Konrad Adenauer

Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967), first chancellor of West Germany (1949-1963) when the country was formed at the end of World War II (1939-1945).

Born in Cologne on January 5, 1876, Adenauer was educated at the universities of Freiburg, Munich, and Bonn. From 1917 to 1933 he was lord mayor of Cologne and a member of the Prussian legislature. A member of the Catholic Center Party, he opposed Nazism, and when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, Adenauer was barred from office and forced into retirement. In 1944, near the end of World War II, Adenauer was sent to a concentration camp, but he was released when the Allies invaded Germany.

In 1945 he participated in the founding of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and became the new party's chairman in the British occupation zone. When West Germany was established in 1949, Adenauer, favored by the occupying powers as an anti-Communist free of Nazi associations, became its first chancellor. For the next 14 years he headed a coalition composed of the CDU, the Bavarian Christian Social Union, and the Free Democrats. From 1951 to 1955 he also served as foreign minister of West Germany.

Adenauer's main goal was to establish West Germany as a bulwark of the Western alliance to contain Soviet expansion in Europe. To this end he promoted close relations with the United States and reconciliation with France, avoiding any move toward reunion with Communist East Germany. In 1955, under Adenauer's leadership, West Germany joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and won recognition as an independent nation. West Germany was also one of the founding members of the European Economic Community, or Common Market (now the European Union). In 1963, after concluding a long-desired treaty of cooperation with France, Adenauer resigned from office at the age of 87. He died at Rhöndorf on April 19, 1967.