Konrad Adenauer

Konrad Adenauer
Adenauer in 1952
Chancellor of West Germany[a]
In office 15 September 1949 – 16 October 1963[1]
President	Theodor Heuss Heinrich Lübke
Vice-Chancellor	Franz Blücher Ludwig Erhard
Succeeded by	Ludwig Erhard
Minister for Foreign Affairs
In office 15 March 1951 – 6 June 1955
Chancellor	Himself
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Heinrich von Brentano
Leader of the Christian Democratic Union
In office 1 March 1946 – 23 March 1966
Bundestag Leader	Heinrich von Brentano Heinrich Krone Rainer Barzel
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Ludwig Erhard
President of the Parliamentary Council
In office 1 September 1948 – 23 May 1949
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Office abolished
Lord Mayor of Cologne
In office 13 October 1917 – 13 March 1933
Preceded by	Max Wallraf
Succeeded by	Günter Riesen
In office 4 May 1945 – 6 October 1945
Preceded by	Willi Suth
Succeeded by	Willi Suth
President of the Prussian State Council
In office 7 May 1921 – 26 April 1933
Preceded by	Office established in 1921
Succeeded by	Robert Ley
Member of the Bundestag for Bonn
In office 7 September 1949 – 19 April 1967
Preceded by	Constituency established
Succeeded by	Alo Hauser
Personal details
Born	Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (1876-01-05)5 January 1876 Cologne, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
Died	19 April 1967(1967-04-19) (aged 91) Rhöndorf, West Germany
Resting place	Waldfriedhof, Rhöndorf, Bad Honnef
Political party	Centre Party (1906–1933) CDU (1945–1967)
Spouses	Emma Weyer ​ ​ (m. 1904; died 1916)​ Auguste Zinsser ​ ​ (m. 1919; died 1948)​
Children	8
Alma mater	University of Freiburg University of Munich University of Bonn
Signature

Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (German: [ˈkɔnʁaːt ˈʔaːdənaʊɐ] ^ⓘ; 5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a German statesman who served as the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1963. From 1946 to 1966, he was the first leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a new founded Christian-democratic party, which became the dominant force in the country under his leadership.

As a devout Roman Catholic, Adenauer was a leading politician of the Catholic Centre Party in the Weimar Republic, serving as Mayor of Cologne (1917–1933) and as president of the Prussian State Council. In the early years of the Federal Republic, he switched focus from denazification to recovery, and led his country to close relations with France, the United Kingdom, and the United States.^[2] During his years in power, he worked to restore the West German economy from the destruction of World War II to a central position in Europe with a market-based liberal democracy, stability, international respect and economic prosperity.^[3]

Adenauer belied his age by his intense work habits and his uncanny political instinct. As a strong anti-communist, Adenauer was deeply committed to an Atlanticist foreign policy and restoring the position of West Germany on the world stage. Adenauer was a driving force in re-establishing national military forces (the Bundeswehr) and intelligence services (the Bundesnachrichtendienst) in West Germany in 1955 and 1956. Adenauer refused the diplomatic recognition of the rival German Democratic Republic as an East-German state and the Oder–Neisse line as a post-war frontier to Poland. Under Adenauer, West Germany joined NATO. As a proponent of European unity, he signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957. Adenauer is claimed as one of the "Founding fathers of the European Union".

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