Konrad Adenauer Research Paper
Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Adenauer was born in Cologne, Rhenish Prussia on the 5th of January 1876. He was one of five children of Johann Konrad Adenauer, a Cologne civil servant and Helene Adenauer. Konrad grew up in a Roman Catholic family of simple means in which frugality, fulfilment of duty and religious dedication was stressed.
In 1894 he completed his Abitur and started to study law and political science at the universities of Freiburg, Munich and Bonn. Adenauer was also a member of several Roman Catholic students’ associations under the K.St.V Arminia Bonn in Bonn. Konrad finished his studies in 1901 and worked as a lawyer in the court of cologne.
As a devout Catholic, he joined the Centre Party in 1906. As well as being elected …show more content…
As Konrad was no longer mayor in 1933 he fled to the abbey of Maria Leach where he stayed for a year. Heinrich Böll and others of collaboration then accused Konrad with the Nazi’s. Adolf Hitler expressed admiration for Adenauer by his efforts of building a road circling the city as a bypass and a green belt of parks. He felt that Adenauer’s political views and principles made it impossible for him to play any role in Nazi Germany. Adenauer was then imprisoned briefly after the Night of the Long Knives in 1934. Over the next two years Konrad changed residences because of his fear of reprisals against him by the Nazis while living on his pension. In 1937 he claimed at least some compensation for his once confiscated house and managed to live in seclusion for some years. In 1944 after the failed assassination on Hitler, Adenauer was imprisoned a second time as an opponent of the regime. Konrad fell ill and credited Eugene Zander a communist Kapo of the camp near Bonn with saving his life by getting him transferred to a hospital. Afterwards he was re-arrested when absence of evidence against him was released in November. After the war ended, the American occupation force installed him as mayor of Cologne. But the British Director of Military Government in Germany, Gerald Templer, dismissed him for what he said was his alleged …show more content…
He managed to gain this position with the aid of The CDU and the Liberal Free Democrats Party. Konrad managed to hold the position from 1949 until 1963, which spanned a very important section of the Cold War. The post war division of Germany consolidated with the establishment of the two separate German States, The Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic. The first elections of the Bundestag of West Germany on the 15th of August 1949 ended with the Christian Democrats emerging as the strongest party. Theodor Huess was elected as the first president of the Republic and Konrad was elected Chancellor on the 16th of September 1949. Adenauer now had a new provisional capital of the Federal Republic of Germany established at Bonn, which was 15km away from his hometown of Frankfurt. The Petersburg agreement in November 1949 achieved some of the first concessions granted by the allies. Some which were the decrease in the number of factories to be dismantled and the agreement to join the international authority of the Ruhr, which lead to heavy criticism. When the rebellion within the Soviet sector of Germany was unceremoniously and brutally suppressed by the Red Army in June 1953, Adenauer quickly appreciated that the event strengthened his electoral hand and he was handily re-elected to a second term as Chancellor.
Konrad Adenauer was born in Cologne, Rhenish Prussia on the 5th of January 1876. He was one of five children of Johann Konrad Adenauer, a Cologne civil servant and Helene Adenauer. Konrad grew up in a Roman Catholic family of simple means in which frugality, fulfilment of duty and religious dedication was stressed.
In 1894 he completed his Abitur and started to study law and political science at the universities of Freiburg, Munich and Bonn. Adenauer was also a member of several Roman Catholic students’ associations under the K.St.V Arminia Bonn in Bonn. Konrad finished his studies in 1901 and worked as a lawyer in the court of cologne.
As a devout Catholic, he joined the Centre Party in 1906. As well as being elected …show more content…
As Konrad was no longer mayor in 1933 he fled to the abbey of Maria Leach where he stayed for a year. Heinrich Böll and others of collaboration then accused Konrad with the Nazi’s. Adolf Hitler expressed admiration for Adenauer by his efforts of building a road circling the city as a bypass and a green belt of parks. He felt that Adenauer’s political views and principles made it impossible for him to play any role in Nazi Germany. Adenauer was then imprisoned briefly after the Night of the Long Knives in 1934. Over the next two years Konrad changed residences because of his fear of reprisals against him by the Nazis while living on his pension. In 1937 he claimed at least some compensation for his once confiscated house and managed to live in seclusion for some years. In 1944 after the failed assassination on Hitler, Adenauer was imprisoned a second time as an opponent of the regime. Konrad fell ill and credited Eugene Zander a communist Kapo of the camp near Bonn with saving his life by getting him transferred to a hospital. Afterwards he was re-arrested when absence of evidence against him was released in November. After the war ended, the American occupation force installed him as mayor of Cologne. But the British Director of Military Government in Germany, Gerald Templer, dismissed him for what he said was his alleged …show more content…
He managed to gain this position with the aid of The CDU and the Liberal Free Democrats Party. Konrad managed to hold the position from 1949 until 1963, which spanned a very important section of the Cold War. The post war division of Germany consolidated with the establishment of the two separate German States, The Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic. The first elections of the Bundestag of West Germany on the 15th of August 1949 ended with the Christian Democrats emerging as the strongest party. Theodor Huess was elected as the first president of the Republic and Konrad was elected Chancellor on the 16th of September 1949. Adenauer now had a new provisional capital of the Federal Republic of Germany established at Bonn, which was 15km away from his hometown of Frankfurt. The Petersburg agreement in November 1949 achieved some of the first concessions granted by the allies. Some which were the decrease in the number of factories to be dismantled and the agreement to join the international authority of the Ruhr, which lead to heavy criticism. When the rebellion within the Soviet sector of Germany was unceremoniously and brutally suppressed by the Red Army in June 1953, Adenauer quickly appreciated that the event strengthened his electoral hand and he was handily re-elected to a second term as Chancellor.