V o L u m e I : a d

1917, he moved on to assume the post of lord mayor of the

city in 1917, a post he held until the advent of Nazi rule

in 1933.

Adenauer flirted with the idea of a separate Rhenish

state during the early troubled years of the Weimar Re-

public. But he subsequently adopted a position similar to

that of Gustav Stresemann, who viewed Weimar Germany

as a “republic of convenience.” Adenauer added the post

of chancellor of the Prussian State Council to his portfolio

in 1922. In 1933, he was imprisoned by the Nazi regime for

his opposition activities and narrowly escaped death.

Returned as mayor of Köln by British authorities in

March 1945, Adenauer clashed with them over priorities,

and the British dismissed him from that post in October

1945. This freed him to take a leading role in national pol-

itics, and he became a cofounder and the leader of the

Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Elected the first chan-

cellor of the FRG in September 1949 by the Bundestag

(lower house of parliament) by a majority of one vote, he

was largely responsible for facilitating its recovery and re-

construction efforts and for moving the new state into the

Western orbit during the formative years of the Cold War.

His credentials as a strong opponent of the Nazi regime

allowed him to resist the pressures to reunify Germany as

a neutral, socialist state.

Adenauer was already convinced of the need for coop-

eration if Germany were to avoid renewed political chaos.

At the same time, he maintained tight control over his new

party and refused to enter a “Grand Coalition” with the

German Social Democratic Party (SPD) after the 1949 elections elevated

him to the chancellorship. He chose instead to bring the smaller Free Demo-

cratic Party and the more conservative Bavarian counterpart of the CDU, the

Christian Social Union, into his cabinet. When the Western powers decided

to allow the FRG to establish its own Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 1951,

Adenauer took that position himself.

This combination proved stable enough to survive the initial challenges

of statehood. To the dismay of many in Germany, Adenauer supported the

rejection of the Soviet note proposing that Germany be neutralized and

reunified in 1952. His statecraft and the growing threat of the Soviet Union

eventually reconciled France to the idea of an independent West Germany.

The FRG was allowed to rearm and join the North Atlantic Treaty Organi-

zation (NATO) in 1955. Adenauer also played a key role in ending the long-

standing animosity between Germany and France. At the same time, he was

able to maintain reasonable and effective relations with the Soviet Union

and the rest of the Eastern bloc. He successfully negotiated the return of the

last prisoners of war from the Soviet Union even as the FRG entered NATO.

Adenauer always insisted, however, that the FRG was the only legitimate

58

Adenauer, Konrad

One of the greatest German statesmen, Konrad Adenauer

presided over the creation of the Federal Republic of

Germany (FRG, West Germany) after World War II and

served as its first chancellor during 1949–1963. (Library 

of Congress)

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German state, a policy later formalized as the Hallstein Doctrine. He also

supported German aid for Israel.

Adenauer’s increasingly autocratic rule, however, eventually led to tur-

moil. In 1962, several journalists were arrested on charges of treason on

orders from Adenauer’s cabinet. The resulting scandal, known as the Spiegel

Affair, led Adenauer to promise to step down as chancellor in 1963. Yet Ade-

nauer still managed to retain a great deal of influence in the government of

the FRG. He remained chairman of the CDU, and Ludwig Erhard, his loyal

lieutenant, was chosen from the party ranks to succeed him as chancellor.

Erhard had served in Adenauer’s cabinet from the outset and followed fun-

damentally similar policies during his term as chancellor.

Adenauer died in Rhöndorf, near the West German capital of Bonn, on

19 April 1967 with his legacy as one of Germany’s greatest politicians essen-

tially intact. Erhard and the CDU lost the elections of 1969, handing power

over to the SPD, but the foundations of an independent, pro-Western FRG

had been firmly established.

Timothy C. Dowling

See also

Erhard, Ludwig; Franco-German Friendship Treaty; Hallstein Doctrine; North

Atlantic Treaty Organization, Origins and Formation of

References

Bösch, Frank. Die Adenauer CDU: Gründung, Aufstieg und Krise einer Erfolgspartei 1945–

1969. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2001.

Döring-Manteuffel, Anselm, and Hans-Peter Schwarz, eds. Adenauer und die deutsche

Geschichte. Bonn: Bouvier, 2001.

Granieri, Ronald. The Ambivalent Alliance: Konrad Adenauer, the CDU/CSU, and the West,

1949–1966. New York: Berghan, 2003.

Irving, Ronald. Adenauer. New York: Longman, 2002.

Legoll, Paul. Charles de Gaulle et Konrad Adenauer: La cordiale entente. Paris: Harmat-

tan, 2004.

Williams, Charles. Adenauer: The Father of the New Germany. London: Little, Brown,

2000.

A landlocked nation of 252,000 square miles in South Asia with a population

in 1950 of some 8.2 million people. Afghanistan borders Iran to the west;

Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan to the north; China to the north-

east; and Pakistan to the east and south. This geographically forbidding

nation, almost half of which is more than 6,500 feet in elevation, with exten-

sive desert regions and mountains exceeding 16,000 feet, is no stranger to

international intrigue.

Afghanistan became a center of the so-called Great Game, an imperialist

rivalry between Britain and Russia, in the nineteenth century. The struggle

Afghanistan

59

Afghanistan

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