Konrad Adenauer

Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a German statesman and politician who served as the first chancellor of West Germany from 1949 to 1963. From 1946 to 1966, he was the first leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a newly founded Christian democratic party, which became the dominant force in the country under his leadership. Adenauer is considered one of the founding fathers of the European Union.

As a devout 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. 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 economy, liberal democracy, stability, international respect, and economic prosperity.

Adenauer belied his age by his intense work habits and his uncanny political instinct. A strong anti-communist, he 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 reestablishing national military forces (the Bundeswehr) and intelligence services (the Bundesnachrichtendienst) in West Germany in 1955 and 1956. He refused the diplomatic recognition of East Germany and the Oder–Neisse line as a postwar frontier to Poland. Under Adenauer, West Germany joined NATO. A proponent of European unity, he signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957.