Inspirational Quotes by Konrad Adenauer (German Statesman)

Konrad Adenauer (1876–1967,) fully Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer, was a German political leader. As the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) 1949–63, he presided over his war-devastated country’s political and economic transformation.

Born in Cologne, Adenauer studied at Freiburg, Munich, and Bonn, before practicing law in Cologne. A devout Roman Catholic, he rose from obscurity and became Oberbürgermeister (Lord Mayor) in 1917. A member of the Centre Party under the Weimar Republic, he was a member of the Provincial Diet and president of the Prussian State Council (1920–33.) In 1933, he was dismissed from all his offices by the Nazis and imprisoned in 1934. After intermittent persecution, he was sent to a concentration camp in 1944.

In 1945, under Allied occupation, Adenauer helped to found the Christian Democratic Union (CDU.) Adenauer became president of the Parliamentary Counsel, which produced a provisional constitution for the intended German Federal Republic. As the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (1949–63,) he established closer links with the French and aimed to rebuild West Germany based on partnership with other West European nations through NATO and the EEC.

Although relations were restored with the USSR, relations with other countries in Eastern Europe remained frigid. His restraint during the Berlin crisis (1961–62) and his great age caused a decline in the fortunes of his parties at the polls (1961,) necessitating a coalition with the Free Democrats, who pressed him for early retirement in 1963.

Charles Williams’s Adenauer: The Father of the New Germany (2003) offers a masterly portrait. In 2007, a survey in Germany chose Adenauer as the best German of all time.

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