Konrad Adenauer

Adenauer, a politician of the Catholic Centre Party, was Mayor of Cologne from 1917 to 1933, and as such, flirted with a Rhenish state as part of Germany, but outside Prussia. From 1922 to 1933 he was president of the Prussian State Council (Preussischer Staatsrat). In 1944 he was imprisoned for his opposition to the Nazis.

He was first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949-1963, a period which spans most of the preliminary phase of the Cold War. In this period, West Germany was politically separated from East Germany. Adenauer was a co-founder of the Christian Democratic Union, a successor to the Centre which hoped to embrace Protestants as well as Catholics in a single confessional party.

Adenauer led the rebuilding of West Germany and helped turn the nation into an economic powerhouse. He is also notable for directing Germany's reconciliation with France and other allied powers. Under Adenauer West Germany was allowed to rearm and to join NATO. Adenauer also opened diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and the rest of the Eastern bloc. In 1955 he managed to secure the release of the last German prisoners of war. For all of his efforts as Germany's leader Adenauer was named TIME magazine's Man of the Year in 1953.

In 1954 he received the Karlspreis (engl.: Charlemagne Award), an Award by the German city of Aachen to people who contributed to the European idea and European peace.

In 1959 he briefly considered to run for the office of President, then instead chose a candidate (Heinrich Lübke) whom he believed weak enough not to disturb his affairs as Chancellor.

In 1962 a scandal erupted when police under cabinet orders arrested five Der Spiegel journalists, charging them with high treason, specifically for publishing a memo detailing alleged weaknesses in West German armed forces. The cabinet members, belonging to the Free Democratic Party, left their positions in November 1962, and Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss, himself the chairman of the Christian Social Union, was dismissed, followed by the remaining Christian Democratic Union cabinet members. Adenauer was forced to resign and was succeeded as Chancellor by Ludwig Erhard, although he remained chairman of the CDU until 1966.

When in 1967, after his death, people were asked for what they admired Adenauer most, the majority mentioned that Adenauer brought home in 1955 the last German POWs from Russia.

In November 2003, he was voted in a German television poll as the greatest German of all time.

Adenauer's First Ministry, 20 September 1949 - 20 October 1953