: chancellor of West Germany for fourteen years, his iron discipline helped him rebuild shattered cities, kickstart the <Wirtschaftwunder and restore his country’s reputation abroad. He was also another quintessential Rhinelander, who did more than anyone else to make the region around Bonn an unlikely lynchpin of what was then called ‘the free world.’” (The Rhine by Ben Coates, p 145)

Adenauer died at home in April 1967.

Today, Coates writes of Adenauer, “his reputation [has] endured; his name adorning streets and aeroplanes, T-shirts and charitable foundations, bottles of Riesling and packets of Darjeeling tea.” (Coates, p. 147)

1958 Mercedes-Benz 300D Konrad Adenauer Diecast Model